An actress is about to go on stage, the stalls are completely full, dressed in black. Breathing hard, he asked his star to come closer. He suggests having sex backstage. All in a desperate attempt, still incomprehensible until that moment, to relax, to stop panicking, to overcome the anxiety attack he seems to be suffering from, so that he can escape. With no direction other than flight, it is not known whether backwards or forwards. This is the introduction letter of Nora (Renate Rensef), the heroine of the novel Emotional valueone of the year’s best films, arrives in theaters on Friday after winning at Cannes, where it took home the Grand Jury Prize and was positioned as an Oscar favorite. Its director is Joachim Trier, who recurs with the performer who was also his best ally in the illustrious The worst person in the world (2021).
His film is again raw, gut-shot, painful and smacking with its uncomfortable suggestion, though here it opens up with a sheen and levels of tenderness that manage to drown it all out. This does not mean that he suddenly becomes complacent or even perfect, but it leaves room for hugs as a means of confronting familial traumas, for smiling glances as an opportunity to strengthen bonds impossible with words; And attempts at empathy, even when they only succeed, remain attempts, like pills of redemption, companionship, and trust.
Nora is the daughter of a film director who, after fifteen years of retirement, has written a new film that he wants her to star in. A completely absent father played by Stellan Skarsgård who also appears in the trophy collections. Also shining is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who plays his other daughter, Agnes; And Elle Fanning, the famous actress whom the director hires to star in his film after his daughter rejects her.
The family home as a character
“We understood that the film would be about reconciliation and the experience of children, now adults, who do not have endless time with their parents,” says director Joachim Trier. Time acts as an angular axis for life, and also for the film, as the family home is presented as another character, witnessing the passage of generations of the family through its rooms, living rooms and staircases.
A house that witnesses arguments, conversations, closing doors, kisses, hugs, tears, and hiding places; Through walls that crack little by little, but never ceasing to protect, shelter, and exist. “Human life is observed from the point of view of the house, in which people’s lives pass quickly. I think keeping that in mind from the beginning gives a kind of dramatic pressure to the family story, about how there are boundaries,” explains the person responsible for other titles such as Love is stronger than bombs (2015) and Oslo, August 31 (2011).
Raqqa as resistance
And the cruelty of the reality it reveals Emotional value It is compensated by tenderness and compassion, which serve as weapons to confront potential coldness, confrontations, and current polarization. “It’s scary to see how quickly the world changes and turns into hatred, revenge and very unconstructive feelings,” laments Stellan Skarsgård. Trier reflects on the extent to which there is talk of “the freedom found in storytelling and in films to observe human life with its imperfections, but in the hope of creating a space for identification and empathy.”
The director advocates that art is something “we need to survive, reflect ourselves, and understand ourselves.” Hence, he highlights the possibilities that films offer “to listen to and feel the other.” Although to do so you have to ask yourself how you do it: “Curiosity is at the core of what we do, and for me, this is a radical opposition to the demonization of the other and polarization, which we see so often on a social level.” Trier emphasizes that they did not make a film with a “political message,” but their spirit in making it was “curiosity and human compassion in attacking anyone, which there is a lot of now.”
Another topic dealt with in the film is suicide, which is the underlying suicide that the two main characters go through. But it is treated with the utmost respect, without clarity, without being frank or aggressive, of course. Joachim Trier chose this treatment because for him films “should not provide all the answers.” “Deep in the depths of a wound like this (maternal suicide) in a family, there is a mystery that will never be solved. That’s why I think it’s worth discussing this, but I don’t have the answer. A film is the best I can do,” he said.
Stellan Skarsgård thinks along the same lines, criticizing the tendency to have “too many answers” in feature films, “and they’re not particularly good.” “Emotional value It’s a perfect ending because it doesn’t fall into what Americans talk about as “enclosure,” which is the most hackneyed misunderstanding of life I’ve ever heard. He explains: “In life there is no closure of anything, but rather an opening of something, a dialogue or something beautiful that happens.”
Life and fantasy scenarios
There are two other related buildings/houses in the film. There is the National Theater of Norway, where Nora performs, and the archive where her sister Agnes works. “I see it as a social division of the two sides of the brain, both of which are necessary to maintain a sense of decency, humanity, and social continuity,” says Trier, because on the one hand, he argues, we have to “accept the memory of events” as something we owe “to the past.” For this reason, the importance of the archive, which in turn includes “the history of World War II in Norway, which was very stormy and devastating”: “We needed it to be responsible.” No less important is the left side of the brain represented by the National Theatre, “that imaginative display of language understanding alternative to rational language, full of imagination, imagination and compassion.”
These two elements come together equally in the difference between the two sisters. “One interprets a fantasy life for the characters to avoid themselves. The other tries to achieve a sense of constancy and continuity of hope for what a family could be,” the director explains.
Arrows to industry and journalists
Emotional value It’s a film so clever that it allows itself to reflect — arrows included — on the film industry. Both because of how the entry of a famous actress becomes a sure claim to attention, whether she’s right for the role or not, and how it represents actresses who end up starting their own production companies so they can make the films they want to make; And also through how the rise of platforms, specifically Netflix, has affected distribution.
Trier poses a question to the streaming giant, who has worked with “many great directors”: “Why can’t it just promote the cinematic experience on the big screen?” “I hope that Ted Sarandos (the company’s current CEO) and his group of talented friends will be smarter and realize that the best way to see movies is to experience them together in the theater,” he says. The director is, above all, an optimist and chooses to point out that the industry is in good health: “My principle is not to speak ill of films. There is a self-perpetuating process where everyone seems to say: ‘Oh, cinema is dying’. But no, it’s not. We’re having a great year, people go to theatres, maybe they see fewer films, but those few films are being seen.”
The media are also mentioned, with an interview cut short because the director, played by Stellan Skarsgård, feels they are not asking the right questions of his film’s hero. The actor points out about the scene that he feels “great respect” for journalists: “The problem is that we do not have enough time. In general, they are smarter than me, which means that we can have good conversations, but press conferences do not allow that.”