Our home is normally our most sacred space, and our family members are typically the people whom we cherish the most. Few people can fathom the anguish and the pain of having to protect both of those, thereby endangering your own life. Now Belgian director Philippe van Leeuw has placed cinema-goes in such situation.
For 85 minutes you will have to wear the shoes of Oum Yazan (in a rivetting performance delivered by the Palestinian actress and film director Hiam Abbass), as she does everything within reach in order to protect her family inside her flat in Damascus, as the Syrian War is just beginning to loom. You will be locked with Oum and seven other people in the relative safety of her middle-class dwelling, while a cannonade of bombs and machine gun fire explodes outside.
It’s very easy to relate to the characters in Insyriated because they are very real. This is the type of film that everyone who opposes to their country taking in refugees should see. Oum, her three children, her daughter’s boyfriend, her father-in-law, her neighbour and her baby (whom she’s also harbouring in her makeshift fortress) are ordinary people, just like you and me. They have films posters on their wall, vases with flowers in their lounge and they sit around the table for dinner. They love each other, and they are capable of compassion and solidarity. They are deeply human, unlike the snipers and the rapists outside who have seemingly shed their own humanity is the name of war.
In Insyriated, it’s the women who have to bear the brunt of violence and stay firm and in control at the face of adversity. Oum and her neighbour Halima (Diamand Abou Abboud) have to make enormous sacrifices in the name of others. They are in charge of the young and the elderly, and they must not allow their weaknesses to show. They have to make the most difficult decisions, and they know that the wrong movement could lead to instant tragedy. They are not weak and vulnerable human being. Quite the opposite: these females are the real warriors, even if they never take arms.
Urgent in its simplicity, the effective Insyriated will haunt you for some time. It’s a painful reminder that tragedy can strike at anytime, and that there is no such thing as a safe home. It’s also a call for action: every country should open their doors to Oum, Halima and their families.
The director Philippe van Leeuw attended the premiere screening at the Berlinale and explained that the film takes place at a time when the world was paying attention to the war Lybia and dismissing the situation in Syria as unimportant. He expressed gratitude to the Germans for “welcoming” Syrian refugees, while reproaching other countries for not doing the same.
Insyriated showed at the Panorama Section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2017, when this piece was originally written. The film is out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 8th.
Tasking a coloniser with organising the independence of its colony is the equivalent to assigning Josef Fritzl with the social reintegration of his kids. The outcome is inevitably disastrous, yet the captor will never cease to believe that his victims are to blame. The British-born film director of Punjabi Sikh Kenyan Asian origin Gurinder Chadha opens her film with a quote from Walter Benjamin: “history is written by the victors”, gently reminding British viewers that they must rewrite they history in order to acknowledge the gargantuan atrocities of the past.
The importance of Viceroy’s House as a historical register cannot overstated. It effectively busts the myth that the Partition of India was necessary in order to prevent a bloodshed, instead revealing that it was established as convenient tool for hegemonic and oil interests in the Middle East. It would be much easier to exert control over a small and conservative Pakistan than over a socialist-leaning India, the movie reveals.
The last Viceroy of India Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville) is constructed as a dignified man who cares for the people of India, while the British establishment is presented as far more devious. Churchill describes Gandhi as a “half-naked fakir” and Indians as “primitive”, conveniently blaming them for their own woes and dodging all sorts of responsibility for the bloody consequences of independence and Partition.
Films dealing with the Partition are few and far between, and most British people lack the knowledge of what happened back then. In a recent interview with DMovies, Ken Loach said: “The British Empire was founded on land conquests, enslaving people, transporting them to other countries, stealing people’s natural resources, exploitation, brutality, concentration camps. We do need to tell the truth about that”. This is exactly what Chadha does.
The movie reveals the Partition of India was the largest forced displacement of people in the history of mankind, with 14 million being moved across the newly formed Pakistan and India in a matter of weeks. More than a million people died on the journey, where cholera and other diseases were widespread. And it wasn’t just people that were divided, everything had to be allocated on a 5-1 proportion (Pakistan took 20%, while India kept the remaining 80%). The absurdity of the situation is illustrated when an encyclopaedia collection has to be split, and it must be decided whether Pakistan should keep the “A-E” or the “S-Z” part.
