Sentimental Value Is an Excellent Lamp Movie

"Sentimental Value is very much a film about a house - a Victorian " dragestil," or "dragon style," home in Oslo where generations of the same family have lived for more than a 100 years. Director Joachim Trier, who found the house in Oslo's Frogner neighborhood, called its role in the film "a witness of the unspoken ... a witness of the 20th century." The home's changing décor shows the passage of time for our characters - the patriarch, Gustav, and his daughters, Nora and Agnes. Fussy wallpaper comes down. The library becomes an office. And lighting - pendant lamps, floor lamps, table lamps - migrates from room to room, flicking on and off. It's here I'd like to draw your attention - Sentimental Value is also a lamp movie, an incidental showcase for decades of European design."

"A niche interest? Maybe. But production designer Jørgen Stangebye Larsen had spent weeks obsessing over it and ran over the time allotted for our interview with tales of lamp tests. He spoke about why the Apollo by Hay is the perfect table lamp, why he had to borrow an Arco from his father, and why an Artemide Tolomeo seems to show up in two different houses."

"Lamps. This seems like a very specific question, but it turns out there may be too many lamps in this movie for us to get to all of them. I felt the same. Some lamps speak to a location. Some we found to define a time period. And some we chose to say something about the characters."

Sentimental Value focuses on a Victorian "dragestil" house in Oslo inhabited by one family for over a century. The house's evolving décor and migrated lighting fixtures mark the passage of the 20th century and the lives of the patriarch Gustav and his daughters Nora and Agnes. Production designer Jørgen Stangebye Larsen and set decorator Catrine Gormsen sourced period and designer lamps to signal era and character. Cinematographer Kasper Tuxen collaborated on lamp tests and lighting setups. Lamps function as location markers, period indicators, character signifiers, and practical sources for specific scene lighting.

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