Video essay: “Joachim Trier: The Spaces Between Us” | MUBI

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:09]Stop.

[00:00:10]I don't know what I'm doing or something.

[00:00:35]A thing that I'd be very curious [music] to explore since my first film, how to use [music] the cinematic language to get into the minds of the characters.

[00:00:46]To show their inner life visually.

[00:00:49]>> [music] >> I love human stories. Characters' lives in a state of transition.

[00:00:56]The [music] conflict is very often internal. And then instead >> My audio showed the inside of a person.

[00:01:03]The camera's [music] here, on her.

[00:01:06]And this is crucial.

[00:01:08]I'm interested [music] philosophically in the idea of place.

[00:01:12]The right kind of environments can open up a sense [music] of interpretation and space for emotions.

[00:01:18]It's the the spatial condensation of [music] something.

[00:01:23]Something about that vibey feeling of a space and the human experience in [music] that space. It's something human that we can interpret. We can feel the truth of it. So, there must be a way to use this specifically to open up the different modes of communication and between people.

[00:01:43]He remembered [music] places.

[00:01:46]Small events long forgotten.

[00:01:50]Our house, [music] the hallway, the living room.

[00:01:56]Time's suspended. Time's suspended.

[00:02:02]>> [music] >> Sentimental value is about two sisters who were in their 30s and after their father passes away, they're kind of trying to deal with why they perceive their family so differently.

[00:02:18]>> [music] >> And then when Gustav Borg, their kind of absent father, who's been a famous film director, shows up, a lot of strange things come up.

[00:02:30]>> [music and singing] >> They try to talk about it in the cafe, but then There must be a way to communicate emotionally and the childhood home becomes a stage.

[00:02:56]I think anyone who's lived [music] for a longer period of time, particularly in childhood, in a place, a house or an apartment, you have an understanding [music] that the same spaces will be colored with such different [music] emotional experiences.

[00:03:12]If you imagine for a second the entry space, [music] the entry door of that childhood place, and you stop for [music] a second, you see that space in front of you, and you imagine it's winter, [music] and then you swap to summer, and then you walked in once you were heartbroken, and then you walked in when you were in love, and like you realize suddenly that we [music] all have these unconscious arenas or or stages for the drama, the small and the big and the unimportant and important moments.

[00:03:44]>> [music] >> Gustav Borg is a complicated father because he's an artist, he has two languages, you know.

[00:03:56]Even though he's so clumsy with his social language, he's so emotionally attached and capable in his creative language.

[00:04:08]He's trying to reconcile through writing this script.

[00:04:17]Whereas you see the clear denial of Nora to enter into that.

[00:04:23]>> [music] >> I think that August, the youngest one, is imagining that there'll be this beautiful moment when they talk through the things away from the house. They try to communicate with each other.

[00:04:40]So they get into this like half aggressive comedy banter with each other.

[00:04:51]>> [laughter] >> Hey. Hi.

[00:04:59]>> [music] >> It's nice to meet you.

[00:05:00]In the theater where Nora's character works, Rachel Kemp explains [music] the history. I can't get a handle on her, you know. The generational trauma of between children and parents. It's like her sadness is >> [music] >> it's such an overwhelming part of her.

[00:05:21]Right here, Nora begins to [music] understand.

[00:05:25]I can't tell if that's just the the cause >> [music] >> of everything or is it I don't know. It's a a symptom of something deeper.

[00:05:37]>> [music] >> So the two sisters have read the script together. Then they're kind of reconciling the fact that maybe the father who's such a difficult person have seen Nora a bit more through writing this script.

[00:05:54]They [music] can go back to the house starting the process of reconciliation.

[00:06:08]>> [music] [music] >> At the start of The Worst Person [music] in the World, Julie's really great at maneuvering the kind of lifestyle changes [music] and changing, you know, I want to be a doctor, now I want to be a psychologist, now I want to be creative, I want to be a photographer.

[00:06:30][music] She believes that she can be a bit of a chameleon, but when it comes to getting really close to someone, she finds that really hard. And then suddenly she [music] meets someone that she likes a lot.

[00:06:44]>> [music] >> Over time, Julie feels very disconnected and alienated, and these characters who wants to settle down, to have children, all that stuff.

[00:07:25]>> [laughter] >> The film form keeps them apart. [music] The family is inside, but Julie is outside.

[00:07:39]>> [music and singing] >> His physical presence, socially and also psychologically in a way.

[00:07:47]One of the themes that we're exploring is time, the passing of [music] time, the pressure of time for Julie to resolve her life to feel that she's achieved something turning 30.

[00:07:59]It's all around her.

[00:08:09]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> In the middle of the film there is this moment when time freezes.

[00:08:40]>> [music] [music] >> The most romantic notion for her, imagined at least, would be that time would stop for a moment and she could explore just being in love without feeling that pressure of time was apparent.

