Sentimental Value

Sentimental Value – Ein filmisches Meisterwerk: Filmkunst und das Thema Versöhnung – My Review


Als ich gestern morgens an der Gold Coast in QLD Australien dank HOTA den neuesten Film von Joachim Trier erleben konnte , wurde mir klar: Dies ist mehr als nur ein Familienportrait – es ist eine tiefgründige Meditation über Generationenkonflikte, künstlerische Integrität und die heilende Kraft der Versöhnung.
Triers norwegischer Originaltitel “Affeksjonsverdi” – wörtlich “Affektionswert” – trifft den Kern präziser als der englische Titel. Es geht hier um den subjektiven Wert, den wir Beziehungen, Orten und Erinnerungen zuschreiben: Im Kern um Familie und ein HOME.

In London konnte ich Harold Pinters Dramen erleben, zuerst The Caretaker (Taking care …) und The Homecoming. 

In Berlin (damals die Jahre im Studium an der FU) die Berliner Schaubühne mit ihren unvergessenen Inszenierungen: Der Kirschgarten, Shakespeare mit JUTTA LAMPE und Michael Koenig und anderen.

Gute Filmauszüge von Bergmann wurden in meinen Leistungskursen analysiert:  Mann und Frau, Beziehungen und Kommunikation und mehr …

Zum Film (vgl. dazu Cannes):

Stellan Skarsgård spielt den begnadeten fiktiven Gustav Borg, einen Filmregisseur auf der Suche nach Erlösung. Seine Tochter Nora (Renate Reinsve) lehnt die Hauptrolle in seinem Comeback-Film ab – ein symbolträchtiger Moment der Verweigerung. Als ein Hollywood-Star Elle Fanning die Rolle übernimmt und immer mehr in ihrem Aussehen zur eigenen Tochter wird, wird der Film zu einer komplexen Untersuchung von Identität, Kunst und familiärem Erbe mit Flashbacks.
Was den Film für mich besonders bedeutsam macht: Seine radikale Weigerung, in eine Art nihilistische Verzweiflung zu verfallen. Trier argumentiert mutig für Versöhnung – aber nicht als sentimentalen Ausweg, sondern als harte und manchmal sehr schmerzhafte Arbeit von Annäherung: Ich sehe dich (sagt der Junge)!
Dieser Film zeigt: Kunst kann Heilung sein, nicht Waffe.

Ein sehr emotionaler Film! Schlicht gesagt: Sei einfach nur Mensch!
Die technische Meisterschaft finde ich beeindruckend: Kasper Tuxens Kameraarbeit und Olivier Bugge Couttés Schnitt schaffen eine  bergmanneske Intimität. Man spürt jeden emotionalen Unterton, jede unausgesprochene Spannung. Lange Harold Pinter Pausen …

Film und Drama in ihren Wirkungen werden ganz nebenbei vorgeführt … Medea!


Warum ich den Film unbedingt empfehle? Weil er Hoffnung anbietet in einer Zeit kultureller Verhärtung. Weil er zeigt, dass Zärtlichkeit tatsächlich – wie Joachim Trier in Cannes sagte – “das neue Punk” sein kann.


Mein Fazit: Ein Film, der unter die Haut geht und Versöhnung nicht als Schwäche, sondern als Stärke begreift.


Bewertung: ★★★★★ oder auch 15 Zensurenpunkte (gleich 100%).

Peter Hanns Bloecker, Director of Studies (Germany) and retired since 2015.

Gold Coast Queensland Australia

Wed 21 January 2026.

Hota Cinemas Bundall

Next door the 5 Level new Art Gallery!!!

English Version:

Sentimental Value – A Cinematic Masterpiece: Film Art and the Theme of Reconciliation

When I was able to experience Joachim Trier’s latest film yesterday morning at the Gold Coast in QLD Australia, thanks to HOTA, I realized: This is more than just a family portrait – it is a profound meditation on generational conflicts, artistic integrity, and the healing power of reconciliation. Trier’s Norwegian original title “Affeksjonsverdi” – literally “Affection Value” – captures the essence more precisely than the English title. It’s about the subjective value we attribute to relationships, places, and memories: At its core, about family and a HOME.

In London, I was able to experience Harold Pinter’s dramas, first “The Caretaker” (Taking care…) and “The Homecoming”.

In Berlin (during my years of study at the Free University), the Berliner Schaubühne with its unforgettable productions: “The Cherry Orchard”, Shakespeare with JUTTA LAMPE and Michael Koenig and others.

