Lefteris Parasyris - Director

Joining me this week, Lefteris Parasyris

Lefteris is a filmmaker based in Greece and the UK. His dance film “Ruins Within Ruins” has been selected by more than 65 film festivals worldwide and has won 22 awards and accolades. His short film “Latent” was also screened in festivals around the globe and was distributed by Shorts International.

Lefteris is a BAFTA Connect member since 2017. He also works as a Script Supervisor with credits on multiple award-winning productions in the UK , such as Peter Strickland’s latest feature film “Flux Gourmet.” He holds an MA in Filmmaking, specialising in Directing from Goldsmiths, University of London. Additionally, he studied Theatre at the University of Athens, Greece and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Beyond filmmaking, Lefteris is a keen volunteer and has traveled extensively with NGOs in India, Iceland, and Japan. His experience living, working and studying in various parts of the world enhanced his interest in the subjects of heritage and identity. Challenging the notion of being a citizen of the world against the desperate need to belong, Lefteris explores the ideas of home, memory and abandonment with a distinct emphasis on movement and physicality. Currently, he is developing another dance film and a narrative short project.

Lefteris' Instagram

Lefteris'  Website

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My film Reel Terror:

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Your Life and Film. I'm your host Ted Bennett. Joining me this week, Lefteris Parasiris. Left Terris is a filmmaker based in Greece and the UK. His dance film, Ruins Within Ruins, has been selected by more than 65 film festivals worldwide and has won 22 awards and accolades. His short film Latent was also screened in festivals around the globe and was distributed by Shorts International. I met Lefteris when he was um a script supervisor, and since working with him, he's gone on to work with people like Peter Strickland and he did Flux Score May. It was quite fun. I was watching Flux Score May with my buddy, and I saw uh Left Terris' name in the uh credits and I was like, oh shit. So then I I like messaged him, and my buddy was like, You know him? And I was like, yeah, I know him. Uh so that was cool. Beyond filmmaking, Lefteris is a keen volunteer and has travelled extensively uh in India, Iceland, Japan, working with NGOs. His experience living, working, and studying in various parts of the world enhanced his interest in the subjects of heritage and identity, challenging the notion of being a citizen of the world against the desperate need to belong. Lefteris explores the ideas of home, memory, abandonment with a distinct emphasis on movement and physicality. He's currently developing a new dance film. Um the trailer for Ruins Within Ruins is bloody beautiful. Like it's it's uh it's all in the in the notes, but check it out. We jump straight in, I ask him how has it been, and uh we kind of reminisce on the fact that we haven't spoken to each other for nearly ten years. Enjoy. So all you've been up to, how you been? Because I haven't seen you in over ten years, but Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Uh we met in a film when I was doing script supervising. I don't do that much anymore. I'm more focusing on directing, producing, and in the last few years I'm focusing on movement-based projects. Uh like five years ago, I shot a dance film in Creed. Um, and that did really well, and it kind of like changed my perspective on um dance and filmmaking and the combination of these two. And ever since I'm kind of like developing projects that are more physical or based on movement. And I did uh I shot a film uh in the end of last year in back in Crete again. That's like the second part of the first film that did quite well in the festivals, and we were like, okay, let's do another one. We had a little bit of pants from from the local council.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Oh, nice! Yeah, yeah. It is beautiful. Like, I've only seen the trailer, I don't know if I saw the whole thing, but like I only saw the trailer for uh those dance films, and they are like I was watching them with that sort of such a content sort of like oh someone's doing it right, you know, like because you can see a lot of people who try and you're just like that's not quite doing it. But with you, it was like this is such a well-made product of like here is a piece of art, here it is. There's no notes, it's just the here it is, and like I'm not just gushing because you're on the call, like I actually had to like send it to people and be like, check this out, this is annoyingly good.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Thank you. Uh I don't know if I can talk about it, but yeah, thank you. But yeah, I do really enjoy it to be honest. So no matter if it's good or not, it's something that I do then. I really enjoy, yeah, and it's it's a process that uh that's quite different from just doing fiction filmmaking, which I still love, of course, and I do love narrative. Uh it's just that it adds an extra layer of complexity because you have to work with dancers, not exactly the same with working with actors. And then the language is dance and movement. Yes. So is is is a different kind of a thing. Uh yeah. And I I I'm hoping to finish the editing soon with this one, so it will be out next year. And off to the next one.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I mean, yeah, it's always on to the next one. That's always that's always the fun. It is really good that you got like uh help from the local councils and things because you can always feel like you're just shouting into the void when you're like, but this is a good idea, why why is no one helping? And then when like a local council's like, no, no, no, like this helps promote everything. You you just feel a lot more like, ah, I'm doing, I'm doing something that's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I mean, I couldn't do it otherwise, to be honest. It's not really possible. And I don't do freebies anymore, and I don't want to have people working for free, of course. But also it's something that involves rehearsals, and you're not gonna involve people to work for you or for any project for two months with no money. Uh it's motivating, you have a little bit of fund, so it's possible, even if it's not a lot, it does help.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

No, I know what you mean about the freebies and things. Like, there's always because there's less and less work going, and the less and less work that's going, whenever a friend sort of says, like, can you give me a hand? I'm like I kinda need a job to keep my to keep my hand in it, to keep me going. But you can't afford to. But I also don't want to turn down anything because there's work, like there's good work to be done in there. When I say good work, I mean like it's an interesting story, and I want an interesting story told, regardless. And it's very easy to sort of be like, I don't mind, like I'll spend my time helping someone, but like you I always feel like when someone says like oh I'll do it for nothing, I'm like, no, no, no, no, we'll figure something out for you. Like minimum, you're getting like the smallest day rate we can afford, but like you're getting the day rate because I don't like asking people to do things for free, but I don't know, it's yeah, it has to be a very lack of funding.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

It has to be very specific, like if it's a good friend and you do feel you can help, indeed. But then again, it comes down to like uh if we don't raise the the bar and like like we need to make sure that a project that we really love and we are dedicated also has the support or the funds, otherwise it it's a circle that never ends. Yeah, if you know what I mean, like it's it's uh it's an industry thing. If we encourage freebies, then the and they will always be like, We're willing to do it for free, and it's like yeah, but it's it's a strange thing, like people in Greece, because I'm kind of working in Greece as well sometimes, do not do freebies. That's a strange thing. Like I think it's because there's more production here and there's different kinds of productions. Yeah, there's micro budget, there's like mid-level, blah blah blah, there's big studios. So people do there's more people as well here. So I guess there's more need and more, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

That's fair enough. That's fair enough. Yeah, but I mean, with uh with the IMDB credits that you have, you shouldn't be doing anything for free. Like, I was very excited. No, I saw you. No, no, no, you don't do anymore. But like when I um I was watching Fluxible May with a friend, and I saw your name obviously come up as script super for that, and I was like, oh shit, and like I was really excited.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

