Charting a yr within the lifetime of a household because the mother and father separate, Hlynur Pálmason’s “The Love That Stays” depicts the dissolution of a wedding with equal elements humor and poignancy, patiently and playfully assessing the evolving relationships between this troubled couple, their three kids, and their sheepdog towards the backdrop of beautiful Icelandic landscapes.
As visible artist Anna, performed by Saga Garðarsdóttir, struggles to reclaim a way of that means in her creative course of and household life after splitting up with fisherman Magnús (Sverrir Guðnason), Pálmason’s home drama parallels this artist’s journey along with her familial issues via a collection of finely noticed, elegantly composed, and sometimes surrealistic vignettes.
Intimate and small-scale in comparison with “Godland,” his psychological epic a few Nineteenth-century Danish priest who travels the forbidding Icelandic panorama to construct a church, Pálmason’s fourth characteristic (which Janus Movies will launch in U.S. theaters Jan. 30) reveals sentiments each unusual and acquainted inside mundane actions and interludes, toying with wealthy themes of time, reminiscence, and humanity’s fleeting existence inside emotionless pure landscapes.
Like his earlier movies, Pálmason’s newest was made slowly and intuitively, over various years, with out a conventional script improvement course of; the movie’s opening scene—depicting the demolition of a constructing, its roof being brusquely lifted off—was shot again in 2017, earlier than he made “Godland,” and the method of constructing the remainder concerned taking narrative threads that he shot individually in later years and weaving them collectively right into a extra cohesive story.
Pálmason, who began his profession in visible arts earlier than transitioning to filmmaking, lives and works between Iceland and Denmark together with his spouse and three kids. Although they’ve appeared in most of his movies, Pálmason’s kids have a lot bigger roles in “The Love That Stays,” taking part in the three siblings who cope with their mother and father splitting up, at the same time as they amuse themselves by developing a knight-like determine and firing arrows at it. (Janus can also be set to launch “Joan of Arc,” a 62-minute movie conceived and produced in parallel with “The Love That Stays” that follows this narrative thread.)
“The Love That Stays” had its world premiere within the Cannes Premiere part of the 2025 Cannes Movie Pageant, the place its lead animal actor—Pálmason’s Icelandic sheepdog, Panda—additionally received the Palm Canine award for greatest canine efficiency of the pageant. Shortly thereafter, Janus Movies acquired all North American rights to “The Love That Stays,” persevering with their collaboration with Pálmason after “Godland.”
That earlier movie premiered in Un Sure Regard at Cannes and received varied pageant awards (together with the Chicago Worldwide Movie Pageant’s Gold Hugo for greatest characteristic movie), en path to being shortlisted as Iceland’s submission for greatest worldwide characteristic at that yr’s Oscars, although it was not finally nominated. “The Love That Stays” was additionally chosen because the Icelandic entry for greatest worldwide characteristic at this yr’s Oscars, although it didn’t make the shortlist.
This previous July, Pálmason traveled to the Czech Republic to attend the Karlovy Fluctuate Worldwide Movie Pageant, the place “The Love That Stays” was screened inside its Horizons part. Hours after the movie’s native premiere there, Pálmason and editor Julius Krebs Damsbo sat down to debate their long-standing collaboration, time as a cinematic medium, and being formed by one’s environment.
This interview, performed on the 59th Karlovy Fluctuate Worldwide Movie Pageant, has been edited and condensed.
Your movies are all deeply targeted on exploring time, from the lengthy improvement intervals concerned with tasks like “Godland” and “The Love That Stays” to the intensive time-lapses you characteristic to point out time’s passage, each within the panorama and within the lives of your characters. Anna, performed by Saga Garðarsdóttir, is herself an artist whose work is time-based. When did time grow to be such a throughline in your exploration of movie as a medium?
Hlynur Pálmason: After we had been collectively at school, and once we did our first movie collectively, we had been exploring the medium and looking for our voice, making an attempt to determine what stimulates us in making movies. And with movie, the medium is time—you’ve got a sure period of time to seize a picture, or to permit a person or an viewers to expertise a sure feeling in response to it. We have now realized that, slowly, and I turned obsessive about spending time at a selected place, filming it over the seasons, and utilizing that as a solution to spend time with a movie I used to be making.
After we made “A White, White Day,” the opening of the movie was shot over a two-year interval, and all through that course of, I used to be additionally writing the movie. Generally, for those who spend time with one thing, you may dig deeper into that topic. I used to be simply looking for a solution to go deeper, and I discover that I do if I spend time with one thing.
