Helenor Palmason: Meeting the Love That Lasts

Anna and Magnus have built a life together. They had a house with three children and a dog. Then they broke up. This is the place Love that stays It begins, but with the passage of time and the reality of their divorce, they are left to navigate through a future tensed by their breakup.

Icelandic director Hlinur Palmason’s latest film reflects the radiant visual language of his previous 19th-century filmography. Goodland And contemporary drama White, white day. Although its subject matter is heavy, the tone here is lighter. The aforementioned dog, Panda, even took home the Palm Dog Award at Cannes this year, which is – and I’m being very serious here – an actual award given out. on the surface, Love that stays It’s a story about ordinary people with normal feelings and normal problems, like how to raise a family while going through a divorce and what you do when one of your kids – played by the Palmmasons – shoots the other one in the chest with a bow and arrow. (He’s fine, but he’ll need a new jacket.)
There are existential questions buried deep inside. “I often think, ‘What is the meaning of all this?’ When you go through life, you have moments of doubt about life and just things, and what the meaning of it all is,” Palmason tells me. “It’s so ridiculous, all of it.” He’s right. This is ridiculous. It’s life too? As we go through the chapters with Anna and Magnus, we begin to find out what remains between them.
The director sat with him Edge To talk about how to guide your kids and how to balance photography Goodland and Love that stays At the same time.

The interview has been edited and condensed.

Edge: I want to start here. Goodland He had such a weighty story. Love that stays It seems lighter, but I think they share similar themes. Do they feel similar to you? various? I’d be curious to hear you talk about that relationship.

Helenor Palmason: Because Goodland This was a period film, and there’s a heaviness to almost every period film because you have to create everything. You can’t just pick up your camera and start photographing anything. So there was a sense of wanting to do something with a little different energy, like a little more fun and something we could go out and shoot. And also with a smaller budget and a smaller crew. I mean he was actually very young Goodlandbut smaller in Love that stays.

But there’s this thing that happened to me after I came back home to Iceland, where I was always trying to figure out a way to stretch time so I could spend more time on each project, which was difficult because of finances. But we found a way to do this by working in parallel on two projects. But we develop, write and film different things. And then when we feel like it’s kind of taken shape and we feel like it’s ready and the energy is ready, we kind of choose which project to move forward with. Love that staysin many ways, has been going on for a long time. Even the first photo we took was in 2017.

It’s a very long process. Sometimes when you talk about other projects, they’re almost parallel. I remember the shooting scenes from Goodland In the same week, a scene was filmed for Love that staysWhich is crazy to think about.

Do you keep all these different topics in your head?

Yeah, I think it’s all… I don’t know. I think some people might find it negative if things talk too much together or eat into each other, like projects. But I kind of like when that happens because it kind of shakes you up and makes you question things or push the project. If there’s something really interesting in one project, it feeds into the other project or pushes the other project to do better.

I will never be able to make one film at a time, because it will never work financially. And I will only make three films in my life, and I will have to get other jobs, a teacher and other things.

the address, Love that staysis actually more of a question: What is the love that lasts? Was making this film a way to answer that?

I often think about what is the meaning of all this? When you go through life, you have moments of doubt about life and things and what it all means. If I was in a relationship for many years and then we broke up and my fiancée looked for another one, what would it be? It’s so ridiculous, all of it.

But there is also a brighter side: how precious time is and how you spend it, and indeed, who you spend it with and who you decide to spend it with. Because time is probably precious because it moves so fast. You kind of have to, try to capture what you can get or the moments with the people you love. And yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about time and you can see that together Goodland And in Love that stayswhere there is actually a focus on time, and on how it moves.

The opening sequence is really beautiful. You can establish this family by holding a photo of them on the table. It almost sounds like a sitcom, but the music isn’t sitcom music at all?

Yes, I thought a lot after I shot this picture, this picture of the roof coming off the old studio, and that was the first picture I shot for the movie.

Yes. And when I got that picture, I knew exactly what would happen next. This is often the case when I work. I often don’t know what’s happening unless I record sound or take a picture, then I interact with the picture and then I know what’s happening. It’s like you’re motivated by something you experience or film, and then you write the next scene or know what’s going to happen. And I think when I saw that picture of the ceiling, not while I was filming it, because I wasn’t in a good state then, but afterward, I knew exactly how the movie should start.

We should get to know each family member and have that warm feeling before things start to fall apart. But also, then she starts to discover that it’s actually a torn family, and they’re not together anymore. This is often the case when I make something, I know what I’m doing no I want the movie to be, but I don’t always know what I want it to be.

It’s fun and playful, but also sweet and honest.

But when does it become emotional? This is something I don’t like. I would just love it in a David Lynch movie or something like that. I love that in his movies, but I could never do it. So I tried to balance it in a different way, but it’s a fine line.

They’re your kids in this movie too, right? What are you like to guide your children?

It’s fun. But I think it’s okay because I have a lot of them, because they were in all my projects except my first film and my short films as well. So it’s very natural for me to continue collaborating with them and spending time with them. It’s not something I force them to do. I mean I pay them for their work, but I think they also love being part of our family or the filmmaker’s family because it’s a very close group of friends and we’ve been working on all the projects together.

The idea of ​​being a director and having to make so many decisions and at the same time, having your kids around, I’m sure it adds some fun nuances.

Yes. I mean, sometimes it’s chaos, but I think the number one thing is that we have enough time, and we’re not under pressure for time. There’s no assistant director saying, “Okay, we’ve got to move.” It’s never happened in my life. We just shoot until we get something we like and then we move on. What I like about our sets is that they are very calm and easy. There is no catering, no hierarchy, no chairs, and no screens. It’s very basic.

Love that stays In select theaters now.