TIFF50: Sentimental Value—Film Review

The value of sentiment is the main focus in Joachim Trier’s newest film Sentimental Value. Much like his last film The Worst Person in the World, a simple film that explores the dynamics of a young woman navigating love in a modern world, Sentimental Value is a complex, layered and effervescent account of one artist family’s renderings of grief, time and love.

The movie begins with, quite possibly, one of the most important characters of the film; the home of the Borg’s; our main protagonists in the film. Trier structures the film in a way that allows the history of our characters an ability to submerge us into a family tree like account of all the trauma and wounds of this family; occasionally allowing the audience a front row seat to the very damning behaviours of each character, and how each room, each angled wall, every creaked floorboard, felt and absorbed all of this family’s struggles in a way that is foundational to each of the Borg characters we are introduced to.

After Nora and Anges’ mother leaves for good, the Borg sisters girls are raised by their film director father Gustav (Stellan Skarsġard), whose constant absence allows the girls to fend for themselves. Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) take two very different paths, careers wise and in their personal lives. Nora lives an artistic life as an actress, secluded and alone and occasionally finding companionship through affairs with married men; while Agnes lives a sterile life as a mother with a distracted and oblivious husband and a fleeting career. Yet, while everyone and everything around them seems to fall apart, the one constant in each of the sister’s lives, is the unwavering support and love of the other sibling, which allows each sibling to, at the very least, coast in their respective lives to some sort of desired happiness.

Once their mother passes, the sisters are reunited with their estranged father at the wake, and their father wastes no time shaking the very family dynamic that the girls have become all too accustomed to. Gustav, an accomplished film director, comes bearing a new script that he wises his actress daughter Nora, to play the lead. Nora quickly denies the role which leads Gustav to have a chance encounter with an up-and-coming American actress at his film retrospective, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), looking and yearning for a role that will define her credibility within the industry. The two bond over the beauty of cinema, and Rachel is searching for an escape from her very repetitive and bland career, and enlists the help of Gustav to gain some credibility and notoriety in the industry, something that American actresses know all to well with European directors.

Sentimental Value is a truly ambiguous film that mirrors and reflects the idea and building artistry and an artistic reputation to that of building a home; and like any home, the ancestry of that establishment, forges and shapes into something eternal and withstanding. The structural home that the Borg’s inhabit, becomes the stage and metaphoric stomping ground, literally and figuratively for the film, both the one that we are watching as an audience, as well as the stage for Gustav’s newest film; a film that is not about the Borg’s, but recites and romanticizes the events of their family history, in vivid detail and with much pain.

While Nora does everything in her power to distance herself from the project as well as her father, Kemp’s Hollywood presence in their small Norwegian town, makes it impossible for her to look away from the powerful presence of her father and his upcoming project. Yet, since Gustav decides to stay since the girl’s childhood home is in his possession after their mother’s death, Gustav is present at all the family events set up by Agnes, and becomes this outer-worldly encompassing force and presence in the girl’s lives, as well as a larger than life character in the film.

Trier’s non-linear approach to the storytelling, becomes quite obvious from its first frames, that art imitates life, and life imitates art for the Borg’s. Juxtaposed scenes of Nora’s stage play, with scenes of Nora dealing with her combative and strong emotions towards her father, litter the screen constantly, that our expectations and acceptance of such scenes becomes second nature in the way we watch the film. Trier makes the audience highly aware of the hard cuts and fade to blacks that he imposes in the editing room, showing either flashbacks of milestone traumas plaguing the Borg’s, or small changes in details that not only change the narrative flow and future of the family, but also changes the way the characters develop and evolve in their own respective stories.

It is no surprise that Trier’s Sentimental Value becomes somewhat of a reflective, self-healed version of recognizing not only ourselves in each and every one of the characters present on screen, but also recognizing that we see our instances and glimpses of the people and fears of our reality reflect onto the each and every one of the Borg’s.

Sentimental Value isn’t the most perfect film about family, but it truly resonates deeply and dearly with its audience and finds ways to connect complex emotions of resentment and anger, to healing notions of simple love, forgiveness and most of all, growth. As the character’s in Trier’s Sentimental Values evolve, so do our own values towards the people and families in our life, enriching audiences with a somewhat audacious but sentimental approach to rearrange our trotting feelings of pain and turn it to healing avenues towards reconciliation.

Night Film Reviews: 8 Out of 10 Moons

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