That follow has developed, for me. With “The Love That Stays,” I had this sturdy feeling that point may be very treasured: how we spend it with our kids, with the individuals we love, and with our work. Determining how you can specific that on movie was how I used to be working with time on this movie.
In some ways, you’re making an attempt to create recollections, however how will you specific that on movie?
Julius, you’ve labored with Hlynur for over a decade, and your shared methodology of working—filming, writing, and rewriting materials, letting story and kind evolve—should make for an interesting editorial course of. What’s the method of modifying a movie made up of footage from such a large span of time? Is the modifying course of accomplished abruptly, or is it steady throughout all these years?
Julius Krebs Damsbo: It’s largely on the finish, however it additionally relies upon. Not less than whereas making “Godland,” we had been modifying a characteristic movie and a brief movie concurrently. Throughout a break whereas modifying “Godland,” we edited a brief movie referred to as “Nest,” however we had been additionally not accomplished capturing “Nest,” so on the similar time, we did our final shoot for “Nest.”
We’ve had quite a lot of time with totally different materials from totally different movies, and this was a present. As soon as we had been accomplished modifying “Godland,” we premiered “Nest” the subsequent week as a present to ourselves and a solution to rejoice by watching one thing we had made immediately. Whereas we’re right here with “The Love That Stays,” we’ve additionally been modifying one other movie on the similar time, referred to as “Joan of Arc.” We all the time wish to lose ourselves within the work, as a result of we’ve got spent a very long time working collectively, and we all the time get pleasure from pushing ourselves.
HP: It’s about, “How do you wish to spend your time? How do you wish to work?” After I moved again to my hometown, I had this sturdy feeling that I needed to have extra of a studio life, like an artist, the place you shoot extra typically than each three years, the place you shoot each week. We determined early on to purchase a digicam and lenses.
Mainly, we’re engaged on a few tasks and capturing them concurrently, alternating between the scenes for every. Over the course of the yr, it’s not only one interval of capturing; this implies you’ve got extra time with every mission and might go from one to the opposite. It’s a physique of labor, not solely a singular work. It’s exhausting financially, so it doesn’t work out each time, however we attempt to work that manner.
With regard to your studio life, and with filming chronologically, the movies you’ve made are set towards this majestic panorama of Iceland. I’m interested in your method to panorama, and the way you are feeling Icelandic historical past and tradition have knowledgeable the movies that you just’ve made—both by way of the kinds of tales you’ve chosen to inform, or the best way these photographs come to you. Your movies really feel loosely structured, virtually improvisational, but so immaculately shot and exactly composed.
HP: That’s what we’re all the time going towards. We’re making an attempt to create one thing that feels very alive and intuitive. Whether or not it’s a written scene or a really planned-out scene, it has to really feel virtually prefer it’s occurring. There must be a pure circulation in the best way I communicate, in the best way somebody speaks over me whereas I’m talking. We had been born in a sure place, right into a sure panorama, and that does shade the best way you’re as a human being. It could be bizarre if I had been born the place I used to be born, then began making movies like any person who grew up in New York.
You might be formed by your environment, whether or not by panorama or cityscape. I’ve been making an attempt to determine how you can inform tales that I do know, as a result of there are extraordinarily attention-grabbing topics on the planet that also really feel like they’re very removed from me. I’m studying a e-book proper now, Bury My Coronary heart at Wounded Knee, that’s extraordinarily stunning however so unhappy, so horrible. I discover this complete world so attention-grabbing, however I don’t really feel like I’ve a say, proper? These aren’t my roots, and there are different individuals to inform these tales.
Whenever you’re working at house in your individual environment, I really feel like, “That is my house. That is what I can write about. That is what I can inform.” It’s very a lot about listening and watching, observing and being enthusiastic about life, being within the individuals round you and the issues which might be occurring, from mundane occurrences like somebody selecting mushrooms.
Generally it feels mundane, however an important issues in life are those closest to us. What can we eat? Who can we spend time with, and the way can we create recollections with our kids? What’s our relationship with our siblings or our father? These are essentially the most essential particulars; they’re small, however they matter essentially the most. We generally discover ourselves working solely on the larger concepts, on politics, however I wish to write about what I do know and what’s round me.
You’ve famous the American photographer Sally Mann as an influence, who additionally labored near house, creating portraiture of individuals in her rapid neighborhood. “The Love That Stays” is a household portrait, and a really private one, given the casting of your three kids. How does bringing your individual private life into a movie so immediately contribute to the creative course of?
