Joachim Trier has been a beloved name in the international cinema world for decades, but his 2021 film The Worst Person in the World landed him on the global map, earning him and co-writer Eskil Vogt an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay in addition to the film’s Best International Feature nomination. His newest film, Sentimental Value, is expected to be an even bigger awards player — a touching dramedy following a filmmaker (Stellan Skarsgård) who struggles to connect with his daughters (Renate Reinsve and breakout Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) while making a film inspired by their familial relationships.
We at FandomWire got to speak with Trier about his latest film, his unique and inspired way of shooting the film, and how its success rests firmly on the shoulders of its incredible leads, Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård. Check out the full interview here:
Sentimental Value Interview
I think at its core, Sentimental Value is a film about exploring and expressing difficult emotions through art. Why do you think this medium has such power for catharsis?
Joachim Trier: Thank you for that. I think it deals with the unspokenness and the expressivity of art and family. It’s about how there are some things that are so difficult to convey in what I would call the social language of interhuman relationships. And we found it so paradoxical and interesting that the father, who’s a film director, played by the wonderful Stellan Skarsgård, somehow seems to be such a clumsy father and unable to speak to his daughters, yet so expressive and nuanced as a filmmaker. So we wanted to get to the core of that. So I think that’s where the story also kind of began.
In many ways, Sentimental Value is a very personal film, but it also explores what I think are fair to say are universal emotions. How did you balance this deep intimacy with allowing the audience to make a connection?
Trier: I think there’s a virtue in all art that you try to leave a space for the audience and for interpretation. And I remember reading when I was very young, Luis Buñuel, the great Spanish filmmaker, said that he made films for his friends. And I feel like that too, and sometimes, hopefully they are friends in the dark, in a cinema far away, maybe friends you’ll never meet, but that you engage in an honest, personal conversation and leave some space for the audience to interpret and fill themselves in and hopefully engage with their own life experience.
I think my favorite scene in the film is the one in which Stellan’s character scolds a journalist asking a terrible question at a press junket. Well, I want to be a good journalist, so I’d like to ask… is there anything you’ve never been asked that you want the world to know? About Sentimental Value, about your career, about your life, anything.
Trier: Wow, that’s a big one. Thank you for being a considerate and generous journalist. I appreciate that. I feel that ultimately, I meet a lot of journalists who are lovely, most people are, and those can really be interesting conversations where I learn about what I’ve made, and there’s a lot of film-savvy people out there.
So I don’t know if there’s a question I’ve been yearning to answer, because I feel I’ve been through the ringer a bit on a lot of different travels and countries and all this, but one aspect, since you seem to be a guy that’s really interested in cinematic history or film in its purest form, there’s an aspect to this house. And everyone talks about its relation to the family, but Kasper Tuxen and me, the cinematographer, we wanted the house to be a witness of the 20th century.
And this year we are celebrating 130 years of cinema — the great art form of the 20th century, right? So what we tried, in our own little homage to film history, there’s the montage where you go through the story of the house through a whole century, and we try to emulate filmic styles and colors and use different lenses and filmic techniques to mirror those little moments through the house.
So when we were in the silent era, we used a different camera, and when we were in the 60s, we used a different type of lens and stock and stuff like that. So, being a bit of a film nerd that I am, I want to share that with you. I haven’t talked about that.
Thank you for sharing that. And speaking of your filmic approaches, the film was shot in 35mm, which is a very grand format for a story as intimate as this. What went into this aesthetic decision?
Trier: It’s classical to think that you need celluloid to capture a landscape or the color of light, and we shoot some of that too in this film. We didn’t want it to get stuck around a dinner table. We wanted it to travel and to be a rich film of spaces and situations. But ultimately, I think 35 is really great at filming humans and skin tones and complexity of faces.
So that’s an equal argument for using celluloid, is that when you’re grading the colors afterwards, you are actually having such a rich palette of what happens in a face. And if you look at these actors, like, for example, Renate, who’s very expressive, her skin changes color when she tears up or blushes, and her eyes change, and all of that stuff is caught well on celluloid, I think.
I think another of the best gags in the film is when Stellan’s character gives a kid copies of The Piano Teacher and Irreversible as a gift. Was this inspired by any sort of real experience?
Trier: Yeah, well I’ve known a couple of characters that remind me a bit of Gustav Borg. Again, you’ve gotta give it to him — he’s a funny guy. You know, he’s quite incorrect and does weird stuff, but it all comes from having a big heart and feeling that you owe the kids to be a bit straight and truthful about it. So, I agree; I love that joke.
I think most filmmakers would take a more cerebral, metafictional approach with a story like this, but your film is rooted firmly in emotion. Why did you think this grounded approach was important?
Trier: I think I try to create contrast when I make films. Contrast is the essence of any creative endeavor. So on one level, we wanted to be very intimate and human and honest. But I also wanted, though, to have some formal playfulness. There’s like an essay about imagining if the house looked back on the people. We have scenes that are about the past and tell us stories to enlighten the present-day story. We were jumping around a bit and having fun. To me, the real emotional scenes of performance needed to have a clarity and a presence, but I also wanted to contrast that with a bit of playfulness in the way we told the story.
The film also speaks of the importance of collaboration in the art of filmmaking, and you have several key collaborators you’ve worked with many times, including actress Renate Reinsve and your co-writer Eskil Vogt. Why are these relationships so important to you creatively?
Trier: It’s the other home away from the family home. For me, it’s been a place since I was very young where I always loved gathering a group of people, like a band, and creating something together. I’m not a solo player. I wouldn’t be able to sit in a room alone and write a book. I admire it, but it’s not me. I love to work with people, and I think that’s what drew me to this creative forum, really.
A film like this is made or broken by its performers, and I think Renate and Stellan are both fantastic. You’ve said before that you wrote the film with both of them in mind — what do you think would have happened if one of them was not available?
Trier: It would have been terrible. I couldn’t imagine doing this film without Renate and Stellan, honestly. Already in the writing room, I was first pitching it to Renate, who I knew would kind of collaborate with me because we’re good friends, and that was fun. But Stellan, I had to go and meet him and get to know him and convey the thing to him. And as we wrote, it was more and more clear to us that we had to have Stellan. And so I’m very, very grateful he accepted. I couldn’t see the film without him.
Sentimental Value is now in theaters.
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