That's one of my best experiences on set. That was amazing. I met some crazy amazing people there. Uh, just for those who don't know, it's a Peter Strickland film. He also did the Duke of Burgundy and everything, and it was just a dream, yeah, and it was very tight schedule. We had three weeks, I think. Um it was long hours and everything, and there was enormous pressure for budget, but I was like really impressed by how Peter worked under this pressure, and I was like, for once, I'm I'm next to a director who really deserves to be here. Yes, he was great, he was really amazing. He was a great director, but regardless, he was also really he had like a good behavior on set, and he knew how to handle all these different problems that come up, and there were many of those. That's why I'm mentioning like this was like a very tough uh film to to shoot, but it was an amazing team of people that all believed in Peter's vision.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Um yeah, I I have to agree with you on that, because like I I saw him do a talk at the BFI Um after Duke of Burgundy came out. It might have been the year Duke of Burgundy came out, it was might have been part of the tour. And there seemed like such an unflappable energy to him that he was just like, I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make this film how I see. And you're like, Yeah, but what about this? And he was like, you know, and and the whole thing about like Duke of Burgundy having shop mannequins in the background to fill out the crowd, and you'd be like, that could have gone horribly wrong, and he was like, just Franco did it. And you're like, Yeah, fair.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

You're so right about that. And you actually, when I got the script for Flax Gromet, you can see on the script already, it was not written on final draft, it had no like structure, it didn't look like any other script. But there was this confidence about it, like it will introduce it, introduce you to the world of Peter Strickland immediately with no questions. Everything was there. He uses his own language, his own atmosphere, and the confidence is not arrogance, it's just it's I can't really explain it. It was like you really unique to watch him doing this because you see like a very simple man going on set doing his thing, right? And it's like amazing, it's like and it's his own brain creating this unique vision that doesn't like anything else.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

No, like, and it's so like oh god, yeah. Like when I I sort of uh after that QA, I sort of like passed him, and instead of sort of trying to say anything profound or anything, I just shook his hand and I was like, I just want to say Duke of Burgundy was beautiful, and he was like, Thank you, and I was like, that's all I have to say. I was like, because there's nothing else to say, like you do such a beautiful job. Like there's no there's no fluff, there's no like uh I'm not left with questions from like I'm left with questions because it's of the narrative, but like I'm not left with questions in like uh why would you have done that? It's just sort of like no, like you say, like his own language, his own atmosphere that you don't need, he doesn't need to answer why we're doing it this way. It's so quickly established, like we're doing it like this, and you're like, okay, sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

And it's it's and it's so unique and eccentric and strange and peculiar, so you wouldn't expect someone like or I don't know, we have all these stereotypes about filmmakers and big directors being like a little bit uh cringy and everything, but no, that's not the case. That's like a very uh confident, clever, intelligent um yeah, director.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Also, his short work is beautiful, like um is it like blank narcissist, like that one about the old um gay porn director who's just reminiscing about a love he has for the first time. That was in a movie, yeah, a few years ago, yeah. Oh god, that was so good. Just for a short, it was like that's so beautifully done. And I love that he is like a filmmaker who respects the short film sort of medium by being like, I have a story. It's not a feature story, it's a short story, and it will go into this short film. That's all you wanted to do. And you're just like, good, because if you're a filmmaker, if you're a storyteller, you shouldn't always be looking for that. Um like, where's the money? Where can I make a DVD sale out of it? Where can I get a thing? It's like no no no, I've got a story and I want to make it, I'm gonna make it, and it's gonna be beautiful, and that's that. So you've hinted about being Greek. So uh what's um when did you come to the UK and uh around 14 years ago. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

So I did mine.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did my master's at Goldsmiths, uh, and then I stayed here. Yeah. Nice. I started filmmaking, directing specifically. Uh yeah, and then I started working as a script supervisor and yeah, here we are.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

And was there when you were in Greece, like, did was there a feeling that there wasn't I don't know, like, there wasn't the community or there wasn't the industry there to to make make film? Or was it just more a matter of like you wanted to get to the UK because Yeah, it was a personal choice, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

I wanted to come and leave in the UK. Uh I mean of course there is industry in Greece, but it's quite problematic how it works. Not that it's not here, to be honest. Oh but it's smaller, of course, the scale is different. Um, yeah, I mean, and I did study theatre and film in Greece. So I did try as well. I worked in the industry in Greece for for a few years. But yeah, I decided to come here for out of personal reasons because I wanted to experience life in the UK, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

In London specifically. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I I I feel like Greek cinema is one of those cinemas that I, you know, is it Miss Violence and Dog Tooth? Like, there are some films I'm aware of, but like not that many. Like, does it have its own sort of thriving cinema that it just doesn't explore?

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Or is it is it more of like it's very festival-based arthouse films you wouldn't really see widely released. These couple of films you mentioned are part of the Weird Wave uh Weird Wave. Uh it's called the Greek Weird Wave. Okay. Um, and it started with Doc Tooth and Manthemos, and then there were a lot of films that came after this that kind of resemble this like disturbing family, uh violent, cruel world, blah blah blah. And they're also very humorous. Um, and that the there's a lot of directors based in Greece and are doing really well in the festivals, and they do export the films and everything, but it's not I I can't say that they're films you would find in your local cinema necessarily, it's more for a specific audience, uh, but it's growing, I think. Um yeah, uh, and and there was always Greek cinema, and there's great filmmakers in Greece, to be honest. It's just that it's very small and quite specific, and you need to fit in the narrative. Like very often I feel this happens with smaller countries and very small industries, like when Lanthemos came out and it was really successful, and to be honest, very, very new and weird. Uh like something really fresh. It felt like it was something so new back then. So I guess it felt like you had to follow the trend a bit, yeah. If I may say. So it always feels like it's suffocating. Um funny story. The second the film after Doctooth, um Latin Music film called Alps, uh, that was after Doctooth was nominated for best international film and it won the Uncertain Regard in the at the Camp Festival. Huge success, blah blah blah. For a very small film like that, it's like enormous. So after that, the Greek financial crisis started, and it was really hard to find his second film, which was not his he it was his third film, but anyway, it was hard to find this film, and I think this is what pushed him to go abroad, and then he made The Lobster, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

I mean, that for a director to have like I don't I don't think he's currently had a miss. You know what I mean? Like that to like there are some directors I absolutely love, and you know, like I look at Spike Lee's first sort of like five or six films, and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. His great ones are great, but there's like a couple in there, like um, is it School Days or something? His second one that I'm a bit like that doesn't quite hit as well. Whereas then like Mo Better Blues, I'm like, that's fucking excellent. Whereas with Latimoth, it's just very much like, Oh, you're gonna do that? Okay, I'm in. And then like every time I've watched a new one of his, I'm just like, Yeah, well done. Yeah, done it again, my man. Like, I do with you.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

