Christopher Schroeder

Category: international

  • Forging Foreign Relations

    Forging Foreign Relations

    The new movie Fjord, which won the 2026 Cannes Palme d’Or and has been praised by credible critics, asks engaging questions but is ultimately unsatisfying.

    This legal thriller written, directed, and co-produced by Cristian Mungiu tells the story of a Romanian engineer named Mihai Gheorghiu, his Norwegian wife, and nursing home caregiver, Lisbet, and their five children. Mihai and Lisbet, who are devote Christians, have relocated from Romania after Mihai’s parents died to Norway to be closer to Lisbet’s family.

    Mihai and Lisbet are suspected of child abuse by one of their kids’ teachers who also works for Child Welfare Services. Mihai denies the abuse allegations, but Lisbet and he admit to physical punishment, which triggers the removal of their children until the investigation can be completed.

    The attorney recommended by local church leaders soon refuses to represent them because she thinks Mihai is too difficult. Lisbet then asks their neighbor Mia, who is a non-practicing lawyer, married to the local school headmaster Mats, and caring for Mats’ ailing father, to represent them.

    Mihai suspects religious persecution, and Mia manages to resolve the Child Services investigation, and return the children to the Gheorghius. Mia however declines to represent them in the upcoming criminal trial, and encourages them to leave the country, which they do before it begins.

    This movie is artistically accomplished as its awards suggest. Perhaps the strongest element is the ensemble, which includes consistently strong performances that expands the focus and highlights the themes.

    The obvious context is parenting and religion, which are two sacred spaces where intervention at best is complicated. Norwegian society maintains that state obligations to children supersede parental prerogatives, and that the community is greater than the individual, which challenge the Romanian culture in which Mihai was raised and the religious beliefs Lisbet and he share.

    As a result, the movie questions the limits of tolerance in an increasingly globalized world. The Norwegian answer is that the state should err on the side of the child, and should protect them even if doing so fractures families, which even confounds Lisbet who presumably has been exposed to such principles and values.

    This tension is powerfully dramatized throughout the movie. For example, the anger-management class scene with Mihai and others was excruciating — sound strategies, unsettling conformity — while the parenting classes, which Lisbet completes off-screen, cannot mask the forced attendance of a mother who has been raising five children of various ages.

    Mihai and Lisbet resist the proposed civil settlement — the process seemed strangely less adversarial given the stakes — and got more of what they wanted. This outcome however cannot dispel the ominous shadow from the looming criminal case.

    The plot, which seemed sufficient but little more, sometimes sagged beneath the weight of these themes. Moreover, its conclusion confusingly muted the overall experience.

    What are we to do when Mia’s stepdaughter Noor, who befriended the older Gheorghiu children wades into the sea in pursuit of the ferry on which her friends and their family have escaped to Denmark? And what is the significance of Noora’s walking on water?

    Such fits and starts, which recurred throughout the movie, were frustrating, and prevented me from engaging with it as a legal thriller or even a family drama. More synthesis throughout this story that is loosely based upon actual events would have made this movie seem less unfinished, and unsatisfying.

  • For All

    For All

    I was intrigued by a recent biographical account of John Mark Comer, who for some is the current “personal-spirituality guy” with a large social media following.

    The article offers background about Comer, contextualizes his efforts, and shares professional and personal experiences. In doing so, it seems to be introducing Comer, and explaining his approach and influence, to those who readers who like I hadn’t heard of him.

    One of Comer’s central belief is that technology is negatively affecting its users’ spirituality. In contrast, he advocates for an approach that he calls “spiritual archaeology,” or excavating Christian practices from its history, and argues for organizing adherents’ lives around their founder’s habits, which he identifies as scripture, service, the Sabbath, solitude, fasting, prayer, witnessing, generosity, and community.

    Comer’s appeal, which seems too progressive to conservatives and too conservative to progressives, has been criticized as too narrowly focused. Nonetheless, it appeals to the author of this account, who reports her realization in conversation with Comer that she — late twenties, college-educated, city-living — is his target demographic and confesses her struggle like Comer’s has with these recommendations.

    I wonder whether such practices might increasingly appeal to others, and know that Christianity isn’t the only justification for these. I believe that these practices could appeal to anyone who prefers less revelation and more reason regardless of their religious persuasion if any at all.

    I wonder whether this author is offering her experience as an assessment although it would fall short of anything reliable (n = 1). I wish she would have envisioned a larger audience for her account.

    Others (Doucleff 2026, e.g.) attest to the need for a more values-driving life and offer such practices along with research studies and other reasons as responses to technology-dominated lives. An additional advantage would be reducing the allure of spiritual or moral superiority, which could be more compassionate and more appealing.

    Christians in other words aren’t the only ones who use digital technologies and suffer from spiritual malaise. All of us could benefit from greater community and more solitude, and even from studying canonical texts for example and serving others more.

    Surely any informed account of the foundational Christian figure would approve.

  • A Bigger Bite

    The recent of history of Apple by tech and science writer David Pogue is a useful addition to accounts of this company that initially seemed unremarkable, later seemed doomed, and yet has transformed human experience, and continues to do so.

    Pogue conducted 150 interviews for this coherent, and credible, account of what could be the most influential of the MAGNA (FAANG) companies. This review also clarifies misunderstandings and adds insights for a more comprehensive of the first US company with a $1 trillion valuation (2018), which rose to $4 trillion last fall.

    Pogue’s seeming exhaustive account is deeply detailed, and its lavish production quality reflects the Apple aesthetic. Glossy pages feature appealing layouts with big blocks of texts and frequent sidebars, which sometimes seem gossipy and occasionally disruptive.

    Many regard this extensively sourced book as serious journalism that will appeal to tech and business readers. Apple fans I believe will appreciate the deluge of information, and anyone whose impressions begin with the first iPhone (2007) or even the “Think different” campaigns (1997-2002) will be able to add to their understanding of this global company.

    An obvious limitation, which applies to most print products, is that it is relative static, which means that it is already outdated. Its release for example was soon followed by the announcement of the current Apple CEO Tim Cook’s imminent retirement and its next CEO John Ternus, whose hardware background could alter the trajectory of this company.

    A bigger problem in my opinion is the way it most avoids larger contexts that would situate Apple in relation to other Big Tech companies or even internet history. These contexts could consider the effects of Apple products on users for example or cultural norms.

    This issue can be illustrated in the expansion of corporate control over hardware and software with iTunes (2003), the App Store (2008), and iCloud (2011), which included streaming services in Apple Music (2015) and original content with Apple TV+ (2019), and which were bundled as Apple One (2020). Apple in doing so isn’t different from other Big Tech companies, and yet by combining hardware, software, platforms (iMessage, e.g., or FaceTime), and services is more effective and I believe more dangerous.

    I appreciate the account of this company from its founding by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in 1976 and its later struggle with Microsoft over market share and even itself over product clarity. At the same time, I expected more, such as the way it locks users into its products and exploits network effects that can harm not just the internet as others (e.g., Doctorow 2025) suggest but also I would add users, culture, and society.

    That however would be a different book, and might require a different author. The question of whether long-form journalists who offer histories have the same obligations as historians is a debate for a different forum and different day.