play

INTERVISTA

What really strikes me about your movie is the simultaneousness of its slow pace and its suspense. By what means did you achieve that?

I have worked with real-time shorts  for quite a while. We had planned the scenes thoroughly and we worked on them for a very long time. I think that I try to use small details with great dynamics and of course the right editing makes the film dynamic even though it has that slow pace: You’re inside of a certain rhythm and suddenly I try to wake up the audience with a high sound or something like that. But above all, the suspense is based on the question of how the story will end.

I think that each scene has a special and mostly complex choreography, but at the same time your protagonists were no professional actors. How did you work with them?

I have done scenes like these many times before, but this time it was really hard since there were eight kids between 12 and 14. You have to make them focus because if anyone of them loses focus, you cannot use the take. The scene in which there is one robber and one victim left in the tram, is one of the hardest scenes in the film. We were working on that scene for three days. When we started to shoot I said, “At day three I want all of us to be on the highest level, I want all of us to have the most intense feeling.” I really like to work that way, starting at a slow pace, pointing towards a goal and building up the tension. It was like playing a  football game and I also think that the actors had the feeling of having won that game because they were cheering and hugging each other after a successful take.

Did you improvise a lot or stick to your script?

Scenes like the dialogue with the Rastafari guy are scripted. but when the kids are moving from one point to the other in a scene, they are free to do it their own way. You mustn’t stick to your script too much on set. I always have to reconsider what I have written when I’m on set and I have to change something almost every time.

Why did shoot your movie almost in real-time?

I made a short film called “Incident by a bank”. It was a failed bank robbery that I witnessed myself. There were so many absurd details about this incident. What I was struck by watching it, was that there was no dramatic feeling at all although guns were firing. There was a tourist coming out of the building who had an ice-cream in his hand. I wanted to go closer and have a look, because I wanted to film the robbery with my cellphone. I  think that the real-time aspect forces the audience to chose their own most dramatic point.

Why did you choose the surveillance-camera-style as an aesthetic concept for both “Incident by a bank” and “Play”?

One of my goals was to activate the audience. I wanted to create something new, where the audience is being confronted with their own feelings. For me, existence looks that complex and I wanted to give the audience a hard time telling what’s right or wrong.

What is your approach to cinema as a director and which director was your biggest influence

I’m observing, but also commenting on reality. I like seeing things from different perspectives and moving away from the traditional anglo-saxon dramaturgy. I like Roy Andersson for his approach to his work. For him, a holocaust scene is just as important as a very banal and trivial scene. He takes existence very seriously but also sees it in a humorous way. He shows that seriousness and humour are no opposites.

I also have a feeling that you think a lot about group dynamics and social images. Did you observe any peculiar group situation at the Venice Film Festival?

There’s a deleted scene which was planned to be part of my second feature “Involuntary” showing something I experienced at a festival screening. It’s the end of a movie premiere and you can see that the cinema is crowded with well-dressed people. They start to applaud and stand up,

but there are some people who don’t want to be part of the standing ovation - they didn’t like the film, they actually found it quite crappy. Nevertheless, they stand up because all the others are doing it. As a matter of fact, I went to see a film last night and  I really hated it, but the other people also kind of forced me into the standing ovation.

What is the meaning of the constant presence of the trains in your movie?

Well, I like the idea of the audience sitting in the first class cabin, meaning we  are not directly affected by the consequence of the happenings, we don’t have to do anything about it. This is an ironic commentary on the film’s main conflict, that there actually is a lower class in society and we are watching it from our first class seats. 

What was the best advice that was ever given to you?

Well I think it was actually an experience I made myself. I was filming on a bridge for my short film “Autobiographical Scene Number 6882” and we built a big tower with a grip arm  for our camera there which took us half a day to put up. When I saw the image for the first time, I realized that I would never use that shot. I was really troubled and didn’t dare to tell that I made a mistake. I learned that I must be able to reconsider and be able to confess my mistakes as a director. You can still be a strong director even though you sometimes make wrong decisions.

When I went to film school I was taught that directors shall never show insecurities and always be sure of what to do. But I believe this is just make-believe.

04:09:2011