Viceroy’s House is a very big achievement from a historical perspective, but sadly not from a cinematic and aesthetic one. The palaces and the costumes are impeccable, but strangely so is poverty. The slums are extremely clean, and penury and disease is represented with smudge of coal on the face and the arms. There is also a romance in the film, but it’s never clear whether that’s primary or secondary. There are plenty of artificial tears, but very little chemistry between the two actors.
The extremely positive portrayal of Lord Mountbatten also comes across as a little strange. It is widely known that the Viceroy hurried the Partition so that he could return to his senior navy courses, yet here he is presented in the film as someone who was “used” by the British government. And while Churchill is denounced, Clement Attlee’s role in the tragic events is almost entirely neglected.
The world premiere of Viceroy’s House took place in Berlin, when this piece was originally written in 2016. The Partition’s 70th anniversary toook place on August 15th, 2017. On BritBox on Thursday, May 12th (2022). On Netflix on Wednesday, July 6th (2022).
Subtle sounds, static shots and smooth camera moves, this is what you will experience during the 80 minutes of this delightfully well-crafted and enjoyable movie. There are plenty of meditative sounds, humming and strangely quiet highways providing this your journey an etherial and borderline surreal touch. Think Šarūnas Bartas meets early Werner Herzog and you are partway there.
Alex (Jonny Mars, who’s also the film producer) is the centrepiece of this psychological thriller. He’s a “mentally unstable drifter” who turns to an online personality for emotional advice and support. He also makes videos, and routinely has sexual encounters with closeted gay men he meets online. One day he returns to rural Texas in order to reconcile with his mother, but her alcohol addiction coupled with a dangerous man from the past prevent his plans from succeeding.
The coldness and absurdity of the “psychosexuals encounters” is such that the film is deliciously beguiling. Mathews deftly blends reality, allegory, imagination and internet images, and so it isn’t always possible to determine exactly what’s happening. This is a subtle reminder that over reliance on the internet can lead to confusion, particularly if you are psychologically vulnerable. The multitude of media that we have nowadays – conspicuous computers, phone and our brains – are all vulnerable to noise and distortions.
This interesting movie pays great attention to every frame, and a soundtrack of country music, rap and other rhythms neatly punctuates this unusual trip into a very twisted mind. It’s a very artistic piece; it’s surprising it made it to the Panorama Section of the Berlinale, more used to mainstream movies. The aesthetics of the film would be a better fit for the Forum selection, which picks more audacious pieces. In other words, you will probably enjoy watching this film, but it will neither grip you by the neck or throw you against the wall!
The biggest problem with Discreet is that the plot gets a little diluted in the sensory experience and at times it’s difficult to follow. As much as I enjoyed the movie, I must confess that I had to read the film synopsis before writing this review.
Discreet showed at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival (in 2017), when this piece was originally written. It’s available for digital streaming on all major VoD platforms in August 2018
A large city such as Johannesburg can be threatening and overwhelming not just for foreigners, but also for South African people coming from smaller and more remote places. The film begins on a train journey from the coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal to the largest city in the country. Three strangers are blithely unaware that their destinies will promptly weave into a dangerous fabric, and their mundane existence will morph into a far more eventful predicament.
The first character or this urban journey triptych is Zanele (Zimkhitha Nyoka), who’s taking a little girl to meet up with her mother. The second is Nkulu (Sibusiso Msimang), who has been tasked with bringing his father’s corpse back to his hometown for a burial close to his family. Thirdly, Nhlanhla (Sihle Xaba) moves to the big city in the hope to quickly amass large sums of money. Their plans almost immediately go awry, and they are caught up in a net of corruption, violence and criminality. The people who they meet seem to lack kindness and solidarity, and the trio too begins to change and adapt surprisingly fast.