I do want him, and he just meant like I think he just announced a few months ago that he will take a break because he did like three interviews. Yeah, and I do think he needs the break because uh, I mean, who am I to talk about Lancymals? But you know, like as an audience member following his career and his films, I do feel his last couple of films. Um, although I did really enjoy the films, I felt I was getting comfortable with the unpredictability of Lanfinos. I don't know if you know what I meant.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

No, I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

So I was like, I'm not surprised of what I'm with what I'm watching, which was a very big element in the first films. Yes, like it was unpredictable, it was um what's the word? It was uncomfortable to watch. Yes. With these, like what was the last Pogonia? Pagonia was the last one, yeah. Yeah. I mean I did enjoy it. And I do think that if it I I do really think that if it was not Lanthimos and it was a new director making this film, everyone would be talking about it. But because it's Lanthimos, the expectations are different, I guess. That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

I mean, yeah, I I think i I I do know what you mean, and and also that thing of like if another director made it. I always think that's such an interesting like I think if anyone tried to do what David Lynch was doing, people would have said, go away. This is this is this is rubbish. But because it's David Lynch, everyone's like, oh my god, that's amazing. And like I do think sometimes that some directors are almost given that sort of like slight pass where it's like, oh, because it's you, we'll tolerate this. And it's like, no no no no no, it should be good, it should stand on its own merits, like it should be a good thing, regardless of who's directed it. Like, look at Ridley Scott, he can make some absolute dreadful films. Yes. Don't get me started. It's ridiculous, but um so um growing up in Greece, and you know, you you you have a love for cinema, but what was the first film you saw at the cinema? It is not a film that I love.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Okay, so I have older siblings, right, and they took me to the cinema when I was five or four. Um we watched Days of Thunder. I don't know if you know that film, it's so funny, but you mentioned Ridley Scott. This is Tony Scott, Tony, yeah. So I do not recall, I I do not I didn't understand the film because I couldn't read subtitles at the age of four or five. Right, yeah. Okay, but I do remember the cars, I remember like this, I remember like the action and everything, and I do remember how it made an impression on me. There was there was a ginger woman on screen.

unknown 20:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

With the with curly big curly. That's all I remember, and I was like really bored. It's like, God, I'm so bored. Uh but yeah, that was the first film that I watched.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Sorry to make it cheap.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

And I'm not even I'm not even an action film uh person. Like, I really it's if there's the one genre I don't really fully enjoy, is action films. Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Like blanket, you just don't care for action film.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

No, no, no. I mean, of course I'm got if it's a good film, it's a good film, no matter what. Sure, sure, sure, yeah, yeah. Of course. But it's not something I will like, okay, let's watch an action film. Gotcha. It's not my title for entertainment, is the one I'm saying. Yeah, but yeah, that was my first film.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

I mean, that is a I didn't see that film. Like, I saw the foot that film for the first time, like maybe within the last 10 years. Like, I I never I didn't grow up with it, I didn't know it, or anything like that. And then I think I bought the Laserdisc of it. I had a Laserdisc player at the time, because you know. I watched this film, and I love a Tom Cruise film. Like, I'm a I'm like his politics not his politics, but his religion aside, I think he does so much for. Cinema that I will always stand and be like, No, no, no, Tom's an alright guy. Um, well, he might not be an alright guy, but he's a he's a good filmmaker. So I was like, I'll I'll give this Days of Thunder a go. And I watched it, and like it was one of those films that after I finished, I was like, Well, that was a lot of fun. Like, and I think I was so shocked that I enjoyed it because I was like, I don't care about NASCAR, like what you know, like what do I care? But after watching it, I was like, Oh god, I do like a Tony Scott film, and I do like the way he makes it, and you know how everything's all sort of like smoky and like quite red, and it's all like I'm into this. So it was one of those films that like I never saw as a kid, but as an adult, I came back to it and I was like, that's that's actually quite fun. So maybe I should go back to it then. You should totally go back to it. Just do a whole Tony Scott season. Like Alright, alright. I will say, like, I think Domino is one of the few Tony Scott films which I'm a bit like, I don't care about Domino, but like true romance. Uh it's true romance, yes. Dominance I haven't seen. Domino is do you know it's a Kira Knightley film where she plays a model. I have seen yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Okay, I have seen this. Yeah. It's it's it's an interesting yeah, it's an interesting story.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

It's a true story, I guess. Yeah. So that's that's that element is fun. But I just don't think Kira Knightley I don't think she has the an edge to her. Like she is quite a soft person, and I think if you were to remake it, you'd want someone, not Kara Delavine, but someone like Kara Delavine who has a bit of an edge to them. Like hers is very uh performative, but like you'd want that someone with a bit of an edge. Um so that's why I think it failed. But I do like a Tony Scott film. I don't know why. I would I would take his entire filmography over Ridley's film for film, like Blade Runner, Alien, like Ridley has done some of the best like Western 20th century films. But if I was to take an entire filmography, I'd take Tony's.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Oh wow. Wow. I do love Alien. I do love it. It's an I think it's a masterpiece.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

It's it's a it's one of those almost perfect films, yes. Which is why it's so like, oh, how can you give us that? And then so much dog shit afterwards. Like so much.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yeah. I also I don't enjoy the attitude. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

No, no, I don't enjoy the attitude. Yeah, I'm like I'm so over this, you know. Like this whole thing of like the rock star sort of chef and the rock star filmmaker. It's like, no no no, let's all just be nice. Let's just treat everyone who wants to create with a better fucking story.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Like no, I don't care if you read this code, I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter. No, no, and that's like something you actually that's something you learn on set where you encounter people who are a little bit higher profile, and and if they act a little bit arrogant, you're like, oh my god, I'm losing all the respect I had for you. Yeah, like it's gone. For me, when I encounter this kind of behavior, I think it's insecurity, I guess. I don't know what it is, but yeah, it's just working on set helps you realize how important is everyone, and how there's no room for like this type of behavior. Um, I just uh I mean alien and blade runner aside, yeah. I don't appreciate the rest. Uh I do not encourage anyone to be like us.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

No, I I I think that you're right, it is a sort of lack of confidence as to why that people have that attitude when they're on set, but like I it it always annoys me whenever they're like, oh, it's a a Ridley Scott film, and it's like, what Ridley did everything, did he? Like, come on, like it's not a Ridley Scott film, it's a group of people. Like, you can't do what the gaffers are doing, so give them the credit. Like, exactly. There's a reason you hired that person, is because they are the best in their field that you could afford. So, like, if someone's on site, on set, doing something that you can't do, and you've hired them, why talk to them like a piece of shit? Like, like it makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

