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Early in Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, a film festival retrospective becomes the meeting point for a veteran director and a young actor. He is Gustav Borg, played by Stellan Skarsgård, taken aback upon receiving an invitation to dinner from Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning). The two connect, and in Gustav, Rachel sees a wonderful guardian figure. This warm, truthful relationship in many ways becomes the heart of the immensely moving film, which has now earned 9 Oscar nominations.
Elle Fanning and Stellan Skarsgård talk about working with Joachim Trier
Ahead of the release of Sentimental Value on Mubi India, HT joined the two actors for a chat. Elle and Stellan began by agreeing that Joachim’s previous films and the script of this one were both factors that led them to say yes to Sentimental Value. “For me, reading the script… I wanted to live in that world. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be a part of Joachim’s film very badly. I was grateful that he thought of me for Rachel Kemp. It was very special.”
Stellan adds, “I wanted to work with him too! I was waiting for his call and he finally called (smiles). I was very happy when he offered me the role. Like you mentioned, to live with this film… it is akin to living with a novel. It is a beautiful landscape.”
When I bring up the above-mentioned scene at the film festival, Elle says, “I have been to the Deauville Film Festival before and we shot during the film festival while it was happening. It added this great layer to the scenes. I have been lucky to go to many festivals, and Cannes is definitely like a special film festival to me and I have been there a couple of times. I got to be in the jury there at a very, very young age and I remember being amongst a lot of filmmakers in that room. I was talking to them and having that experience of going like, ‘Whoa! That was powerful and quite memorable!”
“I have been to so many festivals for 40 years now,” Stellan says. “I love them because they are meeting places for film lovers, with great actors and filmmakers as well. I appreciate it very much.”
The meta-ness of playing Rachel Kemp
In Sentimental Value, Elle has the trickiest character. She puts it best in her own Instagram post, where she added how ‘traveling to Oslo for the first time to work with a Norwegian director playing an American actress traveling to Oslo for the first time to work with a Norwegian director. Meta to say the least.’ Elle details how a normal day looked on set, “It is true! There is a lot of layers to the scenes in the sense that what was happening inside the camera was also happening around me. One can draw from the experience happening around themselves. I have never played an actress before, so it was interesting for me to interpret that into an actor on screen.”
“But also, more than an actor,” Elle adds. With Joachim’s films, he writes human beings. Yes, that is our occupation, but she is also a three-dimensional and fully-realised person, so it was digging deeper and discovering her fear, her neuroses. All of those things that went into her, being able to perform that was one of the most exciting parts for me. There were times when we would laugh about it! Even what’s happening now!”
It is a scene in the film where both Gustav and Rachel are being interviewed, and one insipid question really angers him, and he tells the interviewer to get out! I say that Elle and Stellan can go ahead and do the same bit now, and they are game!
‘The power of this film is the healing that it provides’
At the Cannes Film Festival last year for the world premiere of the film, Joachim Trier declared, ‘Tenderness is the new punk!’ A film that holds its values and creates a space for a family to come to terms with one another, with tenderness. Talking about this statement, Stellan adds, “Joachim did not talk about it during the shoot. It was only at the Cannes press conference. He included it in the work. He infuses the set with his own tenderness, his own humanity. His tolerance is fantastic and he is forgiving like anything. And so, as he says, the good is contagious. We just hope that many people can spread it.”
Elle adds, “The power of this film is the healing that it provides. It is something that we need in the world. There is a reconciliation in the film that is really beautiful, but it is not tied up in a new bow, much like life. It is not just something that can just be fixed, like movie magic. That is why it is resonating with people because they can probably access that emotion in their own families and in their own lives.”
When I ask both of them if their own families have watched Sentimental Value, Elle says, “My sister has watched the film and it was something that really resonated with us. I am the younger sibling, and what the film really talks about- what Joachim really put into words, is what does it mean to have a sibling, to see them and protect them. We were quite emotional. She says it is her favourite film that I did (smiles).”
Stellan adds, “My sons have seen it. My youngest ones cried a lot and told me it is a beautiful film. It is obviously a very good children’s movie! Alexander saw it and loved it. Then Gustav saw it and said, ‘Do you recognise yourself!’ I said no he is totally different from me. (both laugh)”
“He definitely thought he did not get enough attention as a child!” he concludes with a sly smile.
Sentimental Value also stars Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Anders Danielsen Lie.