Vaya has some shocking twists, absurd in their ruthlessness. Even the most vicious acts become trivial, in a city which has banalised greed, corruption and violence. You will hear about the most ludicrous reason ever for not being able to retrieve your father’s corpse for a funeral, and will see a hitman react to his job in the most unexpected way. In a nutshell, you will witness three naive souls descend into urban subversion. But will they get out of it? Will they embrace the changes?
The most spectacular element of Vaya is its cinematography. Smooth yet striking aerial shots of Johannesburg punctuate the narrative, reminding viewers of the grey and sterile environment in which the action takes place. Images of a landfill at the end of the movie deserve special mention. The photography of the actors is also very convincing, successfully capturing warm and vivid black skin plus profound and expressive dark eyes.
Vaya has its heart at the right place, and an interesting script, too. The problem is that the actors are not strong enough to support the convoluted narrative. It attempts to be some sort of South African gangster movie, with plenty of rap music, but it’s unlikely to have a strong appeal outside the continent. Or perhaps it will, at least at festivals. The South African gangster flick U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (Mark Dornford-May) snatched the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival 12 years ago. Which raises a recurring question: are films from countries such as South Africa and Brazil doomed to depict violence in order to be successful abroad?
Vaya showed at the 67th International Berlin Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It premieres in the UK during at the Cambridge Film Festival, in October.
Austria is a conservative and old-fashioned nation, and the middle-aged critic Georg (played by the director Josef Hader) is no exception. He likes opera and classic music, and he dismisses rock’n roll and the likes of the White Stripes. He’s a sharp and confident writer, respected and admired by some of the young journalists. Most people address address him with the ultra-formal “Herr Doktor”, in a country where many like to boast status and qualifications.
One sunny day, Georg is made redundant. His crude boss explains to him that his wage is far more expensive than others, and that he was left with no other choice. Georg is devastated and unable to share the news with his younger wife, a therapist whose most important mission in life is to have a baby. He spends his days in bleak fairgrounds and parks, and he concentrates his energies on taking revenge on the man who ruined his life. He begins by scratching his car, but he soon invades and vandalises his house, as his rat rage continue to brew and to escalate.
Don’t expect a raw and disturbing tale à la Michael Haneke or Ulrich Seidl. Wild Mouse is not The Piano Teacher, neither in terms of tone nor in terms of genius. Josef Hader’s directorial debut is a light-hearted comedy with some amusing moments. The novice filmmaker is also an actor and a cabaret artist, which might explain the dark and esoteric humour with a pinch of screwball. You will laugh at his ludicrous attempts and his utter failure to exact revenge efficiently, and the disastrous consequences of his actions, but this is not a film that will move you profoundly.
Wild Mouse is showing right now in the official competition of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, and it’s not a favourite to snatch the event’s top prize. DMovies is following the event in loco right now – just click here for more information.
The 1960s were a decade of intense changes in the world, and the year of 1968 encapsulates both the hope and the deception of the young people seeking change under the guidance of Marx and Mao. In his latest documentary, the Braziloian filmmaker João Moreira Salles chose to depict three countries that were experiencing tremendous changes then: France, his homeland Brazil and the now defunct Czechoslovakia.
The films is a collage of footage and images from the 1960s with reflections and commentary made in Portuguese by the director himself. France saw the May 1968 student uprising, while Czechoslovakia experienced the Prague Spring (which attempted to lessen the stranglehold the Soviet Union had on the nation’s affairs) and Brazilians resisted the country’s military dictatorship.
Salles does a detailed semiotic reading of various events, and delivers his very own interpretation of the attempted revolution and its consequences. Three single deaths came to epitomise the three movements: Edson Luís in Brazil, Jan Palach in Czechoslovakia and Gilles Tautin in France. The three countries mourned and protested their respective tragedies. The director also blended footage from his mother’s visit to China around the same time, as well as pictures from his childhood in Brazil. Maybe he wanted to contrast the tautness of revolutionary straugglt against his family’s bourgeois lifestyle (his father was a banker, a government minister and an embassador, which is not revealed in the movie).
