THE FREE OFFICIAL GFF GUIDE

T  he Skinny is chatting with American director   Jeremy Saulnier in a crowded dining area of 

London’s Mayfair Hotel. His newest film, Green Room, is having its UK premiere later that night as part of the London Film Festival. It’s his follow-up to 2013’s critically acclaimed thriller Blue Ruin and the 

White Riot INTERVIEW: Josh Slater-Williams

comparatively underseen Murder Party, from 2007. The three films share actor Macon Blair (Blue Ruin’s hangdog protagonist) and acts of violence instigating considerable turmoil, but Green Room sees some more recognisable stars join Saulnier’s talisman on the cast list.

The leads include Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots and Alia Shawkat, as well as rising Brit stars Joe Cole and Callum Turner. The stand-out in terms of profile, though, is Patrick Stewart as Green Room’s antagonistic authority figure, the owner of a far-right club in a secluded part of the Pacific Northwest. Most of those younger actors play the members of a punk band hired to play the venue, only to become witnesses  

to a crime that subsequently sees them holed up  in the club’s green room, at the mercy of figures who want to eliminate all loose ends.

“I think it was certainly a nice shift for him to show a different side to his craft,” Saulnier says of Stewart. “I consider [his character] Darcy to be very practical. He’s never sinister in his intentions, he’s just brutally indifferent when it comes to his own interests. He suddenly loses his cool once in a while, but it’s through language or little tics. It’s not through a big monologue, but I think it’s more powerful. And Patrick definitely remarked on set that this is the quietest he’s ever wor- ked in his life. So that was fun.”

The content of Green Room has an element of 

THE CINESKINNYN0 3 | 23 – 25 FEBTHESKINNY.CO.UK / CINESKINNY

Jeremy Saulnier follows up revenge thriller Blue Ruin with Green Room, a nail-biting punks v Nazis siege movie. He muses on punk rock, genre labels and casting Patrick Stewart as a white supremacist

Tue 23 Feb, GFT, 8.45pm | Wed 24 Feb, 3.30pm

continues…

personal resonance for Saulnier, though it’s thankfully due to the film’s music elements rather than any experience with neo-Nazis terrorising him. “I was making movies ever since I was eight years old,” he says, “and I got introduced  to punk rock around the same time. I was into the DC hard- core scene for a while – very much an observer, never really considered myself an OG member of the hardcore scene,  but I was there. And all the while I was making movies with my friends. For school we’d convert any kind of book report or big project into some kind of film. And I always thought  I could meld the two worlds together. It took a long time for the opportunity to arise, but when it did I leapt at the chance.”

We inquire into any favourite punk movies Saulnier might have, and additionally any highlights when it comes to the siege genre: “Just cool vibe and aesthetic-wise, you have SubUrbia, Repo Man. I love Straw Dogs; as a reference, that was a big one. I actually had never seen Assault on Precinct 13.  I knew that if I’m making a siege movie, I shouldn’t watch that until after I write it. So I did finally watch that after I wrote the script, before I shot Green Room. I was aware of the similarities, but I didn’t want to borrow too much, so it was a treat when I finished writing the first draft and finally watched it. And that movie was great because it was such  a simple movie, and a good old-fashioned exploitation film. So it became an influence after the fact.”

A quality shared by John Carpenter’s siege classic and Green Room is their tightness and economic storytelling: so much is said visually through small details; every shot has a clear purpose. “It’s hard designing the script, but everything we shot was for a reason,” explains Saulnier. “The biggest thing in editing is where you emphasise things. We had so much coverage because of the nature of the shoot – between four and eight people in a room, the coverage is just so intense. And it’s all this physical action back and forth, so editorial was key, doing several passes to make it all seem as if it were spontaneous and immediate. It was shot over the course of 32 days and it’s supposed to be one crazy night. It’s funny how we shot on soundstages and really built it from scratch, but it seems like we went somewhere and shot it really fast; all that production value is wasted.”

If this interview seems a little vague regarding specifics of Green Room’s narrative elements, there’s a good reason. The film thrives on its unpredictable nature; the uncertainty of its character and story directions. Things don’t always go the way you might be expecting based on what’s been set up. One suspects it’s been a hard film to market. “In a perfect world,” Saulnier says, “the trailer would just have an abstract montage of imagery – just to get the tone across. The pure experience is watching this film thinking it’s one thing and then having it spiral very violently downward. You’re trapped in a room and you’re not getting out. Ideally, the only bare naked exposition you could have in a trailer should be the first act, but then you’ve gotta throw in some one-liners and some cool action montage…”

One thing the director is keen to emphasise regarding how people come to the film is that he’s happy with whatever genre labels they choose to thrust upon it: “People have called it a haunted house film, or a horror film, called it a crime thriller. And they’re all true. I have no problem [with it].

