Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe's startup Mind Robotics announced the appointment of Doug Field as president in a major coup for the CEO's secretive robotics project.
Field was a VP of special projects at Apple, where he was the de facto head of the company's ultimately unsuccessful Project Titan effort to make an autonomous electric car. He had a previous stint at Apple as VP of Mac hardware engineering, but he left the company in 2013 to become Tesla's chief vehicle engineer, where he helped oversee the Model 3 sedan. He left Tesla in 2018 and rejoined Apple. In 2021, Field was hired by Ford to run the automaker's electric vehicle and software di …
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it's evaluating allegations that Tesla's 1,000 or so robotaxis using its automated driving system are exceeding "posted speed limits in active school zones." Waymo's robotaxis have also faced similar inquiries, including for illegally passing school buses and hitting a child near a California elementary school.
NHTSA:
The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) received a DP on September 23, 2026, requesting an investigation into model year (MY) 2026 Tesla Robotaxis (Model Y and Cybercab) with the Automated Driving System (ADS) engaged. The Petitioner alleges that the ADS exceeds poste …
University of Michigan spinout Laplace Intelligence uses AI agents and interactive simulation to stress-test robots and self-driving vehicles before deployment. The profitable startup is competing in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt, October 13-15 in San Francisco.
If you're driving through GM's sprawling campus in Warren, Michigan, you'd likely ignore the pair of adjacent, anonymous white buildings tucked away in the upper reaches of the 710-acre space.
Inside those buildings, which total half a million square feet together, is a massive construction project that's still in progress. Once completed, it will house GM's new Battery Cell Development Center, where the automaker is working furiously to build new prototype cells with the goal of slashing the cost of its EVs.
GM has to build faster and cheaper to meet its goal of selling affordable EVs in much higher volumes. Those EVs will have to compete …
I'm bouncing down the road in San Carlos, California, zipping past behemoth tech companies like EA and Oracle, in America's smallest electric truck.
The Telo MT1 (which stands for "mini truck") unquestionably turns heads because it looks so remarkably different from everything else on the market right now.
It has a nearly cab-over design, meaning that front-seat passengers sit almost directly over the front axle. It looks a lot like a Japanese kei truck, with a super-short nose and four doors. People stop to stare as we sit at stoplights or roll silently past.
The interior is surprisingly spacious, and while the seats are firm, they're n …
The European Union and China reached an agreement on Friday that will curb China’s booming hybrid car exports, delivering a breakthrough in negotiations aimed at rebalancing their trade relationship.
The announcement came as Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič wrapped up two days of talks in Beijing, the culmination of a push launched in June to narrow the bloc’s €1 billion-a-day trade deficit with China.
The deal marks a win for the EU executive, which has been under pressure to secure concessions from Beijing. Going into the talks, France and Germany strengthened Šefčovič’s hand by calling for the EU to take tough action on trade if China failed to curb a growing export glut.
Speaking in Beijing, the commissioner said the two sides had reached an agreement that would help to shield European automakers from low-price Chinese competition. He declined to enter into specifics before EU leaders officially mandate the EU executive to move forward.
“We have reached a shared understanding to moderate China’s export of hybrids and plug-in hybrids to the European Union. This opens the prospect of cutting China’s exports by more than a half,” Šefčovič told reporters.
The estimate was based on projections of how Chinese exports would grow over the next four years without the agreement. In practical terms, it would mean that “several millions of car exports from China to the European Union” would be prevented, he explained.
China’s Commerce Ministry highlighted the understanding on hybrids in a parallel 16-point statement, but offered no details on how exports would be restrained. It said the two sides “will continue to strengthen communication and cooperation under the trade monitoring mechanism and further leverage dialogue mechanisms to enhance mutual understanding.”
Šefčovič declined to elaborate when asked whether the deal would allow the EU to impose safeguards — a mixture of import quotas and tariffs — a step that Brussels has been considering. He said the arrangement would comply with the rules of the World Trade Organization.
First step
Šefčovič said that Beijing had also agreed to lower duties on European goods worth €4 billion, ranging from olive oil to footwear, a move that would save exporters €225 million.
“It is a crucial first step,” he said. “But only a first step in the process of rebalancing.”
The Slovak commissioner said he would report back to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, along with EU leaders, when they meet for a summit in Brussels next Thursday.