In the Intense Now is a lyrical piece with a somber tone. Salles’s voice is stern and laborious, and the second half of the movie feels like an eulogy to a bygone revolution, sepulchred by Charles de Gaulle, the Soviets and the dictatorship in Brazil. Extracts from various French films are used in the 127-minute-long film, and special attention is given to the Mourir à 30 Ans (Roumain Goupil, 1982) – a sad tribute to the 1968 revolutionaries who committed suicide at the age of just 30. It feels like Salles has become pessimistic about the prospect of the change. Or perhaps he just think the Marxist/Maoist revolution is now obsolete. One question remains moot: is the intense desire for transformation that that these three countries saw five decades ago replicable in the present?
In the Intense Now is showing this week in the Panorama section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, which DMovies is covering live right now – Click here for more information about the event. The film is dedicated to the Brazilian emblematic documentarist Eduardo Coutinho, who was murdered by his own son just three years ago, and with whom Salles had often collaborated. He explained before the film screening that the project was largely organic, and that no decisions being made before they began making the movie – in the same style of the late filmmaker Coutinho.
How do you capture and fossilise the most innate elements of the human being onto a portrait? Swiss-Italian painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti (played by Geoffrey Rush) attempts to rescue the essence of American art critic and biographer James Lord (the heartthrob Armie Hammer), but he is never satisfied with the outcome, to the despair of his patient subject.
What was originally intended to last two to three hours ends up lasting for weeks, and James suddenly realises it may never come to an end. He’s forced to change his flight back to New York several times in order to pose for an artist who strives for perfection while also recognising that such accomplishment is impossible. As a result, both artist and subject are caught up in a painful and perpetual artistic cycle.
Rush delivers a vibrant performance as the neurotic, and self-deprecating artist. He describes the dandy and polite American as a “brute” and a “degenerate”, and hazards a guess that he will end up either in prison or in an asylum. These hidden qualities – which noone else but the artist sees – are precisely the elements he wants to show in his painting, and he becomes increasingly frustrated at his inability to achieve this. He destroys painting after painting and starts afresh as many times as you can imagine. He will work almost invariably with a cigarette attached to his mouth, while hurling “fuck” and “putain” several times. James is in for a rough and yet entertaining ride.
The cultural shock between Americans and Europeans is also a centrepiece of the movie, in a way very similar to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003). Giacometti has a wife and a stable affair with a prostitute. His wife also has a lover, and the polygamy seems extremely natural to them and yet very awkward to the eyes of the American visitor.
The movie, which takes place in Paris, recreates a very specific period of Giacometti’s life, seen from the eyes or James Lord – it was based on the latter’s biography ‘A Giacometti Potrait’. It will not give you any insight into the artist’s history. It’s a delightful, gentle and warm piece with elements of comedy, supported by a couple of jolly French chansons. It’s likely to please art lovers or anyone fascinated by the incongruities, paradoxes and impossibilities of the artistic creative process.
Final Portrait was presented at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It is out in cinemas across the UK on August 18th.
Chavela Vargas was no ordinary singer, no ordinary woman and no ordinary human being. The “llorona” (Spanish for someone who cries a lot) had no crystal-clear and sweet voice, but rather a cannon-like lament that shattered hearts and quickly moistened even the coldest and most hardened eyes. The doc Chavela, which explores the singer’s life from her birth in Costa Rica to her rise in her chosen homeland Mexico and much beloved Spain, is certain to bring tears to your eyes.
Chavela’s explosive and passionate music was deeply rooted in her fiery and assertive temperament and unflinching desire to live. She loved women as intensively as she could, and she was entirely unapologetic of the homosexuality. Her relations were profound and yet dysfunctional (she could become violent), and she counts Frida Kahlo and the wives of many important politicians amongst those whom she loved.
