Sentimental Value

“Someone said praying isn’t really talking to God, it’s acknowledging despair” This movie got into my life when I most needed it.  What at first seems like a classic family drama is transformed into a complex reflection on the spaces, the wounds and what defines us. The film avoids the drama, instead, it is a silent journey between the past and the present, where spaces speak louder than words. The house becomes one more character, or rather, it is an eternal witness of the family history of the characters. The film speaks, beyond the objects to which we attribute sentimental value, of people, and the important thing here is not the conflict but the texture of that conflict, the silences between sentences, the gestures that replace the apologies that no one knows how to pronounce. Family relationships are the most complicated and complex of all, more than those of friendship or even couple. The roles we play within the family are often the most difficult to abandon.