That's not that's not even a qu like for me, it's not even a question, it shouldn't be allowed, it's not even something I would consider. There's no place for this. Absolutely not. Okay, yeah, uh speaking of Tom Cruise. Okay, yeah, like there's a few examples of people that have changed the history of cinema, and maybe the power they got from their popularity and their box office success, maybe they have entered this uh fame sphere that is out of question and it's not easy to make them realize how is reality, yeah, yeah, and add to that Scientology, but you know, uh yeah, we should not encourage this kind of behavior at all.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah, no, I think there is that because what was that they were saying about you know, Mick Jagger was like quite shitty, and it's like, yeah, but if you've been Mick Jagger for 50 years, like that your concept of reality is very different from like your and I's concept of reality. So by their standard they're probably not being shitty, and you're like, I kinda get that, but when it's someone it's like, but you're not Mick Jagger, you're someone who's done three or four features and your career could end tomorrow from bad attitude, like I'm not excusing the guys who can, you know, do it. But also, I mean even if you're Mick Jagger, to be honest, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

There's a like you're a Mick Jagger for a reason. Hmm. Let's not discuss this further. I mean, you know, like I mean, you do need to understand where your boundaries are and respect to something that uh doesn't have to do with fame or money or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

No, I think it's a it's a good place, you know, like if you are respectful, it was it the the Niven quote, like you treat every king like the bellboy and every bellboy like the king. It's just it's like, yep, that's that's how you live life.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Like you treat everyone better, especially in the film industry, and especially right now, I think we're talking about this probably there's a reason uh because of the I think the film industry is going through a very difficult period of time. Um it seems like nothing is guaranteed.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Um it's not like we're living in the golden era of Hollywood, no, no, at all. Like the the money is not flowing, like we can like everyone should be worried, and if they're worried, before we worried, exactly. Like I don't know. Um, but yeah, that that that's gonna be really hard to segue, so I'm not even gonna try. But what films did you watch over and over again as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

So one film, strangely, one film that I watched again and again is Dracula by Francis Ford Koppel. Oh nice, okay. And I do know that it's not one of his best. I do know it's very messy, but as a kid it really made an impression on me. Uh I don't know. I mean, I think it's because I I first of all, I need to say I'm a huge horror fan. And I started with uh I mean we can talk about it later, but I think what Dracula uh does different is like it's a very operatic theatrical version of the story, and it almost like feels like a cult film made by a huge director, to be honest. I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

You know, like it has this like very awkward, grotesque moments. Uh but I also was thinking about this this morning. Like when I remember and I recall this film, it has texture, it has like colors, it has velvet, the fashion is amazing in the film, by the way. The costumes, the production design, um the acting is questionable, on the other hand. Sure, sure, sure. Not gonna name any names, but you know, but there's something about it that it's it's it's also very sensual. And as a kid, that made an impression on me, and I remember watching it again and again and falling in love with vampire stories, um, like the whole tragedy of it all. Um I love the music, it's the very first soundtrack I purchased. It's by Vojtok Killer, a Polish, amazing Polish classical musician. Uh so you can imagine like a seven-year-old buying Dracula soundtrack.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Yeah, just this little goth romantic in you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

But there's something about it. I I when I watch it now, I can see how messy it is, and it's it's not really a film, but I can say that um it influenced me in a way that like in in the in the way of filmmaking, but there was something about it that made me go back and watch it again and again. But then I was I'm a 90s kid, so all the all the horror from the 80s was huge. Joel Carperter, Wes Craven, um all the movies from the 80s were like every weekend playing on the TV. I'm I'm assuming that was quite similar in the UK. I think that's a global international thing, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Uh we can have horror like on the tell. Like you'd get a lot of the action films and you'd get a lot of the thrillers, like those 90s thrillers, which I absolutely adore. You've got those all the time. But you know, just to remind me. Of 90s thrillers.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah, like which one do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Uh let's have a think. I want to name some ones that I really do enjoy. I would go things like um the ones like John Q, where it's uh Denzel Washington, where it's sort of more like that kind of thriller. But then there's also Rainmaker when you got your John Grisham stuff, which is a bit like a political espionage thriller. Like, and then like enemy of the state, you know, like the Gene Hackman. Like, there were just these films that had a bit of um, they had that sort of procedural, like, how are we gonna figure this out? What's gonna go on? Who's doing this? I gotta go to this bayou, and I've got to find out from this guy, and the local cop doesn't like me, and like you play with that back and forth, and they're like tight 90 minutes, and they're great fun. You know, there's like two or three actors that you know, and as a kid, like I would say that's probably more the reason I love cinema now.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

They're getting quite popular on Netflix this song, by the way, recently.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

What the originals or re-like new?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

No, no, the originals you can find some of them being re-released on Netflix.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Good. I mean, most of these this DVD collection is just sort of like Unlawful Entry, John Q, The Hunter, Blown Away. Like, they're just those kind of films because I'm just like they those to me are very much like comfort. They are sausage and mash, you know, on a cold day. It's just like I'm gonna enjoy 90 minutes of this, and it's very like, oh, that was nice. So those reasons, like those kind of films we have.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

So similar, similar where I grew up, it was a similar kind of thing. You had these films, okay. You had the family films in the weekend as well, like uh The Goonies and Yeah, uh what's the name of this film with the shrinking Oh Honey I Shrink the Kids? Yeah, this one you had a lot. I remember uh these type of films, uh Stephen King, Stand By Me. Yeah, like again, all like all like the 80s feel good films were playing in the 90s. Also, Disney was huge in the 90s.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yeah, I was never a kid.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Oh, ladin, Beauty and the Beast. Uh you know, Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Damn. I mean it's it's it's beautiful, but I don't know, like I was never a Disney kid growing up, and like as an adult, when someone says to me, like, Oh, you've never seen, I'm like, No, and they're like, Oh, it's so good, and I'm like, Alright, I'm sure it is.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

So you never watched Lion King and these kind of I saw Lion King at the cinema.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Um but like I I I would have seen Beauty and the Beast because they would have played it at school. Um, yeah, like this is like uh Little Mermaid. I think I I liked that one as a kid. Like Aladin.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

What else was that?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Toy Story then was the Pixar films came. Pixar, I think. Around 95, 95. Like I liked I like that and a bug's life. But those like classic Disneys, they don't really I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

So we would go every December watch one of those films. Oh really? Yeah. They were coming out in during like before Christmas and Greeleys. Yeah. And it was like a huge deal. You have to go and see Aladdin or The Lion King, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

