He wants you to argue about his movie, even if you can't pin him down politically

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred You probably don’t know much about Cristian Mungiu’s homeland of Romania.He’s so aware of that fact, he even makes a joke about it in his latest film.Early on in “Fjord,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, a Norwegian schoolteacher welcomes a family of Romanian children.

“We’re all very kind and friendly,” he assures them.“There’s no Dracula here.”Speaking over Zoom from New York, dressed in his typical wardrobe of black shirt and black sport jacket, Mungiu is wryly amused when I ask if that Dracula dig was inspired by personal experience.

“There are just two things that people know about Romania — aside from Nadia Comăneci — and it’s Dracula and Communism,” he says.“It’s something that all Romanians experience.

We get used to it, but at the same time, it’s a bit annoying.”Audiences have become accustomed to Mungiu pointing out uncomfortable truths.Beginning with his second feature, the 2007 abortion drama “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” (which also won the Palme), the 58-year-old Mungiu has crafted somber dramas that double as morality plays.

But instead of preaching to the choir, he contends with society’s gray areas, never offering a solution — or even his own opinion — on the difficult topics at hand.Mungiu prefers to question, not reassure.

Entertainment & Arts “As much as we all enjoy mainstream cinema and film as entertainment, that’s a way of making you sleep better after a week of work,” he says.“Yes, I want a thriller, I want to have tension, I want to keep people on the edge of their seat.

But I don’t want to do this with guns and fast editing.I want to talk about things that could happen to you.”“Fjord” is based on a controversial real-life 2015 case in which Norway’s child protective services sought to separate a ...