He had focused on cars as a key deliverable going into meetings in Beijing with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and Vice Prime Minister He Lifeng.
Chinese auto exports to Europe have been booming, accounting in August for one in eight cars sold in the bloc — mainly driven by sales of hybrids. Europe’s own automotive industry is feeling the pressure, with Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz recently announcing job cuts and plant closures.
Aside from the deal on hybrids, Beijing said in its statement that it was “willing to continue” fast-tracking licenses to export rare earth elements to the EU. Automakers had been forced to shut down assembly lines after China temporarily restricted exports in response to U.S. tariffs last year. China dominates the production and processing of rare earths.
“We have reached a shared understanding to further facilitate China’s export licensing for rare earths and permanent magnets,” Šefčovič said.
Road ahead
Brussels sees the agreement on hybrid electric vehicles as a blueprint that could be replicated to shield further EU sectors currently under strain, such as chemicals or machinery. The two sides plan to meet again in March 2027, and will hold a video call in January.
The agreement on one of the EU’s top negotiating targets significantly reduces the risk of an escalation in trade tensions that could have led to a tit-for-tat round of retaliation. It remains to be seen whether the EU will act swiftly on the Franco-German call to empower Brussels to shut out exports from countries that destabilize its single market.
“Public opinion and the leaders clearly expect very fast action from our side. I am glad to say that the Chinese partners appreciated this very strong political argument, and therefore, we can proceed through the negotiated solution,” said Šefčovič.
Other areas of agreement include exploring easier market access for European medical devices, as well as promises by Beijing to scale back sweeping disease-control measures that have restricted European meat and livestock exports.
While the deal will cool the most immediate tensions, a wider resolution to the economic imbalances that fueled the conflict remains distant. The EU’s trade deficit with China totaled nearly €360 billion in 2025, and is already up 12 percent so far this year.
China’s automotive exports to the EU, which totaled €15.1 billion last year, are only a fraction of that.
LONDON — Germany wants the U.K. to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for protection from Made in Europe rules, according to a person familiar with Berlin’s position.
Friedrich Merz’s government believes the move would show reciprocity on trade and counter accusations from other EU member states that Britain is trying to “cherry pick” the benefits of EU membership, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss closed-door talks.
It comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham met with the German chancellor on his first official visit to the country this week.
Burnham and Merz were due to talk about possibilities for Britain’s future relationship with the EU — after the British prime minister put rejoining the bloc back on the table of U.K. politics for the first time in a decade.
Berlin’s position on EV tariffs is significant as Germany has broadly backed a tolerant policy towards the U.K. on trade matters since Brexit — in contrast to more hard-line positions taken by countries like France.
The EU is in the process of drawing up new Made in Europe rules that would favor European producers over those outside the bloc — in response to trade practices by competitors like China and the United States.
The U.K. is worried that the measures will hit British business — especially automakers — and wants assurances from Brussels that it will get an opt out. If Berlin gets its way, those assurances could be dependent on emulating EU trade policy with regard to Chinese EVs.
Predatory strategy
Germany’s vaunted car industry, arguably the jewel in the country’s economic crown, has faced stiff competition from Chinese imports in recent years.
EU countries have accused China of dumping low-cost, state-subsidized electric vehicles into the European market and in December 2024 imposed countervailing duties as high as 35.3. percent on some manufacturers.
Industry Commissioner Stephane Séjourné accused China of pursuing a deliberate “predatory strategy” with state subsidies to the tune of €10,000 per vehicle.
The U.K.’s Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told POLITICO last month that the government was keeping tariffs “under review, to be frank, more closely than lots of other issues” and that “different parts of our own sector want different things from” the government’s policy.
Hamish Falconer, the U.K.’s minister for European relations, told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook Podcast this week that he was “surprised” at reports tariffs might be a condition of Made in Europe opt-outs, adding: “That’s not the kind of conversation that I’m having with my European counterparts.”
Going ahead with higher tariffs risks alienating Beijing, which has expressed serious concerns about the policy. It would also raise the price of electric vehicles on the market, potentially making it harder for the government to meet its decarbonization targets.
BRUSSELS — European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič opened two days of talks in Beijing on Thursday aimed at rebalancing a gaping trade deficit, with failure to reach a deal likely to test Brussels’ resolve to impose tougher trade restrictions.