No, like I I don't know. Like I grew up in a household where like and not pretentiously, like more films like Jacques Tatty's films, like French cinema, would be sort of like you want to watch something that's light and fun, watch a Jacques Tatty film, and you'd be like, okay, cool. Like, so you'd watch Mon Uncle, but you wouldn't be exactly like I I don't know, like I feel like mum and dad would put on films that they kind of wanted to watch as well. I mean obviously we watched a lot, like I watched the Teenage Mutant Shells films far too many times, and I and I want to apologise to my parents because the second was dreadful. But um like I watched that one a lot, but the Disney films just never got there, and like I think it was because mum and dad wouldn't have wanted to have sit through that as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

So yeah, um I mean yeah, I mean uh yeah. Next question, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Um what was that last question? What was the film what film did you watch over and over again as a kid? Yeah, yeah. So I think you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Dracula. I mean lots of horror, lots of horror as a kid. I know, not very good parenting, but I had different times different times, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

I um I met JV Hart, the screenwriter for Bramsaker's Dracula. He also wrote Hook, like Spielberg's film, Hook. Okay. And like it's so interesting that his career is like Hook, uh Dracula, and Contact, the Jodie Foster film, the Carl Sega film.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

I do like this one a bit.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

And it's like that's quite interesting that his three sort of biggest hits, in my opinion, like are so vastly different, but very different, yeah. Very well done. But yeah, he's a lovely man. Um well, you've mentioned horror. You've mentioned that you loved horror. What was the first uh 18? What was the certificate in Greece?

SPEAKER_01 38:02

What's what was there it's very loose in Greece, it's not like as strict as here. So but it's like 18.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Okay, so what was the first 18 you saw? And how old were you? So I have a couple of answers for this.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

So on TV, I did watch A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was seven years old. Okay, yeah, nice. And I really loved it. Yeah. I mean, it was the probably the first horror film that I watched. And I was six or seven, okay. So it did really traumatize me. I was really I I was understanding this is fiction. It's not like I, you know, no matter like you know the distinction between reality and fantasy, but you're still terrified and you don't have the mechanism to support yourself.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

So I do remember being scared and terrified to fall asleep and dream of Freddie Krueger. Oh my god. And I was six or seven when I did watch this. But the first movie experience uh that I that I had uh was I watched I White Shot when I was 14, and by then I was a real film buff. Yeah, so I remember going to the movies, local cinema, um, and the owner was like, you know, this is X-rated. I'm like, dude. Come on. It's me.

unknown 39:30

You know me.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

This is like nothing for me. It wasn't like okay, yeah, it has some nudity and content.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Sure, yeah, but like, come on.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Like, come on.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

But uh I watched it two times.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Oh, really? To try and understand what it was about because it doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

There's some rumors nowadays. I don't know if any of these is true, but yeah. What the the There's some conspiracy theories about Kubrick being involved and trying to uncover the Epstein and everything. And cult in Hollywood. I don't know, and I don't believe anyone is bad.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

I don't know, that feels very like it There's a lot of stuff floating around Kubrick that they give him a lot of benefit of the doubt that he's this genius, and it's like he's a very good filmmaker by all means. But he didn't record a fake moon landing. Like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Or if he did, like He did his most successfully, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

If you did He did it very Well I would believe, right, that if you go to an uncharted planet that you have no idea what's going on, you might have a live recording and you might also have a pre-recorded version of touching down on a moon and putting in a flag. Because if let's say they land on Earth, the spacesuit ruptures, they die, that doesn't look good on the optics. So you film one like this, and then you cut recording and you flip it over, and that's that. I think that is a very like considering the Cold War propaganda with a with Russia, I consider that to be like, that is good sense. So if there is a recording of a of a fake moon landing, that is why they landed on the moon. There's no up and down about that. They landed on the fucking moon. Uh, but there was also a fake one just in case something went wrong and they didn't want that published on tele. I think that's completely like Okay, okay. That makes sense to me. So when people say like he was making uh, you know, maybe he was trying to out the eyes wide shut crowd with the Epstein thing, it's like this isn't the first time the idea of a sex cult in the elite is known. Like, he might be making a comment on that. He might be making a comment on another group. Like, it's not like they're the only ones, and it's not like it's a story no one's ever like conceived before, you know.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Yeah, no, I think it's more connected to by the way, I just want to make clear I do not believe any of these. I'm just discussing for the fun of it. Yeah. But it's more connected to due to the fact that he died before the release of the film, and that there was an alternative end that the producers of the film uh forced him to to not use. And it's about the girl in the film. You do you remember like Tom Cruise finds a girl? Um like a teenager. Right. Um it it's a long story if you go through, like, there's a whole Wikipedia page about it. Yeah, yeah. Uh but anyway, I I did watch the film a couple of times because it's great filmmaking, to be honest. It I know it doesn't make sense sense necessarily, but it was just beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah, like the projection screens and walking on a treadmill for like walking around Manhattan, that seems like such a wonderful way of making you feel that uncanny valley of like something's not right here.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Well done. You've done something that's just not right that makes it feel weird. It's like well done, well done. And it's beautiful like to look at, like just the basic ideas of like the um Venetian masks or whatever, and then like the capes. It's like that's a beautiful weird thing that I believe in the world.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Yeah, and the and nowadays I do think it's about it's more about the the couple and the relationship, um the complications uh in a long term relationship and a marriage. Yeah. Especially as well, which you don't see as a fourteen year old. No. No, I forget the last, the very last. Line of the film. I don't know if you recall. How weird it is that we're talking about Nicole Keeper and Tom Cruise again.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Yeah, man. You for someone who doesn't like Tom Cruise, you can't stop talking about him.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Oh well. I didn't say I don't like Tom Cruise. I said I don't like action films.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Did I say? You didn't say explicitly, but you gave the heavy impression that I'm not a big fan, but I do love him in Magnolia.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Oh god, he's so good in Magnolia. Yeah. I mean that helps. No, he's a he's a good actor. He's a good actor. It's just his personality is a bit larger than my life, so that's why. A bit forced. The last uh thing happening is they're in this Christmas decoration shop. Um Nicole Gidman says, I think there's something we really need to do. And he says, What is this? And she says, she replied, We need to fuck. Excuse my language.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

I mean, was that in the script or is that her saying to her? I think it's in the script.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

And people also speculating, oh yeah. People also speculating why did Kubrick decided to use this very line as the last line of his career.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Oh yeah. I didn't think of it like that. That's really that's a real shame. Oh okay. Okay. Well, I'll dwell on that for a bit. Well, thank you for that. I'm gonna think about it. Um it feels like that could have been the answer to this next question, but what was the first film you watched that felt grown up? No, that was before that.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Okay. Uh so the very first film. So as a horror I mean, I it's not like I was just watching horror films, but this was something that I really enjoyed. But around 12 or 13, I watched a couple of films in the same I it was the same summer, and that's why I can't really separate the feeling in my head. So I watched Rosemary's Baby, and then a few weeks later I was I watched uh Possession by Zulowski.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