Her abrasive approach to sexuality made she her an icon and inspiration to lesbians in Mexico and elsewhere. She insisted in wearing masculine clothes and behaving manly at a time when homosexuality was frowned upon, and the word “lesbian” was pejorative. She was often described as a “macha”, the “feminine” of macho. She joked that she looked like a transvestite when she was dressed up in female attire. At old age she spoke frankly about her sexual experiences and how she had to avoid the l-word at young age, while still fully exercising her sexuality.
The film blends historical footage, numerous interviews with Chavela herself and statements by her surviving lovers and close friends such as the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar and the singer Miguel Bosé. It reveals the most difficult moments of her life, as she struggled with alcoholism and refrained from singing for 12 years. She gave up alcohol and resumed singing at old age, performing extensively in Spain and finally at the Bellas Arts Theatre in Mexico City. She dreamt of dying on stage while singing. Instead she died peacefully in 2012 at the age of 93 in Mexico after having lived life to the fullest, without regrets.
Chavela showed at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It’s remarkable that the doc premiered at the birthplace of another one of the most groundbreaking and subversive lesbian artists of all times: Marlene Dietrich. The two female filmmakers were present at the screening and introduced the film as a statement against the ugliness and the division that Donald Trump is attempting to perpetrate against Chavela’s country.
In the mid-1970s New York was a very dark and dangerous city and tourists were avoiding it. In 1975, a year before Taxi Driver was launched, violence was so widespread that here were posters around Manhattan that said “stay off the streets after 6pm” and “do not walk alone”. Urban people were suffering with unemployment, inflation, crime and corruption, with many experiencing loneliness and anxieties. Screenwriter Paul Schrader didn’t have to look far in order to find inspiration for Taxi Driver.
As you probably know, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works as a taxi driver in New York City. He complains about how dirty New York is and talks about how he does not discriminate against his passengers. He drives around everywhere on a typical day. When he gets off work in the morning after driving for hours and hours, he begins drinking and goes to a local porn cinema, where he spends the mornings on his own. Travis confesses his inability to sleep and talks about wanting to become more normal. Deep inside he wishes he could find a different place to go and to fit in with other people. Travis Bickle is a Vietnam War marine veteran. But he also has a much darker, dangerous and murderous side.
Paul Schrader wrote the screenplay while he was divorcing from his wife. He had no home. He slept in his car and was obsessed with guns and pornography. His experiences are reflected on Travis. What’s more, the car suddenly impersonated his feelings of loneliness and maladjustment, which Martin Scorsese deftly transposed to the screen. More than the cab driver, the taxi is a character. It is the car that sees underground New York. It is the car that chases the scum of the earth: the pimps and hookers. From inside the taxi, there is a perspective of New York that must be eliminated. The marginalised inhabitants of New York don’t fit in Travis’s reactionary idea of a “clean city”.
In fact, on the first script, Travis was much more racist than in the film. All of his shooting victims were African-Americans. Taxi Driver is such a cult movie that offers different readings as time goes by. In the film, there is a plethora of hidden figures that reveal the psychotic side of the seemingly ordimary citizen..
What makes Scorsese’s feature so vivid is its authenticity. Robert De Niro worked as a taxi driver in order to prepare for the role (his taxi driver’s licence is pictured above). Harvey Keitel, who plays the pimp Sport, did improv for weeks with a pimp. Jodie Foster was only 12 years old. Her role was considered so bawdy that she had to have a social worker on the set with her. She also had to spend several hours with a therapist in order to prevent psychological damage. They all got deep into the roles. Such authenticity elicited a quick reaction from the audience. On the day the film came out in New York, the queues were huge, and there were many taxi drivers lining up.
The film associates pornography with romance. Travis falls in love with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a secretary for a politician running for mayor. She is clearly out of his league but Travis insists on a date. On their first date, Travis takes her to see to a porn cinema.
Taxi Driver shows ugliness for what it is. There is no glamour and nothing is picturesque. Quite the contrary: it is menacing and dirty. The film is out again in cinemas on Friday, February 10th.