The meeting marks the final round of an effort launched in June to reset the lopsided trading relationship, and will hinge on whether China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao is prepared to make substantial concessions.
If no agreement can be reached to narrow the EU’s €1 billion-a-day goods trade deficit, Brussels and Beijing could find themselves on a collision course. EU leaders will review the outcome of the talks at a summit in Brussels next Thursday, where they will consider next steps.
The discussions have zeroed in on cars, with Chinese exports increasingly eating into the market share of European automakers. In August, one in eight cars bought in the bloc was Chinese, thanks largely to a boom in sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
European negotiators have been pushing China to commit to some form of export restraint — in particular for hybrids. Unlike Chinese-made battery-electric vehicles, which were hit with extra countervailing duties in 2024, plug-in hybrids are not subject to such measures.
Without meaningful commitments from Beijing, the Commission has warned it will resort to unilateral trade restrictions. For cars, it is considering safeguard measures that would mix import quotas and tariffs to protect European automakers.
Chemicals are next. Industry Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné said Thursday that the Commission plans to introduce targeted safeguards on plastics and composite materials, subject to a request from EU governments that Brussels do so.
Wind in his sails
Šefčovič flew to Beijing with the backing of the leaders of Europe’s two biggest economies — France and Germany — to take a tougher approach to trade.
In a joint appeal on Monday, President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the Commission should be given a freer hand to shut off access to the EU for goods from countries that distort the bloc’s single market.
While the two leaders did not mention China in their letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, there was no mistaking the target of their proposed trade “kill switch,” which could be blocked only by a qualified majority of EU countries.
The EU already has a powerful trade weapon in its Anti-Coercion Instrument, designed to counter economic bullying by foreign powers.
But Brussels has yet to muster broad support from member countries to deploy it, most recently in January when U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to seize Greenland, a Danish territory.
The EU’s difficulty in responding swiftly to trade threats has heightened concerns about a surge in Chinese exports that European officials say benefit from unfair government subsidies. With Trump hiking U.S. tariffs, ever more Chinese exports are heading to Europe — increasing pressure on industries that are already being forced to retrench.
Europe’s heavy dependence on China for processed rare earths and other critical raw materials also leaves it vulnerable to retaliation should relations deteriorate.
“If we aren’t willing to fix the way our model works, then we’ll be destroyed,” said one EU diplomat, summing up the concerns flooding Brussels.
“What’s the point of having [more tools] if the Chinese can shut down our strategic production in a matter of days?”
Low expectations
Although Šefčovič entered the talks strengthened by the Franco-German letter, a second diplomat said they didn’t foresee a deal with Beijing this week.
“He knows that a lot of member states are behind the Franco-German push,” the diplomat said, adding that this “has been seen in China.”
But Beijing has little room to compromise, given its reliance on exports to sustain growth amid weak domestic demand and a prolonged property slump.
“The Chinese side is starting to recognize that there is a problem. But I don’t think they are ready to enter into a substantial deal,” said Gunnar Wiegand, a former head of the EU diplomatic service’s Asia-Pacific department.
Wiegand, now a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said Šefčovič had earned a reputation as a dealmaker in talks on Britain’s exit from the EU and in last year’s trade deal with Trump. This time, however, “both sides are bound by their own circumstances,” he said.
Europe is desperate to halt the erosion of its industrial base, while China remains heavily dependent on exports to sustain economic growth.
“The Chinese are going to object to being singled out. Even if a deal with the EU would be the most rational solution, other important markets for Chinese exports, such as ASEAN countries, will start asking the same. It will undercut their global market,” he said.
While much of the automotive world sits dumbfounded as China gobbles up all its customers, BMW continues to roll out extremely well-crafted, technologically advanced electric vehicles that impress in both drive quality and price. The latest is the BMW iX4, a coupe-shaped SUV that puts a sportier spin on the automaker's iX3.
The iX4 is the third vehicle to be released on BMW's next-generation Neue Klasse platform, following the iX3and i3 models. The iX4 50 xDrive will come first in March 2027, followed by an even more high-performance M60 xDrive version later in the year. The automaker is positioning this new lineup as its bulwark against t …
BRUSSELS — Britain is hopeful of doing a deal with the European Union to avoid British businesses being hit by new Made in Europe trade rules, the minister in charge of talks has said.
European Relations Minister Hamish Falconer told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook Podcast it was “overwhelmingly in both sides’ interests” to strike an agreement on the proposed controls.