[00:09:10]>> [music] >> To me it's real cuz it's real to her, but I guess it's not quite real in objective terms.

[00:09:17]I'm exploring the half imagined, the half [music] real.

[00:09:27]>> [music] >> And at the end of it, we repeat the beginning of the story.

[00:09:33]The difference is not the space, it's in Julie's a nuance specific relationship [music] to it.

[00:09:44]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> People often ask me like, "Okay, you you shoot in Oslo. Tell us something about the city." And And the fact is I I'm not a sociologist. I can't talk about where I'm from in in words in a way.

[00:10:49]Yes.

[00:10:56]Norway and particularly Oslo is is in a place [music] where you know, architecturally, sociologically, a lot of new things are happening. [music] I know my city very well and I know [music] how the sun moves cuz I've walked along those streets at all times of year.

[00:11:22]The material of the movies that [music] we make in the cities where we grow up is what it is. It's It's what we show. I I like to show those streets >> [music] >> to capture that moment in time.

[00:11:33]But I don't know what it means.

[00:11:41]>> [music] >> This is a great example in Oslo, August 31st, where we follow a young, [music] hip, quite sort of handsome and resourceful guy called Anders.

[00:11:57]The film happens in 24 hours, and [music] what we see along the way there is that he's actually newly out of rehab, and he's [music] going on this rather existential journey to try to figure out the way forward in his life.

[00:12:12]The film is set in Oslo, and I thought there was [music] something interesting about this rather melancholic journey through a city that's sort of expanding and changing.

[00:12:21]>> [music] >> There's something wonderful in cinema about how we can approach a portrait of loneliness.

[00:12:31]So, for example, the cafe scene, Anders, he's listening into conversations in the cafe, which is sort of mirroring the world around him and the sad state that he is in.

[00:12:57]We know he's dreadfully lost and doesn't know how to continue.

[00:13:03]>> [laughter] [laughter] >> It contextualizes ordinary life in kind of a different way.

[00:13:22]You're forced to kind of sit in the in a cinema and experience that emotion, but together with other people. I find that interesting about films.

[00:13:49]There's space for change.

[00:13:51]>> [music] [music] [music] >> I can see Anders Danielsen Lie, who's a dear friend of mine and an actor.

[00:14:16]I see he gets older in the films we make.

[00:14:21]It's a strange [music] interplay that I learn from actors between sort of the unspokenness of the emotionality that we all carry from [music] personal places, but you strangely transform it into fiction. [music] Actors find that strange place [music] between ourselves and a character that is not ourselves. Do you actually become the character and not at the same time?

[00:14:47]My question [music] is for Ellen Fanning about the language because I don't I suppose you don't speak Swedish or Norwegian. Yes, well didn't you didn't you hear my Norwegian accent? So it's like Joachim, I mean, he works [music] with his family, like in a sense his family and his friends and everyone was just so kind and >> [music] >> and welcoming. Uh another question for Rachel Kemp.

[00:15:11]So, how do you like Norway?

[00:15:13]>> [music] >> Oh, I love Norway. It's beautiful. Uh the the people are very friendly. It's it's been very welcoming.

[00:15:22]>> [music] >> And sentimental value. The two sisters are together in Nora's apartment and they're kind of reconciling and they're talking about how come we turned out so different.

[00:15:37]And Agnes says All of that is written.

[00:15:47]As I was next to the camera at that moment, I was weeping with them because you feel the intimacy of the moment. I said to Agnes or or Inga, "Just get into bed and hug her."

[00:15:58]And they hug and the camera moves back.

[00:16:02]And she says And the older sister says, which is perfect, she says >> [snorts] >> This is improvised. Just like the character would have said it.

[00:16:19]The caution of saying such a kind of tender and honest thing.

[00:16:23]Like an actor and character exist together.

[00:16:32]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [applause] [music] >> I find that the question of being so [music] close to someone as you are as a viewer when you see those intense intimate close-ups you [music] release your gaze from the social. When you look at someone in a conversation, you can't look [music] at them like you can in cinema. You're not allowed to stare that way.

[00:17:26]Well, that's horrible. All the elegance of God and it's so creepy.

[00:17:32]The cinematic [music] language somehow gets us closer to people than we can in our everyday social life.

[00:17:39]In movies we're [music] allowed to really look at others, you know, in that intimate space.

[00:17:44]But that's what [music] we do when we make movies, I think. It's to play with space like that.

[00:17:49]You create a space where you can make a journey with a character [music] and sort of experience a variety of emotions that's not so easy to talk about, that we don't have a language for. [music] Are you sure it works doing this in English? To watch films from different time periods and different cultures [music] always gives you inspiration to grow, to feel empathy and to change.

[00:18:14]>> [music] >> So, you [music] know, leave space.

[00:18:26]>> [music] >> Woo!