In time: A year after Taxi Driver was launched, William S. Doyle, Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Commerce and Dr. Mark Donnelly, Art Director for New York State, hired advertising agency to develop a marketing campaign for New York State. The logo has become a pop-culture meme used everywhere around the globe. “I ❤ NY” was conceived in a taxi over to a meeting for the campaign. Watch below the song for the radio ad:
Launched in February 2016, DMovies is now one-year old! And what better way to celebrate the occasion than a dirty talk with the filthiest filmmaker of all times? So our editor Victor Fraga got on the phone with the director on the other side of the Atlantic, as the UK braces for the theatrical and the Blu-ray release of the restored 1970 classic Multiple Maniacs.
The transgressive 70-year-old director from Baltimore (which is also where all of his films were made) is also a screenwriter, author, actor, stand-up comedian, journalist, visual artist and art collector. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for deeply subversive movies such as Multiple Maniacs (1970) and Pink Flamingos (1972), also catapulting his childhood friend Divine (whose real name was Harris Glenn Milstead) to stardom. Despite the fact that Divine passed away nearly three decades ago and he hasn’t made a film in 10 years, the director reveals that he is very busy with “plenty of homework”.
We talked to him about the modern significance of Multiple Maniacs, what Divine would be like if she was British, censors on both sides of the Atlantic, the bourgeiosation of gay culture, European cinema, Donald Trump, the cultural backlash against reactionary forces and much more. It’s time to smear yourself with twisted politics, sexual perversions and copious amounts of filth!
Multiple Maniacs is now “restored, reviled and revolting”, and it will be out in UK cinemas on February 17th. Stay tuned for our exclusive review of the film in the next few days, as well as details about the theatrical release and the Blu-ray!
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Victor Fraga – All of your films, including Multiple Maniacs, were set in Baltimore. How different would it be if they were set in London, or another city in the UK? Would that work? Would Divine be as psychotic?
John Waters – I don’t think it would’ve been that different because I would have glorified whatever everybody thought was wrong at the time, at whatever neighbourhood I lived in. It was made in 1969, the end of the hippie years, and that was the same in London and pretty much everywhere. So it would have had the same kind of violent, ludicrous pre-punk feel. Not that I knew what a punk was, because it hadn’t happened yet. It would’ve been the same, except that you would’ve had an English accent rather than Baltimore accent.
VF – Would Divine be as psychotic. Do you think that the American obsessions with religion and violence would translate as neatly into the UK?
JW – The censors in America were always against sex, while the censors in the UK were always against violence. In America they never object to violence. So we had a harder time in the UK. I know the film was cut there when it came out in video and so on. Every time I submitted it they cut less and less, until they realised the whole thing was parody and just let it go. I think the cannibalism was the bit that got me into trouble in London.
Back then there was no such thing at the Motion Picture Association of America yet. I never showed it to the censors for a long time because it played in underground places that were out of reach, such as churches and underground colleges. When it finally played in at the Charles Theatre in 1980 – an art cinema in Baltimore -, people went crazy, and many became insulted. This Catholic woman who ran the Theatre started crying. I had plenty of problems previously with Pink Flamingos (1972), but Multiple Maniacs was much earlier, and didn’t have enough distribution to get to their attention back then.
But they couldn’t really ban it, but that was the whole joke. There was no law against it, because why would there be? There were no laws against eating shit, rosary job and being raped by a lobster. How could you say that in court without laughing? And that’s the difference!
If you showed Multiple Maniacs at midnight to an audience stoned in Marijuana it would be a good happy thing. If you saw Multiple Maniacs in a courtroom at 8:00 am it would be obscene, and I never won a case neither for Pink Flamingos nor Multiple Maniacs. I was always found guilty.
According to John Waters, Americans are never shocked by violence; here Divine engages in cannibalism in a scene from Multiple Maniacs
VF – Were you ever found guilty in the UK or anywhere else in Europe?