“For Europe to be more competitive and able to weather some of the shocks that we’re all talking about, we need to do it together,” he said. “I think that’s such an overwhelmingly powerful case that I am sure we will come to a sensible position on all this.”
Brussels is in the process of updating its trade rules to favor EU producers over those outside the bloc — and London fears some of its businesses will be locked out.
The U.K. has urged the EU to guarantee that British producers won’t be affected. Brussels says it can’t give those guarantees now as the rules are still working their way through the bloc’s cumbersome legislative process.
Yet in the event a deal isn’t reached, London believes its Brexit trade deal, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), could force Brussels to think again.
“Our arrangements in terms of how we trade are underpinned by the TCA. That’s a strong arrangement between us which is independently overseen,” Falconer said.
“It provides lots of protections to both sides. Our basic position to our friends is, look, I don’t think European competitiveness is enhanced by putting further impediments in the way of our industrial base.”
There are those in Brussels who agree. In-house lawyers at the EU Council have advised member countries that the bloc’s plans for the Industrial Accelerator Act could violate the union’s international trade deals, according to documents seen by POLITICO.
Falconer suggested the U.K. wanted a “straightforward” and “unfussy” arrangement where U.K. goods were simply counted as being of Union origin under the IAA.
But the minister wouldn’t be drawn on whether success at the upcoming U.K.-EU summit demanded an agreement on Made in Europe — as London had previously briefed.
That meeting is meant to sign off talks on agri-foods, youth visas, and emissions trading — as well as act as a launchpad for further negotiations.
“I don’t wanna get ahead of the discussions. I used to be a diplomat; there’s no discussion or negotiation that is made easier by publicly broadcasting it,” Falconer said.
The bigger reset
The minister rejected suggestions the EU was demanding the U.K. raise tariffs on Chinese cars in exchange for guarantees on the IAA. He stated that he was “surprised” at reports to that effect, adding: “That’s not the kind of conversation that I’m having with my European counterparts.”
Yet a landing zone may be emerging. EU officials and diplomats have previously indicated that reference could still be made to the subject at the meeting — perhaps in the form of a political declaration.
Falconer, who was in Strasbourg on Wednesday for his first European Parliament plenary, confirmed that he would be discussing “future options with European partners” — following Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s suggestion the U.K. could rejoin the EU, or at least its customs union or single market.
He is using the visit to meet with Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, as well as European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. Of the EU institutions debating the industry act, Parliament is pushing for the strictest line on the Made in Europe rules.
Asked what options he was personally pushing for when it came to the future U.K.-EU relationship, Falconer wouldn’t be drawn, revealing only that Burnham would “say more” in a speech scheduled for around “the time of the summit.”
The meeting still has no officially announced date, though Nov. 20 is the latest in a string of days widely rumored to have been penciled in by diary officials in Brussels and London.
“I have a date in mind, but I don’t want to say it just yet,” Falconer told the podcast. “We will agree that with our friends, and you’ll be the first to know.”
STRASBOURG — Policymakers across the political spectrum are coalescing around a stronger approach to the European Union’s relationship with China — one that goes beyond trade measures.
A report from the Committee on Foreign Affairs on the EU-China political relationship paints China not just as an economic foe but also a geopolitical one that is undercutting European security.
The European Parliament will vote on the report on Wednesday, just in time for Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič’s trip to Beijing on Thursday, where he will meet with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.
“I want him to go there with the strongest possible mandate from this house,” Hilde Vautmans, the report’s author, said in a debate on Tuesday evening. “Europe has economic power. It’s time to use it.”
The remarks echo those made by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron in a joint letter earlier this week, advocating that the European Commission be handed more powers to restrict or even cut off imports from countries that create “severe and systematic distortions” in the EU.
While some MEPs hailed the French-German joint approach as proof of a unified position, Polish MEP Mariusz Kamiński from the European Conservatives and Reformists said creating “pragmatic economic ties is not only cynical, but irresponsible or outright stupid.”
China is a “communist dictatorship that poses a threat to the free world,” he continued.
He’s not alone in that sentiment, as for many lawmakers, simply tackling Chinese overcapacity isn’t enough. The Commission needs to address China’s growing human rights abuses, escalations in the Taiwan Strait, and its role in the war in Ukraine, they said.
