Joachim Trier he was sitting in the Writers’ Roomnext to his longtime creative partner, Eskil Vogt. They had just received an unable Oscar nomination for the original screenplay for The worst person in the world (In addition to that, already less unexpected, for the best international film), which marked the culmination of an extraordinary path from the first of that film to the Cannes Film Festival, almost four years ago. “We had the feeling that, if we had thought too much about the pressure of having to make another movie at the height of that, we would not have been able to go further and let ourselves go emotionally,” says Trier.
At that time, the Norwegian director had also seen the documentary of Peter Jackson on the beatles, Get Back. “I don’t want to compare it to the Beatles, but to see the heroes of my childhood who try to be emotional and face something personal, in this pressure climate … I found it really consoling,” he says. So Trier told Vogt that he hangs a photo of George Harrison’s Rocky Stratocaster in the room. That colored guitar would have been their lighthouse for the script they would have written later.
That movie is Sentimental Valuewhich was previewed in Cannes. It is a film that seems acutely and painfully personal as The worst person in the worldbut a little more adult. It is a desired choice: from his latest film, Trier has also grown a little. He had two children. He felt his life flow quickly. He broke into the concept of family reconciliation. “What is the language we feel in a family structure of brothers, parents and children, but what are we not talking about?” Says Trier. “The starting point for this film, therefore, is this: the Beatles and the family life”.
Sentimental Value begins with a narrative voice that refers to a essay written by Nora Berg (Renate Reinveve), theatrical and television actress in Trentino, when he was 12 years old. Nora imagined itself as the family home in Oslo, a simple but splendid structure that has been handed down from generation to generation and that acts as a grandiose scenario of the film. Nora wonders what one would try to see so much life and go. Apart from a handful of flashbacks, Sentimental Value We dive into an emotionally precarious present, where the house has to withstand a great weight. The mother of Nora and her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) has just died, so the funeral reports in their world Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), the father with whom they are no longer on good relationships.
Gustav is a famous film director, outside the tour for more than ten years, who has put art to the family before. Apparently, things have not changed: the idea of selling the house, in fact, sides when Gustav decides to shoot his next film there. Immediately afterwards, he tries to deliver the script of the aforementioned film to Nora, which contains vaguely autobiographical details on her childhood, and offers her the role of what her mother should remember. She categorically refuses.
Soon, Gustav is in the pre-production phase. And here Netflix comes into play, because the participation of the Hollywood star Rachel Kemp is scheduled instead of Nora (Elle Fanning). Suddenly, they are trying the script in English (but most of Sentimental Valuewhich will be distributed by Neon during the year, is in Norwegian, like almost all the previous films of Trier). “There is this impossible relationship between a daughter and a father who remembers a little a sad love story,” says Trier. “But the two are very similar. Within the walls of creative life, they can actually meet ». The overlap between the Film-Nel-Film and the personal and work difficulties of Nora becomes clearer (and surprising) as Gustav’s true intentions are outlined, as well as the main issues explored by Sentimental Value.
«Things today are very polarized and aggressive, and I absolutely respect those who want to use art to shout their anger and opinions. I understand it, “says Trier. «At the same time, however, you could also look introspectively as we are trying to protect in a world that is becoming decidedly brutal. In tenderness there is something very human, which we need to express ». The director adds to work within a long American film tradition that seems more and more out of fashion: «Once they all looked at Kramer against Kramer In tears and said: “Oh, he talks about our time”. I have the freedom to decide the final assembly, to make a movie with a certain budget, to shoot in 35 mm and everything else, so it seems natural to me to exploit that space and try to do something to us ».
The house, which for its hidden corners and its intact beauty proves to be a cinematographically extraordinary structure, was one of the approximately 400 that Trier and his team had identified. Belongs to the Norwegian rock musician Lars Lille Stenberg. «As soon as I entered, I understood. And he let me use it, “says Trier. «He understands the films. In short, he is a musician ».
Renate Reinveve made his debut on the big screen in the second Trier film, the poignant Oslo, 31. Augustbefore trying your talent in The worst person in the world. Her polite and surprisingly naturalistic interpretation of a creative irre sorter towards thirty earned her the prize for best actress in Cannes and Hollywood’s attention, so much so that she later played alongside Sebastian Stan in A different man and of Jake Gyllenhaal in the series Alleged innocent.
Now she has returned home to play the perhaps most complex character of her career, who forces her to express the entire range of emotions. The actress, who is the first person to whom Trier proposed the film, allowed him to build the character around her. If this remembers a little what Gustav tries to do with Nora … well, Sentimental Value He speaks precisely of the intersection of cinema and reality.
Trier, however, is working on a more ambitious and extensive canvas: first of all, Reinsve is part of a wider examination of family dynamics. Think of his work with Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who plays his sister. “We put these sisters against each other in an unusual way and try to understand how two sisters do so different,” says Trier. And then there is the question of Gustav. Sentimental Value It is a real two -voiced film, which agrees to Reinsve, veterana of Trier’s cinema, the same narrative relevance as Skarsgård, Swedish icon for his first collaboration with the director.
«Stellan is truly one of the greatest Scandinavian actors ever, and since [Gustav] He is a somewhat difficult father, I needed an actor who had complexity, intelligence, that sharp promptness that he can hurt, but also the warmth necessary to create a more three -dimensional character, “says Trier. “I should have done the casual and say:” Yes, that is, would you be interested? “. But I was so happy to talk to him that I used a stupid American expression, even in Norwegian. I said: “If you don’t want to do it, I’m up shit’s creek, man [sono nella merda fino al collo, accidenti]”» Fortunately, Skarsgård accepted immediately.
When it was to assign the last crucial role, that of Rachel, the boundaries made themselves faded, as it was right. Fanning flew to Oslo and met Trier in the house where the film would be shot (and where they examined the script chatting work and existential issues). “I said:” I will try to be a slightly more manageable director of Gustav Berg “,” says Trier with a laugh. The dynamic between Gustav and Rachel is perhaps the most element half Of Sentimental Valuewhich explores an evolving film culture. This is a film made in the spirit of the American classics of a few decades ago, and Gustav and Rachel, in their own way, want a similar quality for the work they do together.
“Each generation lives a moment of passage in which he realizes that his time is over, or that things are changing and new ones are coming,” says Trier. “I was imagining what the world of cinema would be like for Gustav when it would be renowned there … and now, how would it be? In this there is a sweet comedy, as well as a link with Rachel, who just wants to make good films ».
Trier also makes this comment, thin but acute, on the film industry. The film culminates in a breathtaking ending (it is not a spoiler for Trier fans, who knows how to conclude) who blends the ideas of Sentimental Value on family and cinema, on life and on art. “I’m not ashamed to approach, to enter the visual field, sometimes I am brutally intimate,” says Trier. «But I would not only like to do a chamber drama with people sitting around a table. I need life, of the beach in France, of more beautiful and carefree things. Otherwise I would bore me ».
“With this movie, my team and I have allowed ourselves to be more authentic than ever,” continues Trier. «I know how to go straight to the point, how to get to what I want to do. We felt a little more mature. We are getting away more and more from coolness Ironic of the 90s, or what it is, and we try to do something with a more sincere approach ».
Source: Vanity Fair
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