And I think it's really made an impression. Again, it was like a shift. I was like, so horror film is not about blood, it's not about monsters, yeah, it's not about it's not slashers only, it's psychological horror. Now we're entering a whole new phase of horror that's about uh that's very close to the to tragedy again. And it's about feeling uncomfortable and about observing and having an emotional journey and like watching Isabel Ageny having a tantrum for five minutes in the subway, and having all these like weird feelings occur to you, and you're like, why is it so long? And it keeps going, and you're like, okay, it's long because there's something happening, and something is happening to me, and this becomes a sensory experience, like you're feeling it, you're with her. So that really did mark me in this way. Like, I started thinking more about her as a expansive territory where more complicated stories can fit and more complex characters um exist, and it's not just about um the killing. Yes, if you know what I mean. Um equally, I think Rosemary's baby house is very artistic. I think it's kind of like an arthouse horror, you know. I know it's controversial because of Polanski and everything, but I do still think it's a masterpiece. I really do love the film. I'm sorry. He's a very good filmmaker. I just love this film, and I do love Repulsion, and I do love Knife in the Water. I don't know if you've seen Knife in the Water.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

I haven't seen Knife in the Water, no.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

This is his I I'm not sure it's the first, but it's the film he made in Poland before moving to Hollywood. Okay, okay, and it takes place on a boat. Beautiful film. Okay. Uh so yeah, I don't know. It was the the use of music in Rosemary's Baby, the urban landscape, it's just like introducing a whole different layer of filmmaking and and story. And it's a different experience again. The the terror comes cerebral, yes, it's not the same.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

It's not this jump monster jumping out of the wardrobe, it's the slow creeping realization of like, oh, it's already gone horribly wrong. It's not going to get horribly wrong, it's already happened, and we're gonna have to learn to live with it already. It's like, oh fuck, that's miserable, but so good.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

But also, you know what I think as a 12, 13-year-old kid, what I think nowadays, I think that uh changed my perspective and felt like grown up was that the filmmaker I was subconsciously probably thinking that the filmmaker did not care about me feeling comfortable with what I'm watching. Like there is manipulation, and there is this is what I think it's hard to explain, but like it's not doing me a favor. Yes, it's like I'm gonna follow my vision and the story and what's happening without taking care of you as an audience. Yes, you know what I mean. Uh like, and of course there's amazing filmmakers that do that very well. Like, I I would like Spielberg, speaking of childhood films and yeah, he does this, like he's very good at it, like he's manipulating emotions in a good way. But I think what Polansky did in this film or Zulowski is that he didn't really care about what the audience thought of this, and that feels adult.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

I would say I agree with you, and I think it's a very European way of making films. I think it's that when you're not uh constrained to the Hollywood machine where it's like you've got to entertain and we've got to be able to sell a lunchbox and gotta get it out there, if you're then allowed to treat this a bit more with a bit more like art to it, like Italian neorealism, where it's like, I'm gonna tell a story, it's up to you to fucking find it, you know, and you're like, Oh, okay, that okay, you're not just gonna show me a film, like why the fuck would I just show you? No, you wanna feel something, go find it, and it's like oh okay, and then your interpretation of the story is very different from anyone else's because it's about like they've made you feel it's not just there's a screen in front of you and I'm showing you some lovely glossy nonsense. It's like here is something, and if you've interpreted this, then that person hasn't interpreted this, then you're feeling different from the person sat next to you, but we're both watching the same film, and then you're like, Oh well done. And I think that comes from I think it's come has to come from a place where the filmmaker has known like a misery, but in such a normal everyday. Like, if we if you're born into sort of you know, if you're born into poverty and you're born into a broken country or you're born into corruption, you don't acknowledge that that's bad. You just know that that's the case and you live your normal life, and then you have your humour based against that. And then whenever I watch a film from a cinema of that like style, I always feel like that's where it comes from. Like if you watch a you know the cinema of conflict, Christoph Kielowski's stuff, there's such a fun humour in all of that misery because it's not a misery to them, that's just day-to-day. And from the lavish world of the West, we get to watch it and be like, ha ha ha ha, that looks so miserable. But actually, I think there's an element of you know, um like dark humour, which I think Italy has it, and you know, Polish filmmakers and a lot of French filmmakers have it, because it's just this sort of like there's more they're more in tune with the misery, and I think that's a lot more interesting when it's thrown at you as a viewer.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

I definitely agree with you, but also I think it's about the industry and about the fact that smaller industries involve less money and less risk. Yes, yes. Uh also we think because there's so many films that succeed that go out of the box even in Hollywood. If you really think about it, I mean, yeah, of course, there's amazing entertaining fit in the box films, but the ones that do actually go bold do succeed as well. Yeah, uh that's a really big discussion to make, but yeah. Um yeah, I don't know. I did I I never thought about it as a like a European or specifically regional thing, but I do think Europeans do this type of cinema that is a little bit less um influenced by financing, and that changes the perspective, but also maybe has to do with the fact that um the audience is a bit different, yeah. Um yeah, I grew up by the way, I grew up with French cinema as well. Like it's it's something it's very it's quite popular in Greece.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

Um I I think that's the thing, like European cinema is very popular in like mainland Europe and all that kind of like the area. And whenever like whenever anyone sort of thinks like, oh I never grew up with that stuff, and it's like yeah, because you grew up in a in a very like, I don't know, like uh you just grew up in a household that didn't have it. But you it's always interesting when you speak to someone who grew up with multiple regions of cinema growing up, and then they have a obviously they have a much broader, more interesting taste in film because they've been exposed to so many more different cultures and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Yes, this is the benefit of growing up in a smaller country as well, like you get to see films from around the world. I don't know if that's the case nowadays because it's becoming more and more uh about like you I uh recently I was in Greece and in Greece and eight out of ten film uh films was the Odyssey. Yeah. In the screening hey, that that's based in Greece, in it. Come on. But you know, you uh so I don't know, like there's more screening rooms, but I don't know if there's more variety of films. But there's still lots of festival, there's things like this. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

It would be interesting to speak to a gentleman and see what's their experience of uh I I don't want to ever come across as you know, um, like a pretentious film snob, but I wanted to go to the cinema the other day, and my choices were Odyssey or the New Spider-Man. And uh and if I didn't and if I didn't want to watch either of those, I might be able to watch Toy Story 5. And I was like, ah, okay. Alright, I don't watch any of that. Like Damn. And and and you know, I live in a small town now, so obviously they've got to appeal to the thing, yeah. To the masses, and it I think it's the summer holidays or something, so obviously they've got to show it for that.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

