A few days before Christmas, having left his job in Germany, Matthias returns to his quiet village in Transylvania.
He hopes to take a more active role in the upbringing of his son, Rudi, who has been left too long under the sole care of his mother, Ana. He also wishes to reconnect with his ex-partner, Csilla, and is concerned about his elderly father, Otto. When new workers from Sri Lanka are hired at the small factory managed by Csilla, the peace of the community is disrupted. Long-dormant fears and fresh frustrations take hold of the townspeople, bringing to the surface the conflict and intolerance that lie hidden beneath a veneer of apparent harmony.
"Although the film’s original title might suggest a reference to Romania—reduced to its consonants—it actually alludes to clinical examinations; 'R.M.N.' is the Romanian acronym for an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan, which is performed on Otto, an elderly shepherd respected by everyone in the village. Just as these machines scan Otto’s neurological condition, Mungiu conducts an in-depth examination of the state of affairs in Romania—and, more broadly, in contemporary Europe—a landscape permeated by tension, intolerance, and fear. The decision to set the story in Transylvania—a melting pot of ethnicities (Romanian, Hungarian, Roma, and Jewish), religious faiths (Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, and Islam), and diverse languages—is no coincidence; it serves to illustrate the fragility of centuries-old balances, which are poised to shatter into painful divisions at the slightest spark." (Emanuele Sacchi)
