'Fjord' challenges audiences to react

Fjord, a provocative drama from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, tackles the difficult subject of child abuse, turning it into a springboard for examining cultural conflict and rigid institutional power. Fjord may be an anomaly. Mungiu’s movie asks liberal-leaning audiences to accept the idea that a Pentecostal Christian family can become victims of severely applied state policies about child abuse and the separation of church and state. That's a big script to flip, but Mungiu does it without apology, presumably to show that unquestioned dogma, whatever its origins, can be unfair and harmful. Sebastian Stan portrays Mihai, a Romanian father who moves to Norway with his Norwegian wife (Renate Reinsve) and their five children. An aeronautical engineer by trade, Mihai has taken a low-level IT job. Reinsve’s Lisbet works at a local senior center, where she often comforts those who lose loved ones. Well known to festival audiences, Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) has written a…