“We have to recognize that China is behaving in a way that is endangering our interests. Not just on trade but on security and defense,” said Spanish MEP Nicolás Pascual de la Parte from the center-right European People’s Party. “The human rights situation has not improved, but it has disappeared from our agenda in recent years.”
The lawmakers called out Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghur minority group in Xinjiang, which China has systemically placed in camps and prisons and persecuted. The Parliament stopped just short of calling the action a genocide in a 2024 resolution, saying it amounts “to crimes against humanity.”
Others like the EPP’s Michael Gahler called out Beijing’s encroachment on the island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory. China’s role in propping up the Russian economy while it fights Ukraine also received plenty of airtime.
The issues diverged, but the MEPs used Tuesday’s debate to call out the EU’s unequal relationship with China — a sign that Vautmans says is proof the bloc is coming to a unified stance toward the country.
“This is no longer just the position of the European Parliament or of one political group,” Vautmans said after the debate. “There is a growing recognition that Europe needs a more coherent China policy: open to dialogue and cooperation, but much more willing to defend its interests when necessary.”
In the latest issue of Why Is This Interesting, Mark Slavonia writes about the annual parallel parking championship in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where people compete to see who can parallel park.
The rules are that the clock starts ticking when the referee sees your reverse lights go on. — Read the rest
Boing Boing reader Dávid Sipos emailed us with a fun story:
I own a 1976 Volkswagen T2 that was used as a hero vehicle in Matchbox: The Movie. Months later, I discovered that my actual bus had become a Matchbox model.
Few things in movies happen by coincidence, and fewer still in a film so self-conscious as Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord.” The Romanian filmmaker’s stoic drama is designed to provoke viewers in opposite directions, snaring them in waiting traps and causing them to concede in agony, “You have a point!” Every aspect is meticulously studied and worried over, careful not to push the movie’s thorny narrative too far away from Mungiu’s bold central mission: artistic objectivity in one of the most partial, biased and fundamentalist times in modern history. Experiencing “Fjord” is more like playing a puzzle game than watching a film — viewers will be better served if they remember specific details for later. The minutiae are the key to freeing oneself from Mungiu’s clever trap.
That’s also why, when “Fjord” opens with soft piano chords playing “Amazing Grace,” it’s safe to assume the song will be an integral motif throughout the film. Here, grace is doled out either liberally or not at all, restricted by governmental red tape and damning paperwork. As a concept, grace isn’t amazing so much as it is a clerical headache, made all the more complicated by the efforts of the Gheorghius, Mihai (Sebastian Stan) and Lisbet (Renate Reinsve), whose five children have been removed from their care by Norwegian child protection services. Despite their genial nature, the Gheorghius stick out like sore Evangelical thumbs when they immigrate from conservative Romania to Lisbet’s progressive Norwegian hometown. So when one of their children is found with bruises on her in school, the discovery sets off a chain of events in which the Gheorghius’ faith is tested, and their values persecuted.
(Tudor Panduru/Neon) Jonathan Ciprian Breazu, Renate Reinsve, Filip Sebastian Barau, Sebastian Stan, Vanessa Cebam and Teodora Sabina Barau in “Fjord”
Though “Fjord” is an interesting film on its own, it’s an even more compelling experiment in how today’s over-explained world encourages people to watch movies: looking for the good and bad, right and wrong, protagonist and antagonist.
Or are they? In his biggest feature yet — aiming for Oscar contention after winning the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier this summer and screening at this year’s New York Film Festival — Mungiu repeatedly asks this question. Who is doing the most good when, ostensibly, everyone is trying to do the right thing, acting within their rights as parents or arms of the government? The answers aren’t at all simple, and Mungiu has no intention of making them so, much less revealing the whole truth behind the film’s central doubts.
Want more from culture than just the latest trend? The Swell highlights art made to last. Sign up here
At times, this makes the humble viewer feel a bit like a guinea pig in a focus group; the audience’s reactions are integral to measuring the film’s success. Though “Fjord” is an interesting film on its own, it’s an even more compelling experiment in how today’s over-explained world encourages people to watch movies: looking for the good and bad, right and wrong, protagonist and antagonist.
