FIGHT ISSUE VOL. B – Glen Martin Taylor
Glen Martin Taylor: TENDERING THE FIGHT
TO WATCH: “SENTIMENTAL VALUES” BY JOACHIM TRIER
A house. Filled with memories. Shaped by the people who move through it. Bare feet lifting off old wooden floors, children’s hands brushing along white-painted walls. Laughter that brightens every room and tears that seem to make the whole place stand still. Quiet, caught in its own thoughts and in the traumas passed on to it. Handed down from generation to generation, never truly spoken about.
Until you realize that you are no longer able to talk to each other at all.
In Sentimental Values by Joachim Trier, the story centers on the conflicts within families that rarely find their way into conversation. The fear of unspoken thoughts and feelings, both one’s own and those of others, is simply too great. The guilt is too heavy and makes it hard to believe in goodness or in hope. And yet there is a constant: the reminder that time and the willingness to work on what is broken can make a long-standing relationship feel possible again. A house that grows with you, that through renovations invites new perspectives and creates space for new memories.
Shaped by painful losses and wrong decisions, this story becomes an example of how things can shift. Slowly, but noticeably. And even if the structure carries small cracks that can never be repaired, the house can still stand.
Through the making of a new feature film, the people involved begin to understand what truly matters, which demons must be faced, and that the ability to speak to one another can indeed be learned again.
