With his sixth fiction feature, Sentimental Value [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Joachim Trier
fiche film], Joachim Trier scooped the Grand Prix at the 78th Cannes Film Festival (see the news). We talked to the Norwegian director back in Oslo after his eventful festival excursion, where he also made a bold statement on “the new punk” of our times, which indeed garnered some considerable attention.

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Cineuropa: Some have speculated that Sentimental Value may be an especially personal film of yours. Would you agree?
Joachim Trier: Eskil Vogt and I always write “out of ourselves”, and these complex matters around families are things that most of us can relate to. Rather than being personal – we actually started out with two sisters – the aim is to set a tone that rings true with a scenario I’m familiar with. This particular family isn’t in a good place at first, with unresolved issues between the self-absorbed, absent father and the resentful daughter. But they do move forwards as the film progresses. When we part ways at the end, there are still some rough edges, but also an opening. I believe in that opening, or I want to at least, as a fairly truthful element for the viewers to take away with them.

The older daughter’s name is Nora. Could this be a Trier-Vogt take on a Scandinavian tradition of Ibsen and Strindberg, Ingmar Bergman and perhaps also Woody Allen, when he’s looking northwards?
There’s a scene where Renate Reinsve and Elle Fanning are sitting in the theatre, dressed in white, surrounded by red curtains. Suddenly, we thought, “God, this is straight out of Cries and Whispers,” which was anything but consciously planned. I’d never try to emulate Bergman; it’s just not the done thing. But he’s there, of course, as a fellow Scandinavian guiding star and general archetype to any film lover. As for Renate’s character being named Nora, that’s more because half of the daughters in the Norwegian intellectual middle class are in fact named Nora. I know a fair few myself.

The father is Swedish and played by Stellan Skarsgård, who, by chance, did work with Bergman in his day, even playing Strindberg. What led you to that choice of actor?
It’s very simple: I’ve reached a “lucky” point in my career where I can approach actors of a certain stature – a very lofty one, at that. On that “list”, I have Stellan at the very top. The same goes for people like Lena Endre and Jesper Christensen, who are just pure bliss to interact with.

“Tenderness is the new punk” may well be your best-remembered Cannes press conference sound bite, nearly on a par with your namesake Lars’ Nazi remarks in 2011. That year, your first at Cannes, you were occasionally dubbed “the nice Trier”, a designation you protested. But today, perhaps it’s where you draw some of your greatest strength from – that very same “tenderness”.
I come from a radical era, and I certainly have had a radical side to me. Today I’m 50 and have two small kids, and the world is in turmoil and unrest. It just feels that we’re ready for tenderness and reconciliation. Not without some brawn, though. The music we’ve chosen for the soundtrack is mainly soul, with artists like Terry Callier and Gil Scott-Heron’s “Pieces of a Man”. When you hear that track, you’re soothed by the sounds, but underneath, there’s something very substantial and political being expressed. That’s a little like where I’m coming from.

Your piece of “tenderness” earned you a Cannes Grand Prix. Will you pursue this sentiment further, or will you kill off Renate Reinsve after 30 minutes in the next film, just to let us know you won’t be labelled?
I almost certainly won’t! To compare myself with a director like Stanley Kubrick, who never made the same movie more than once, and with Woody Allen, who always made the same movie, I may be slightly closer to Woody. That said, if you look at Kubrick, he may have chosen a new genre each time, but he was nevertheless always Kubrick.

When you released The Worst Person in the World [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Joachim Trier
fiche film], we concluded that it was part three of your “Oslo trilogy”. You had a good mind to do a trilogy in four parts, you said. Is Sentimental Value this “part four”?
Ah yes, thanks for the reminder! I don’t quite see Sentimental Value as part four, as it’s “The House” that’s in focus here, rather than “The City”. But let’s see. First, this film is flying out into the world, which I greatly look forward to. Then, I’m going to sit down and figure out where I’m at. Which may well be Oslo, in fact…