JW – I was never found guilty because I was never charged there. But certainly when the whole thing called video nasties came up, they banned both Pink Flamingos and Multiple Maniacs. And it took them 10 years little by little for them to allow these films to be released. You don’t have the censor board now, do you?
VF – Yes, we do have the BBFC, our equivalent of the Motion Picture Association of America. Have you encountered any problems with them now that your film is getting theatrical distribution?
JW – No, I haven’t. A censor once told me: we don’t know how to deal with intentional bad taste. But now they know how to deal with it, and they finally accepted it as comedy. It was made a long time ago, and it’s in a historical context now, which it wasn’t back then! So it will be left alone, as it should!
VF – In a recent interview with DMovies, your Canadian filmmaker friend Bruce LaBruce talked about bourgeoisation of gay culture “I sense a certain moralism in the gay world, too. That’s because of the assimilation movement: gay marriage, kids, the military, even transsexuals colluding with the medical establishment.” – do you think gay people would have a more moralistic reaction to Multiple Maniacs if it was made now?
JW – Gay people are in some ways square, but that’s what comes with being accepted. I saw my movie [Multiple Maniacs] in Provincetown, which is this very gay summer resort with an audience which, believe me, reacted very shocked to all the craziness. Which I understand. Because according to today’s values, it’s far more shocking than it was back then, more alarming in a way. Even I was shocked when I watched it.
If you wipe away all the progress we made legally, gay people will certainly turn into outlaws again.
VF – Let’s hope that doesn’t happen!
JW – Why? Sometimes people that come against you make you stronger. Sometimes you need people that are against you in order to awake the fight. Otherwise it’s just a pat in the back that holds you back.
The lack of legislation about the consumption of canine faeces helped to keep John Waters out of trouble for many years; above Divine gets ready for a treat
VF – You have a fat, grotesque, sexually deviant, psychotic and extremely dangerous American running your country right now, and sadly it’s not Divine. Do you feel that Multiple Maniacs was very prescient of Donald Trump?
JW – Divine threatens Ronald Reagan’s life, which did shock me, I had forgotten that. And he wasn’t even president then. So I’m sure that if we ever remade Multiple Maniacs I would get Donald Trump to play Lady Divine.
VF – And who would play the rest of the troupe: Melania, Pence and so on?
JW – I’m gonna save that for my book. I have my enemy list, but I’m afraid I’m not going to share that right now! In today’s climate maybe we need to copy something from Nixon and start an enemy’s list.
VF – Trumpism, Brexit and neofascism represent a return to a more conservative age, but it’s often under such conditions that the most provocative art flourishes. Multiple Maniacs was made under Nixon, during the the time of the anti-pornography movement. Do you expect an explosive backlash against Trump? Do you expect another maniac to come up?
JW – I think that there will be a backlash, but I don’t think it will be in cinema though. In America, TV is better than independent film. Way more people see it, you make more money and you have just as much freedom. Will that crossover into movies? That’s a good question that I do not know. Because today you still have to make money. An independent movie should cost just a fifth of what it used to cost, but they still want big stars, music rights and so on, making it almost impossible to do.
I don’t know whether cinema will be able to parody Trump, when he’s already a parody, he’s already a bad reality show. It’s like a stale joke. Maybe we could do an all-transgered version of the Trump family inauguration. But to be honest I don’t know whether the rebellion will come from cinema. I hope the explosion comes from everywhere.
I bet Trump likes porn though.
VF – Do you have any evidence of that?
JW – I bet he even pays for it. I hope hackers reveal the titles that he downloads.
VF – What kind of fetishes would he have?
JW – He would probably want to be dominated. Most powerful men like to be dominated.
VF – Is Donald Trump the filthiest person alive? Did he claim the title from Divine?
JW – I’m sure there’s people worse than him. There’s this guy who wants capital punishment for gay people!
A transgender Donald Trump family would make a bright and colourful addition to the palette of American culture
VF – Do you think that TV has overtaken cinema in terms of subversion?
