On Location peels back the curtain on some of your favorite films, television shows, and more. This time, we take a look at Sentimental Value.
Oslo, Norway’s capital and most populous city by a wide margin, is not a destination that’s necessarily on the tip of most travelers’ tongues. But the place is becoming a bit of a movie star thanks to the Norwegian director Joachim Trier. The daily life of ordinary people—in the city’s parks and bookstores and at parties—takes center stage in his slice-of-life cinema (The Worst Person in the World and Oslo, August 31 were among his early indie hits) and leave one swooning for a life there with all of the melancholy and joy that it might contain. Trier’s latest film, Sentimental Value, is no different in its setting nor its wistful depiction of it.
When asked about Oslo, Trier tells Condé Nast Traveler, “Yes, you want me to talk about the city that, when I grew up in it, no one cared about. And slowly, it’s become bigger, and I’m grateful if I in any way contributed to showing its nicer aspects, which I think happens automatically when you create human stories that people identify with and put characters in these places where you’ve had your own emotional experiences. It’s a big and small city at the same time—not as elegant as Stockholm, or as culturally vibrant as Copenhagen. Oslo is more discreet.”
When first asked to extrapolate on Oslo’s graces, Trier says, “In the summer, it’s really hot because of the Gulf Stream, and it’s one of the few capitals in Europe where you can swim in the fjord. And in the winter, it’s really snowing and we have real ski slopes just outside of the city center. You have these tremendous seasonal changes that create this gratitude for spring arriving.” Through the success of his directorial career, Trier still DJs in different parks around the city in the summer. Of the first show each year, he says, “Everyone’s super pale, but they’re still running around in their shorts and t-shirts, celebrating summer arriving. It’s charming and weird.”
Sentimental Value follows a family—estranged filmmaker father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) who hold him in varying degrees of contempt—in the wake of the mother’s death. Below, Trier and production designer (and fellow Norwegian) Jørgen Stangebye Larsen take us behind the scenes of Oslo as depicted in Sentimental Value, which is currently nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and is available in theaters and on streaming.