The problem is that the world outside the cinema is far more complex than those binary ways of thinking allow. If films are a reflection of the world we live in, Mungiu’s film reflects a reality where objectivity is at risk of extinction. In “Fjord,” Mungiu tests neutrality’s limits when the stakes are at their highest. And while his impartiality occasionally and inevitably falters, the missteps show how difficult, and ultimately useless, it is to ignore humanity’s wide-ranging gray areas to make a beeline for black or white.
Inspired by the events surrounding Ruth and Marius Bodnariu — a devout Christian couple who, in 2015, were separated from their five children by Norwegian social services for seven months on a similar suspicion of mistreatment — “Fjord” quickly gets to the root of its conflict. The Bodnariu case drew international attention from Christian fundamentalist groups, who asserted that the conservative family was facing religious persecution by a liberal government. To the Christian right, the Bodnarius were examples of unchecked left-wing power and an attack on personal freedoms. To Norway’s child services group, the Barnevernet, the Bodnarius were a model of the progressive but necessary systems put in place to protect children. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle, in the opaque unknown.
Enter Reinsve and Stan, an ideal pair of leads capable of providing the understated, baseline emotion that Mungiu requires to pull off an undertaking as tricky as “Fjord.” Neither Lisbet nor Mihai can exhibit too much passion or zealotry, too much unjust anger or warranted affection. They must, at all times, walk a very thin line to maintain just the right amount of clearheaded patience, lest Norwegian officials — or we, the audience — suspect that any truth is the absolute truth.
(Neon) Renate Reinsve and Øyvind Venstad Kjeksrud in “Fjord”
But “Fjord” is not a mystery. The overarching question shrouding the film is not, “Did they do it?” but rather, “So what if they did?” Mungiu presents information in a cold, straightforward fashion, asking the viewer to weigh Mihai’s admitted slap or two on the butt as corporeal punishment against the forever unknown extent of the family’s discipline and the government’s ensuing reaction. In the process, Mungiu naturally runs into roadblocks that he can’t pass, dogwhistles to conservative and religious leaders around the world who decry government interference. In a recent New York Magazine profile of Stan, Mungiu admits: “Because I don’t explicitly approve or condemn the positions that I bring to public debate, the supporters of these groups will always try to capitalize on that and claim this simple lack of firm judgment equals a ‘victory.’
If “Fjord” earns the awards attention it’s gunning for, I’d expect that the next months will be filled with debates over whether the film is conservative-leaning or ultimately progressive, all of which will be moot and useless. Mungiu’s intention is not to make the audience look more closely — quite the opposite.
That begs the question: How much responsibility does a filmmaker have to take a clear stance in their work, especially in a film that is overtly intended to be a lightning rod for heated debate? None, I’d argue — so long as that filmmaker can present either side of said debate with as much tact as the other. If objectivity is the initiative, then both viewpoints must have their advantages and follies fully rendered. It’s only fair!
As it turns out, equity is difficult to maintain in such an absurd age. Though he keeps a mostly steady balance, Mungiu depicts the Norwegian left as well-meaning progressive dopes a few too many times to remain truly objective. When child services representatives express their shock that the teenage Gheorghiu children don’t have internet access at home, can’t go on YouTube, and — gasp! — don’t have smartphones, their surprise blunts Mungiu’s sharp point.
“The people who have the power to rip children from their families believe that it’s in a child’s best interest to have a brainrot device,” these moments suggest with a wink. While these facets might depict our tech-obsessed age, Mungiu writes them in a way that makes the Norwegians look silly, and the Gheorghius look like objectively good parents. But, then again, maybe a critic who doesn’t want to shoot his phone would think differently. Such is the beauty of Mungiu’s observational, deceptively nuanced writing.
If “Fjord” indeed earns the awards attention it’s gunning for, I’d expect that the next months will be filled with debates over whether the film is conservative-leaning or ultimately progressive, all of which will be moot and useless. To deem a film whose worst mistake is some inherent goofiness as “insidious” defeats the entire point. Mungiu’s intention is not to make the audience look more closely — quite the opposite. His film takes a bird’s-eye approach to conflict, carefully studying how the systems set in place for our common good, on either side of the party or religious lines, can cause plenty of damage, too. If humanity doesn’t exist on a binary, perhaps the emphasis shouldn’t always be on trying to see eye to eye; otherwise, no one can take a clear look at what’s happening in the periphery.
“Fjord” screens from Sunday, October 4 at the New York Film Festival, with a wide theatrical release October 9.
Login