JW – I think Brian Murphy’s TV shows always seemed to push the button. To me, you can be an insider and be edgy and crazy. Why would you want to be an outsider these days? An outsider has no power and can’t get things done. You need to warm your way to the inside and infiltrate in order to make things work today. There are many people on TV who have made things that were untouchable as I was growing up acceptable now. I think television is the way to introduce ideas into Middle America. I think TV is more responsible for changing public opinion than independent movies are.
VF – You recently said that you “feel pessimistic about American independent films, not European ones.” Can you tell us a little bit about your favourite dirty European artists.
You can look every year at my list of 10 favourite movies and tell exactly what they are. The major difference is that in Europe the government pays for these movies, as they should. That’s something that’s completely impossible to imagine in America, government paying for a Todd Solondz movie, or Harmony Korine one. That is a giant difference.
I’m huge fan of Gaspar Noe, Bruno Dumond and this new film called Krisha. And who’s the one in Vienna?
VF – Ulrich Seidl, Michael Haneke?
JW – Yes, Ulrich Seidl, that’s him! I present this kind of movies around America in film festivals and so on. My top 10 list has never been nominated for the Oscars, even though I vote for the Oscars.
VF – You haven’t made a film in 10 years, but you have written two bestsellers. Can you tell us what’s next?
So many things! I have two book deals with my publisher, I have something called Make Trouble coming up, which is a gift book for graduates. There’s an illustrated book, spoken word tours, a big retrospective opening in 2018 at the Baltimore museum. I have so many homework assignments!
To begin with, everything about this movie is strange. The title is difficult to memorise. It comes from a gospel song, released in 1993, but does anyone recognise it? “Oh Lord, You know I have no friend but you/ If Heaven’s not my home, Oh Lord what would I do?/ Angels have taken me to/ Heaven’s open door/ And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore”. Strangely enough this is the kind of movie that will harrow you to the point that you won’t feel at home in the cinema anymore. It is a sweet discomfort, though.
There is this girl, Ruth (a splendid performance by Melanie Lynskey). She works as a nursing assistant, and she is a baby sitter on the side, but she is so bored!… She spends her time drinking beer from the bottle and chasing her neighbours who walk their dogs in her garden. She can’t stand that they don’t clean up their dog poop. One of those days, she meets Tony (the almost unrecognisible and sexed up Elijah Wood). He apologises for the negligence as his dog is not trained. Tony is also weird. He is a combination of a nerd and a ninja fighter. It feels the film is an ordinary comedy. Well, that’s not the case.
The film genre is unclassifiable: it shifts from comedy to drama, then veers to horror and finally turns into a thriller. There is a little bit of romance too. Not even the smart Quentin Tarantino, who worked in a video rental store, would find the right shelf for this movie. He would have to have four copies of it, at least.
Ruth’s days of boredom are about to end. Someone enters her house and robs her computer as well as some silver heirloom from her nanny. In fact, it was just a spoon, but nevermind. She goes to the police. In vain. They won’t move a single cop in search of her possessions. Enough is enough. Ruth incarnates a female version of Agent 86 – from the American comedy TV series Get Smart. The outcome is hilarious and irreversibly innovative. She and Tony pursue a gang only to prove them that people cannot be such assh***s.
Macon Blair’s debut picture – he appears as an actor in Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulnier, 2013) and Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier, 2015), both of them are considered 21st century cult movies – conquers with its dark tone and captivating characters. The narrative is inventive and the music score is very catchy. It will drive you away from your seat, to a place where imagination and pleasure rules. This is all we ask of a movie, isn’t it?
Blair conquered Netflix: they produced the film and they will release it worldwide on February 24th. Blair also conquered Sundance Festival audience: its second screening was in a midnight session completely sold-out. Blair conquered Sundance Jury: the film was awarded by the Grand Jury Prize: US dramatic. Will it be a unanimously acclaimed? Maybe not. Who cares? I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore is a very dirty movie indeed.
The good news is you can catch I Don’t Feel at Home in This WorldAnymore from the comfort of your home from February – the film has been produced by and is soon available on Netflix. Just click here for more information!
