Today is Criterion Collection release day for Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World. Special features include interviews with Trier and Eskil Vogt, actors Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, and Herbert Nordrum, as well as cinematographer Kasper Tuxen; and sound designer Gisle Tveito.
It was an honor to write the accompanying booklet essay, which is also online:
The Worst Person in the World: Lost and Found
That was breathtakingly well written. Outstanding, Sheila!! “. . .the sense memory launching a curlicued walk down memory lane.” Gorgeous! Love XOXO Stevie
Thank you dear Stevie!
When I saw that you did the Criterion booklet I got off my lazy butt and watched the movie. The three leads were excellent and the writing was wonderful. When Aksel was talking about owning objects… I knew that would resonate with you. Same here. Anyway, then I read your essay and yup, it struck you as well. After reading the essay I meant to just rewatch that portion but ended up watching the whole movie again. It’s very good!
In some ways, or at least to me, Aksel was the flashier part. The dying artist. But that doesn’t change the fact that he just nailed it. Makes me want to see the earlier parts of the Oslo trilogy with Lie. Reinsve was also wonderful. Wanting to watch her thoughts and emotions play across her face was the big attraction in re-watching.
As an odd aside regarding physical objects. I have a friend who’s a patent lawyer. The day before I watched The Worst Person in the World he was talking about how the Supreme Court had just turned down a case where a patent was denied because some company contesting the patent claimed that the physical object the inventor made was really an “abstract idea.” And ideas aren’t patentable. A big deal in patent circles and not at all popular among inventors. Then to watch the movie and hear about physical objects also experienced/recalled as abstractions… It was an odd sort of double exposure. A real thing is an idea is trivial is vital. Which made me think of a line in Mercy Street, Peter Gabriel’s song about Anne Sexton “All of the building, all of the cars, were once just a dream, in somebody’s head.” Crud, now I’m getting abstract. It’s kinda like how a movie can be it’s own thing and also draw associations with so many other things.
Hey! I wouldn’t say any of the roles are “flashy”, really! Everyone’s too human and flawed for that. There was a movie that just came out recently which I reviewed called Anais in Love and it’s an object lesson in how Worst Person could have gone so wrong – and didn’t – because Joachim trier’s films (only 5 so far) are so quietly truthful. Thoughtful.
I love Anders Danielsen Lie so much – I recommend the trilogy! The first one is almost funny and zippy – like some of Worst Person – but then there’s madness/suicide too – it’s a young man’s film: two aspiring novelists and best friends and trying to be artists. The second is Oslo August 31st – which is extremely painful but definitey worth it to see Lie at the center of a film. He’s also in Mia Hansen-Love’s Bergman Island! I think he’s one of the best actors working today and … he’s a doctor, full-time. I just love that so much. I love how in Worst Person he got to be a regular guy – funny and warm and understandably frustrated at times – and then totally heartbreaking. I think it’s his best work and he’s good in everything!
// It’s kinda like how a movie can be it’s own thing and also draw associations with so many other things.//
I just love that. and interesting in re: the patent lawyer!