Good film excerpts from Bergman were analyzed in my advanced courses: Man and Woman, Relationships and Communication and more…

About the Film (cf. Cannes): Stellan Skarsgård plays the blessed fictional Gustav Borg, a film director searching for redemption. His daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) rejects the lead role in his comeback film – a symbolically charged moment of refusal. When a Hollywood star, Elle Fanning, takes on the role and increasingly resembles his own daughter, the film becomes a complex investigation of identity, art, and family heritage with flashbacks. What makes the film particularly significant for me: Its radical refusal to fall into a kind of nihilistic despair. Trier courageously argues for reconciliation – but not as a sentimental escape, but as hard and sometimes very painful work of approximation: I see you (says the boy)! This film shows: Art can be healing, not a weapon.

A very emotional film! Simply put: Just be human! I find the technical mastery impressive: Kasper Tuxen’s cinematography and Olivier Bugge Coutté’s editing create a Bergman-esque intimacy. You feel every emotional undertone, every unspoken tension. Long Harold Pinter pauses…

Film and drama in their effects are incidentally demonstrated… Medea!

Why do I absolutely recommend the film? Because it offers hope in a time of cultural hardening. Because it shows that tenderness can actually be – as Joachim Trier said in Cannes – “the new Punk”.

My conclusion:

A film that gets under your skin and understands reconciliation not as weakness, but as strength.

My Rating: ★★★★★ or 100 %.

Peter Hanns Bloecker, Director of Studies (Germany) and retired since 2015.

Gold Coast Queensland Australia

Wed 21 January 2026.

Hota Cinemas Bundall Next door the 5 Level new Art Gallery!!!

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Quote of the Day

Successful Life

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.”

Bob Dylan

Maria Ines with me | Credit phb
Credit phb

In Cold Blood

When studying in Berlin around 1974, I bought the Penguin Classic I found now in a Camp Kitchen along my Camping Trip Northern Rivers area in New South Wales in Australia before Xmas 2025.

One of the best US books ever written, for sure.

True Crime Genre and Podcasts were not even at the Horizon.

And I am glad I found a copy of Moby Dick as well.

Nothing like reading when camping in Australia.

By the way: The Place to be, if not in Berlin.

In Cold Blood: The Birth of True Crime

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966) remains the definitive work that created the true crime genre—a “nonfiction novel” that reads with the psychological depth of fiction while maintaining journalistic rigor.

The Achievement

Capote spent six years researching the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in rural Kansas, conducting over 8,000 pages of interviews. His breakthrough was treating real events with novelistic techniques: shifting perspectives, building suspense, and developing the killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock as complex characters rather than monsters. The result transforms crime reporting into literature.

Enduring Power

The book’s strength lies in its moral ambiguity. Capote neither romanticizes nor demonizes the murderers, instead revealing how circumstance, psychology, and choice intersect tragically. His depiction of small-town America shattered by random violence captured something essential about American anxiety in the post-war era—a theme that resonates even more strongly today.

Why? Good question, in fact the Mother of all questions!

Critical Perspective

The work raises questions Capote couldn’t fully answer: Where does empathy for killers become complicity? Can journalism ever be truly “objective” when shaped by literary craft? His emotional entanglement with Perry Smith—and possible manipulation of facts for narrative effect—complicates the book’s documentary claims.

Legacy

In Cold Blood established the template every true crime work since follows: meticulous research, narrative drive, psychological insight, and the uncomfortable intimacy between observer and observed. It remains essential reading not just for the genre it spawned, but for anyone interested in how storytelling shapes our understanding of violence, justice, and American identity.

A masterwork that asks more questions than it answers—which is precisely why it endures.

So, in short: Am reading now The Widow.

Another great author I love: John Grisham.

60 % read: Oh dear, how is Simon going to convince the Jury …?

Another must read, I would suggest!

Happy New Year from Dorrigo in NSW, one of my favourite Villages, where the folks are fine 😎

Dorrigo NSW | Credit phb

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Deutsche Welle

This site is known to Learners of German around the world …

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More than The Language only:

Culture and Landeskunde

Menschen in Deutschland

News and Background Infos.

Credit phb

Dangar Falls

There are places and there are really good places: One of the best for us is this one here with real Camping like 50 years ago named Lodge.

But it is in fact an old Dairy Farm, the second wave of taking the land after logging …

Very cool up here at 900 m above Sea Level, which is called Coffs Harbour Coastline and Northern Rivers in NSW.

In OZ, of course😎 and not in the USA.

And the beautiful but overcrowded South Pacific Ocean Coastline between Sydney and Brisbane.

One of our annual 18 nights Loops from the Gold Coast since we both retired.

View from my Fire Place 👌
Credit phb

Published by Peter H Bloecker, retired Director of Studies (North Germany).

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