“ People have called it a haunted house film, a horror film, a crime thriller. And they’re all true” Jeremy Saulnier

“The reference as we shot it was: it’s a war movie. And that’s how I looked at it. It’s a war film where on one side of the door are professional soldiers, and on the other side of the door are clearly inept protagonists – total amateur night inside that room. I like hybrid genres. I like when there’s a discussion about what it is. Because that means it’s not that easily placed in a genre. So it’s a welcome discussion for me.”

TUE 23HIGHLIGHTS

Videogame EmptyThe Art School, 8pmWatching other people play video games is about as much fun as gastric flu – unless those people give a hilarious run- ning commentary. Burnistoun’s Rab Florence is your host, and his annual empty is now a GFF institution.

I Am BelfastGFT, 3.30pmThis bittersweet paean to his hometown is Mark Cousins’ best film yet – it’s also his most beautiful, with painterly visuals courtesy of master cinematog-rapher Christopher Doyle.

FrancofoniaCCA, 9pmRussian genius Aleksandr Sokurov has another night at the museum – this time the Louvre. It’s basically like one of those Ben Stiller movies, but with a history PhD.

REVIEWS

Half a century ago, Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut sat down together for a week to discuss the former’s career in its entirety. The result formed the basis of Truffaut’s monograph, which was intended to convince the reading public that The Master of Suspense was not just an entertainer, but an artist. Truffaut accomplished his mission and the docu- mentary Hitchcock/Truffaut is Kent Jones’ cinematic echo of the book, reigniting that original discourse from years in the future.

“The function of pure cinema, as we well know, is the placing of a few pieces of film together to create a single idea,” says Hitch in just one snippet of vast archival material. It’s interspersed with talking head interviews with filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson (ironically) explaining Hitchcock’s bril-liant preference to visuals over dialogue with evident enthusiasm and affection. The ‘placing of film’ is covered terrifi-cally, but the ideas remain regrettably out of focus. However, it doesn’t ham-string what is still a fascinating subject matter and an interesting companion to the original work. [Ben Nicholson]

Director: Kent Jones

Starring: Alfred Hitchcock, François

Truffaut, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher

Hitchcock/Truffaut

Thu 25 Feb, GFT, 3.45pm

Keep up-to-date with our daily online GFF coverage over at facebook.com/TheSkinnyMag, @theskinnymag and @skinnyfilm

Videogame Empty

“ Ideas remain regrettably out of focus”

The ClanGFT, 6pmThis Argentinian thriller centres on a seemingly average sub- urban family who just happen to kidnap then murder the country’s rich and elite. If that sounds a bit far-fetched, you’ll be pleased to know this is based on a true story.

The Surprise FilmGFT, 8.45pmThis event can be a lucky dip – last year’s was stinker The Voices – but you can’t beat the excitement of not having a clue what’s about to come on screen.

Men & ChickenCCA, 8.30pmThe programme suggests the tone is The Three Stooges by way of Franz Kafka. That’s us sold.

ONLINE REVIEWS

Cain’s Children

I Am Belfast

Green Room

Bang Gang

Head to theskinny.co.uk/cineskinny for more reviews, including...

This lively doc follows five Palestinian women as they vie to be crowned the fastest broad on the West Bank. By either luck or design, each has a very distinct style and attitude, as if they’ve been coo- ked up by Simon Cowell to be the region’s answer to the Spice Girls.

What makes Speed Sisters such a joy is that it’s both political and playful; social commentary unspools quietly in the background while the focus is the on- and off-track dramas. The tear gas

in the streets, roadblocks and lack of any space for them to drive have become daily inconveniences, so commonplace they’ve become humdrum. Palestine still has the power to shock them, however.

When the women venture on to a strip of waste ground too close to the border, an Israeli soldier shoots Betty, the most glamourous of the racers, with rubber bullets without warning. “Did you think because you’re blonde and pretty they wouldn’t shoot at you?” asks Maysoon, the most switched-on of the girls. The film may be light but it’s never lightweight. (Jamie Dunn)

Stephen Ringer’s debut feature lays out a kind of romantic realism similar in style to Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy – it skims off the most perfect level of real life, the moments when reality seems most movie-like.

Playing former teen idols Elle and Joy, AJ and Aly Michalka get to draw heavily on their own life experience, and the natural quality of their rapid-fire sibling chatter lends the film sweetness and charm.

At several moments the main plot is interrupted by flashes from grainy home movies. In other hands this could easily have come off as a hammy gimmick but here it becomes much more: when the sisters perform as their mother watches on and the screen rushes through scenes of them dancing through their childhood, we get what it is to have been with some- one for their entire life. Each new mo- ment is folded into a million others. It’s this feeling that the movie captures so perfectly: the glow that life takes on in the little moments that seem better than real. (Ross McIndoe)

Director: Stephen Ringer

Starring: Aly Michalka, AJ Michalka,

Mimi Rogers

Weepah Way for Now

Wed 24 Feb, CCA, 6.30pm

Thu 25 Feb, CCA, 1.30pm

Wed 24 Feb, GFT, 1.15pm

Director: Amber Fares

Speed Sisters

The Clan

Include #cineskinny in your tweets and we’ll include the best in The CineDaily, our daily online guide to the festival

“ Their natural quality lends the film sweetness and charm”

WED 24HIGHLIGHTS

“ The film may be light but it’s never lightweight”

Wild at HeartSt Luke’s, 6.30pmDavid Lynch takes a familiar ‘lovers on the lam’ story, then adds references to The Wizard of Oz and some batshit perfor-mances (Willem Dafoe even outdoes Nic Cage) for one of the greatest films of the 90s. Get down early for ‘Elvis’.

