Sentimental Value

Through a poetic opening portrait of an old family house, Trier establishes the film's central idea: that places, too, carry stories, trauma, and traces of the lives that have unfolded there. The narrative follows Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), an aging filmmaker who returns to Oslo with a desire to repair his relationship with his two adult daughters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). His attempt at an artistic comeback initiates a painful process where the family's past – particularly the story of Gustav's mother, a resistance fighter who took her own life – is gradually brought into the light. Agnes's meticulous archival work gives the film a strong layer of "post-memories": how trauma can be inherited and persist through generations.

As always with Trier, the people are the film's strength – nuanced relationships, precise observations, and scenes that glow with emotional truth. Visually, Sentimental Value is more subdued than Trier's previous films, but all the more mature. And even if the film mirrors, quotes, and recalls the director's own filmography, it is fundamentally not about the artist, but about those who create space, security, and love: those who turn a house into a home.

The result is a warm, tender, and deeply personal film about heritage, guilt, reconciliation – and about the power of understanding where you come from.

The presentation is based on Anne Gjelsvik's analysis in Montages.