Thought I was some kind of philosopher, then a good old friend visited me last night and showed me a few new psychological tricks. He said — and I quote — an invitation doesn’t mean trust.

Fair enough. I’d add a Romanian proverb to that too: după luptă mulți viteji s-arată – After the war, brave men suddenly appear everywhere.

Which brings me, indirectly and with the usual Balkan detours, to Cristian Mungiu. Ironically, he is one of the people to whom I partly owe my career as a journalist. The first time I got hired by an important media company in Bucharest was after writing about his unbelievable achievement with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Back then he also won the Palme d’Or and Romania briefly acted like it had discovered civilization again.

So why this long intro?

Because I am not brave enough to write immediately after the man wins his second Palme d’Or while Tilda Swinton literally kisses his hand on stage. I still prefer the old Romanian exercise of false modesty mixed with national pride: Romania kicked ass at Cannes again last night.

And the funny part is that it’s not only Cannes. Just look at all these kids from anonymous Romanian towns quietly winning robotics competitions and humiliating America and China with laptops held together by tape and inherited trauma.

Which, coincidentally, is exactly what Mungiu’s new film Fjord is about: trauma.

Not the Instagram version of trauma. The real Eastern European export product.

The film follows a Romanian-Norwegian religious family living near a Norwegian fjord who come under investigation after signs of abuse are discovered on one of their children.

But from everything written about it so far, the real subject isn’t abuse itself — it’s the collision between immigrant paranoia, religious rigidity, Scandinavian morality, and the silent violence hidden inside “civilized” societies. Apparently even the Nordic utopia still knows how to suffocate people politely.

Sadly, this whole theme hits closer to home than I’d like.

Sexual trauma mixed with what the oh-so-pure West offers to monkey immigrants and expats like us creates a very specific kind of loneliness. A humiliation that becomes invisible because everyone around you is too busy performing progress and emotional intelligence. Including the people closest to you.

Nobody noticed my trauma, including relationships that almost became marriages.

And before somebody misunderstands me intentionally: I’m talking about my own sexual trauma part, not about the West.

The East was also a paradise for predators long before cheap airlines and Erasmus programs existed.

Anyway. I won’t go further than this today.

I’ll just leave here a few accomplishments by Cristian Mungiu and avoid reopening the Brâncuși file again before breakfast.

Palme d’Or -> 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

Best Screenplay at Cannes for Beyond the Hills.

Best Director at Cannes for Graduation.

And now another Palme d’Or for Fjord, a film that sounds less like cinema and more like an autopsy report for the modern European family, maybe for the whole planet?