We watched the film at the Ritzy, a cinema which used to be one of my many London homes, but one I hadn’t visited for almost a decade. Given this the title seemed more than appropriate. The film itself made me think of Trueba’s Volveréis. A film within a film, the overbearing shadow of a father. The ghost of Bergman, perhaps. As well as the observation that this kind of measured, serious cinema-making, which to an extent wears its heart on its sleeve, is the preserve of a European mindset, one which, like the house within the film which is a kind of church for the protagonists, feels almost out of time, in need a makeover. The most curious scene within the house (revealed within the shot not to be the actual house but a re-creation on a sound stage) is the final image, where it has undergone an IKEA makeover. The more ramshackle charm of the absent mother’s house is turned into something sleek, clean lines, graphic design. For some this new version of the house will be an upgrade. For others, it will be a reduction to a norm. What exactly this says about the film Gustav is finally making with his daughter, or the film Trier himself is making, is hard to tell. An ironic commentary? Or a declaration of faith in the existence of a new future, where this type of film will continue to be made, and these kinds of filmmakers will continue to be financed? It also provoked the thought that Trier’s cinema might have become so fashionable and lauded precisely because it is the kind of cinema that the Anglo-Saxon world recognises it is incapable of producing. His films are rare, exotic gems from a distant stratosphere.
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