I think there is uh currently in the last few weeks, there's not many films released, this less and less.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

I I wanted to see Evil Dead burn.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

I didn't watch this one.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

Yes. No, I didn't see it. I I will see it, but I missed it, I think, at the cinema. And you know, I would have liked to have gone and seen that at the cinema, but meh. It's yeah, that's a cinematic experience. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's I would rather see that than the Odyssey.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

So I haven't watched the Odyssey, so don't see it. I I I won't I won't see it. I will see it, I will see it. I want to be part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Oh, that's fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

If I do see No, I will I will watch it because I hear from people that I trust that it's not that bad. Okay, fair enough. And I also don't want to dismiss someone's work just because I'm a snub and I can be. And I'm not a big fan of Nolan, definitely. But I'm gonna watch it because I also it's it's a story that's so close to my heart because we're being taught Odyssey at 13 for six months in Greece. Fair enough. So I'm curious to see how this translates on screen, although I do know it's not it's not really about the Odyssey, it's about the Iliad, innit? The version of Nolan. It's not really loyal to the text, from what I hear.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

I don't think there's anything snobbish about not wanting to go see his films in the same way that some people just don't watch Marvel films because they're like, that's not for me. Right. That's me. So I don't think there's anything wrong with then saying, like, oh, I won't see a Nolan film.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

Because it's like historically I just defend myself, I just find them boring. I can't watch a Marvel film. I'm sorry. I know it's a big part of the culture for some people, and I do not dismiss it again. It's just that the all the times that I attempted to, I found myself really bored. Yes, I watched the Avengers, I was like, oh my god, is this gonna finish? Please, please. But that's a personal taste, you know.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

I can I hear what you're saying. Like, I don't mind some of them.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

But you know, when you have like 10 films to choose from, inevitably you will reject a few of them, and if you're not really a fan of Marvel, you will not go and see. So this is the gap in my like watch list. Right. Yeah. I haven't really watched a lot of Marvel films. I've watched Spider-Man. A few of those. Is this Marvel films?

SPEAKER_00 58:49

Have you seen the yeah, have you seen the animated Spider-Mans?

SPEAKER_01 58:54

Yes, yeah, they're they're worth it. I enjoyed these. They're worth your time.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

But yeah, yeah. Yeah, like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

I I used to enjoy more like this kind of films. Like, for example, I do really like Batman. Batman Returns, to be exact. This is a film I watched a lot as a kid. Speaking of.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Solid choice. Batman Returns is a good time.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

It's a really don't you think it's a really good film, by the way?

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Yeah, I think Batman, the 89 and returns, I think they are I think Returns is better. Returns is a better film, but I do love that first Batman. Like that Tim Burton.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

But anyway, these ones I really enjoyed. Yeah. So it's more about I think it's like post-2010 Marvel Universe. It became really, really action-packed and really long, like three hours film. Yeah. And it's not something I enjoyed personally. I I I just I remember watching. I'm gonna watch a three-hour J Lan Turkish film. Honestly, I was just about to say I've been mocked being mocked by my friends, but I enjoy this more.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

I would rather watch Stalker for three hours. You know what I mean? Like, I I would I would watch Tarkovsky for three hours happily. But when it's like, why am I watching CGI explosions for three hours? That's too many hours of CGI explosions. Like nothing's happening. I may as well be watching anime, and that's fine, like watch anime, but then at least commit to it, like be animated, because that's what these films are at this point. I'm not gonna get into this. Um so having gone from what we've just said, what film uh or which film holds a special place in your heart?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Now that was a really hard question to answer because there's so many ways to So I was thinking what does it mean to have a special place in your heart? I can tell you that a film that really I I can recall that uh after I watched it, it really shook me in a very unique way was Cries and Whispers by Ingmar Bergman. Okay, and by then I was already 18. Okay, and it holds a special place in my heart because following the thread of the horror film fan as a kid, and then discovering Polanski and Zulovsky and more art horror, this was like the perfect time for me to watch a film that is truly horrific and bleak in the most unimaginable, unsettling way. Uh, but it's not a horror film. So I I I mean I don't I felt like watching a Bergman film for the first time, probably around 18, it it really introduced me to uh filmmaking that I had never seen before. Yeah. Um at the center of this was the actors and the emotional journey of the characters, and you don't have I don't know, like you don't have a lot of elaborate camera work, you don't have like um it's although it's super beautiful and very specifically designed as well, like you have this red texture, yeah. Um like it has very strong aesthetics, is what I'm trying to say. But this is not what the film is about. This the film is about grief and family and pain and all these very pleasant things, all the people. But it's like it's existential horror, that's what it is. And as a horror fan, this made sense to me. This like touched me in a way that was quite special because I think Bergman has something about humiliation and about how and I think horror is not too far from these elements, like yeah, that's a good point. You know, like uh the way the characters uh experience these situations that are usually horrific and painful are quite humiliating in a way that's similar in a horror, yeah, and also similar to Greek tragedy. If you want to go like and super analyze this, um the the element of fear uh takes another level in Bergman and especially in this film, um also um again coming back to not feeling comfortable watching something uh this is like the definition Bergman is really really not taking a step back to make you feel comfortable. He's like, okay, you're gonna feel the pain now, you're gonna feel you're gonna feel the phobic misery.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

You're gonna feel living, you're gonna feel real life right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:19

And you're not even gonna feel it in a situation, you're gonna feel it through the experience of the characters. There's this line in this film, I'm just remembering now, I'm recalling the film, where the husband says to the wife, I really hate you. While they're both watching through the mirror, and it's a really lovely, beautiful moment, and he's like, I really hate you, I despise you. And you're like, This is this is horror. Like the moment the husband has to say to his wife that he really does despise her, but they are still together. Um but he's also in his defense again, he's also very tender. There's something really like the the journey again, like the sister dying and the end of the film.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

I don't know if you remember, like there's there's something also very naive and very the his ability to write character is astounding because it is that they're so well-rounded and they're so um grounded in genuine human emotion that whatever they do, it never feels far-fetched, you know, it never feels anything other than just like, yeah, fuck, I've felt like that, I've done that, I've you know, I've wished I could have said that through the mirror. Like, you know what I mean? Like, there's loads of things where you're like, fuck yes, and it's so true, and it's it sounds so, you know. Well, obviously. And it's like, yeah, but writing is never that easy. Like, if you write something that's too on the nose, everyone will call it out for being on the nose. But if you write It with just that right amount of subtlety, that right amount of look, that right like obviously it's performance as well as writing. But if you do it, so it becomes so like looking in a mirror of just like oh they're doing it, they're doing the thing I wish I could do, they're doing they're saying the things I wish I could say, I wish I could hug that person, I wish I could do a thing. And it's so tender, like you say, but it's also so miserable. I don't think you can have one without the other. I think you have to have such a strong grasp on human emotion to be able to write it. And he does such a beautiful job at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:33