This is NowTramway, until Sun, 12-6pmSubtitled Film and Video After Punk (1978-85), this is a cele-bration of that moment in the early 80s when punk inspired a new generation of artists.

Couple in a HoleGFT, 6pmWe’re intrigued by this myste-rious portrait of a Scottish couple living feral in the French countryside. Why are they there? The weather’s not that bad, is it?

GFF Box Office

Order tickets from the box office at

www.glasgowfilm.org/festival

or call: 0141 332 6535

or visit: Glasgow Film Theatre

12 Rose Street, Glasgow, G3 6RB

info@glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk

Tales of the Unexpected INTERVIEW: Ben Nicholson

“It’s a miracle! A Catholic miracle! The Holy Trinity!”   exclaims Miguel Gomes when The Skinny ask him 

whether he thinks of his latest work – the triptych of absur- dist, docu-fantastical national portraits that comprise Arabian

Nights – as three films or one six-hour epic. “We thought it would be interesting to have the film divided like the book –  it’s so huge that normally it’s divided into volumes,” he says, “but it would be interesting if each one of them had their own soul. So, for me, it is the three. And I guess that each film is having a dialogue with the others, and this dialogue is really the film.”

His starting point was Scheherazade, but this is no straight- laced adaptation. Instead, those classic folktales provide inspiration for a fanciful state-of-the-nation appraisal. “I had this idea that to make a portrait of my country, Portugal, it was not possible to only show things as they are in reality,” explains Gomes. “They should be expanded and the way to do it was with fiction. And I also thought that things were going very wild in Portuguese society – not for good reasons, unfortunately – but they were getting wild and we started  to have stories – very strange, very surreal – and I thought this was something that could work with the spirit of fiction that appears in Arabian Nights.”

Gomes first came across the book as an impressionable 12-year-old and, although he never finished reading it (“which is a little bit strange for someone that makes a film with the same title!”), he was enamored with its labyrinthine structure. “I found out that it was possible to start a story and then, in the middle of that story, find that there were other stories 

coming up and interrupting it. We could stop the previous story to hear this new story and, in this new story, there would also be another story. So I was completely amazed by the possibilities of storytelling – very Baroque of course – that appeared in that book. For me it was like discovering the Holy Grail.”

This rambling, nebulous narrative approach then became all the more intrinsic during the filming. “There was some- thing very annoying during the making of the film because our government, and also people from European institutions that were here, kept saying one sentence all the time: ‘We have to do it this way, because there is not another way.’” He’s referring, of course, to the European Union’s austere approach to the financial meltdown bubbling across much of Europe. “And hell, I’m not a politician – gladly! – I’m only  a filmmaker. But as a filmmaker I know it’s possible to make cinema in very different ways. I know also it’s possible to tell stories in different ways. So why the hell in economics and politics is there only one way? Sounds to me like bullshit.”

As a result Gomes set out to make a film that embraced different modalities of storytelling jostling up against one another: “Different kinds of cinema and ways of looking at reality. For instance, at the beginning, there’s this kind of paranoid, biblical, ecological plague; this almost slapstick comedy about a coward film director; and a social documen-tary – direct kind of cinema – about the shipyard workers. They mix together and they start to create this kind of chaos.”

For Gomes, this is the medium’s essence: “Cinema, for me, is a very organic process, y’know? It’s not so rational. Of course, you cannot just be dumb about it – you have to think a bit – but most of the time it’s really instinct. I think what is often neglected by people who talk about cinema is pleasure, which is something that I also got from Arabian Nights the book; it’s a book about pleasure.”

Fantasy and reality blend in Miguel Gomes’s epic three-part remix of Scheherazade’s Arabian Nights folktales. We gather round the campfire with the Portuguese filmmaker

Include #cineskinny in your tweets and we’ll include the best in The CineDaily, our daily online guide to the festival

Vol 1: 22/23 Feb, GFT, 6.15pm/12.50pm | Vol 2: 24/25 Feb, GFT, 5.45pm/1pm | Vol 3: 25/26 Feb, GFT, 5.50pm/3.15pm

Wild at Heart

THU 25HIGHLIGHTS

Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival:

Editor-in-Chief Rosamund West

Editor Jamie Dunn

Subeditor Will Fitzpatrick

Lead Designer Sigrid Schmeisser

Picture Editor Sarah Donley

Digital Editor Peter Simpson

Comm. Director Nicola Taylor

Sales George Sully

Claire Collins

Illustration Elena Boils

“ Each film is having a dialogue with the others, and this dialogue is the film” Miguel Gomes