HP: I don’t imagine “The Love That Stays” may have been my debut characteristic, as a result of I wanted to be very snug with the those that I work with. That takes time. Now that we’ve been working collectively on quite a lot of movies, it’s a really tight household, so it’s very straightforward for me to ask my kids into that. You grow to be extra open, extra daring, and prepared to take an opportunity and do one thing very private. But it surely’s not a non-public movie. I don’t really feel prefer it’s me being depicted, although it’s coming from a imaginative and prescient of mine.
JKD: Hlynur, you additionally come from a household that stays collectively, chooses one another, and stays a core household. That’s what you come from. I come from households that break up up. I come from that, with what’s occurring in “The Love That Stays.” What the movie says and what it doesn’t say resonate with me very a lot. Some sentiments stated or left unsaid within the movie are ones I dwell by, and others I select to not dwell by. For me, there’s such disappointment in how persons are leaving one another, however I additionally come from my mother and father leaving one another as a result of they hated one another, so I didn’t see that form of love, the type that’s within the movie. I truly invited each my mother and father to the Cannes premiere. They got here collectively, and so they had been very candy to one another, particularly after seeing the movie. [laughs]
The movie reveals various kinds of vocation—not solely Anna in her artwork follow, the sculpture and canvas that she creates, but in addition Magnús on the fishing boat, laboring to offer for the household in a special sense.
HP: Whenever you’re creating and dealing on one thing, you’re making an attempt to make the totally different parts join, by some means. Even when not all the time in complete, you’re discovering connections. What sort of artist is Anna? How can the work she’s doing join with the movie? How can the temperament of the movie match inside her work? How can his work life be a distinction to that? How can or not it’s thrilling to go from land to sea? What’s the dialogue between the pictures? That is essential, I believe. It’s essential that these parts work collectively and speak to one another, and that there’s dialogue.
After I was at school in Denmark, I studied for 4 years on the movie faculty. Throughout that interval, I used to be employed throughout the summers to {photograph} the boats from my hometown. I come from a fishing village, and I used to be employed to {photograph} how they fish, as a result of the best way they fish is altering very quick in these trendy instances. I used to be alleged to go on each boat and doc the entire course of; it was extraordinarily thrilling for me, however I received seasick. Nonetheless, I actually loved the method, and I knew that, once I was spending time there, it will be attention-grabbing to make use of sooner or later. The method of taking a look at this line of labor was very attention-grabbing.
After I began writing “The Love That Stays,” I had a really sturdy feeling that he was working from sea, and he or she was working from land. Due to my expertise with these years of fishing, and with my spouse’s father being a fisherman, I used to be thrown into that very naturally. It turned a really pure resolution, not even a choice—it was virtually as if Magnús determined to be a fisherman earlier than I did. It’s virtually such as you’re simply doing what the movie desires, and also you’re not even making issues up, as a result of it’s already there.
JKD: We’re drawn to contrasts on a regular basis. It’s the comedy and the drama, the absurd and the mundane, the ocean and the earth, the creative world and the guide labor of pulling up a rope, or slicing a fish in two to generate profits, versus making an attempt to make artwork however not making any cash. If he weren’t a fisherman, the entire movie would collapse for us. If she had been an artist, and he was her supervisor, it will not work in any respect.
This begins as Anna’s movie however ends with Magnús, as he faces a way of loneliness and impotence that’s without delay heartbreaking, unusual, and really humorous. How did you arrive on the movie’s last vacation spot?
HP: After I’m engaged on a movie, it’s not solely a story that I’m working from; it’s additionally a construction and a kind. But it surely’s not sufficient simply to have a structural kind. There are such a lot of narratives on the market which might be attention-grabbing, but when there’s not a kind that fits it, stimulates it, and lifts it, I wouldn’t discover it attention-grabbing to work with. Switching from one character to the opposite is a structural type of a story that I discovered very attention-grabbing, however there’s nonetheless an emotional core to it. Generally, you don’t know what you’ve got till you are taking it away. You don’t actually know you’ve got love till you lose it. I needed to really feel that in the long run, not solely to see it or inform it narratively, however I needed to really feel it. As a filmmaker, I used to be striving to create that feeling.
JKD: There needed to be openness to it, to the ending. In any other case, you may’t fathom it, and you’ll’t perceive it. I get one thing out of it, and also you get one thing very totally different. Hopefully, that’s the expertise, that folks make their very own that means, as a result of there’s area to place your self into this story.
“The Love That Stays” will probably be launched Jan. 30 within the U.S. by Janus Movies.