And I think it's because he's coming from the world of theatre, um, he's studied all the classic so far, like, and he's heavily influenced by Strindberg and Ibsen and all the Scandinavian like theater player rights. But yeah, and like uh remembering now, like you know, the film starts with the sound of the sister heavily breathing, dying of cancer, and that goes through the first half of the film. And I'm now realizing, like, again, this is more tough to watch than Evil Dead. Yeah, like this is more painful and more horrifying. Yes. So I know it's far-fetched, but there's definitely some connection between horror and cries and whispers. No, and I think in many ways Bergmann influenced the next generation of filmmakers such as Haneke, even Lanthimos, yeah, uh, with this like bleak heart type of films.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

Uh well, going back to another problematic filmmaker, doesn't like Woody Allen site like Yeah, in a very different way.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:47

Yeah, yeah, Woody Allen. In a very different way. He's a crazy fan of Ingbern Bergman, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

But I think you can see it in like Woody Allen's writing. It is very much that like, you know, that has such a a humorous tragedy to it that it does become it becomes so like, although they they are quite far-fetched stories, and Woody Allen trying to sleep with 15-year-old girls, like it it seems very like the the rest of the dialogue just seem very genuine. Like, not everyone is written to be glamorous. There are nobody characters who have quite important roles in people's lives, and he's written that really well because it's like, oh yeah, you've experienced human life, you've not just written what you think should be cinematic, you've written a human thing. So, yeah. I mean, I I I see a lot of um that in Gasper Noe's work, especially Enter the Void, yes, where there's a lot of that like, Oh, I'm just being made to feel right now, like that's it. Like, I remember sitting through Enter the Void and like I another three-hour film, another th beautiful three-hour film, I'll take that any day. And I was sat watching it, and uh my partner Kirsty and her friend, well our friend Jody came home and uh from like I think they went out for a meal, and I was like, just I was about 20 minutes left of the film, and I was sat there and they're like, What are you watching? And I was like, uh probably the bleakest thing I've ever seen. And I I and I think I'm gonna have like tears of joy at the end of it. I think I'm gonna be like, I think I love it, and they were like, That sounds miserable, and I'm like, Yes, and it's beautiful. Like, I loved every minute of that film, and like yeah, like because of that film, I then went and bought them all.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:33

And it's very different to like thinking about Gaspar Noé, I'm now considering Lars von Trier and other Scandinavian. Yeah, uh, it's quite different, like again, this Scandinavians are humiliation. Yeah, they love it up. No, but I'm thinking like it's it's also very bleak, also very, but quite different in nature.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:59

Like, sometimes I do feel with Lars von True that he almost does it on purpose, or yeah, his feels like it just goes uh that drop too far where you're like, okay, like you're making sure we all need to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:13

He has some excellent films, by the way. Don't get me wrong, I really love some of his films, but sometimes it does feel like intentional to the point that it's losing its it's becoming a little bit of a caricature. Like in Antichrist, you're like, okay, yeah, now I see it. You'll wanna be Lars for Truyer.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

That I was Antichrist was the one I was gonna cite as that was the one. Everything after Antichrist, I think, becomes a Lars von Trier film.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:38

And like I admit it by his own it's he has said that as well. He has said yeah, yeah, yeah. He said that was a terrible film. He said for himself. Yeah he he actually won the award for best European film back in the day for Antichrist, and he said, imagine how terrible the rest were. I mean was uh what was the one melancholia was after Antichrist?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:03

I think it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

That was not too bad. I liked it too.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

I think I haven't seen that one yet. Um purely for that reason of like after Antichrist, I was like, how? How this isn't this isn't the true arrival don't mind. Yeah, no, I get it. You know what I mean? But hey, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:23

Another thing I want to mention about Cries and Whispers um and Bergman's filmography in general is that it took me so long, like I can now see 20 years later that there was also a lot of humor in it. And I just wanna say that actually a horror film or a film that actually any film that's dealing with very heavy, horrifying subjects needs a little bit of humor. And I wasn't able to see this when I was 18 or 19, but now I can see I was like, he was like really making fun of this as well. This is the funny scene, like it's terrifying, but it's also quite funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:11

And and I think that's something that you have to go through life. You have to you have to have experience some misery for you then to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:18

But it's so funny, I couldn't I couldn't see it when I was younger. I'm now laughing at it. I'm like, oh my god, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:26

I think you gotta go on the other side, you gotta get past it, you gotta go to the other side and then be like, oh, that is funny. And like when you're in the middle of it, like as an 18-year-old, you're going through all your own fucking things, you haven't got time to see what is the funny side of it because everything is so raw. Like you know, feeling an emotion is so intense at that age. Whereas, you know, if you're nearly 40, you can then look at it and go like Over 40, by the way. You're looking good for it, my man. Don't worry. Thank you. Wait, how old are you? You know. I thought you were younger than me.

unknown 1:13:01

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:02

37. You're 37. Oh, good. I looked good as well. Yeah, yeah. Well, I look worse than you, but I still look good. I think it's because we've both got all of our hair still. Yeah, thick curly hair. We've heard some some inklings of uh of controversial opinions, but what is your controversial opinion on a famous film or filmmaker?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:26

Or the I have so many of those I couldn't decide. But I have a big one. It's not about a film, it's about a filmmaker.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:35

Are you ready? Don't kill me, you guys. I think Zan the Godar is not as great as people present him to be. Here I said it. I'm not saying his influence in the history of cinema is not important. He changed the editing style, he introduced new elements. We needed this. I do respect that. But watching his films now, I'm like, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:03

You got any receipts you wanna you wanna point anything out specifically? Bad acting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:11

Let's start with this. Bad acting. I see a Beckman film, it still stands fresh, the acting is amazing, the shots are amazing, the words still feel okay, maybe a little bit exaggerating and dramatic. And nowadays this feels a little bit, you know, we need more fresh things nowadays. We need more real. So it does feel more theatrical, but it feels good, it feels contemporary in a way. Uh no, I mean, again, I don't want to sound like please, guys, whoever listens to this. Um, it's just something about uh it's overintellectual for no reason, to the point of feeling silly sometimes. And I don't know, maybe it's a personal thing, maybe it's not my taste, maybe it's there's something about the films that I mean I do like Breathless. Maybe there's a few exceptions.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:08

See, I think Breathless is like the one for me where I'm like, fuck this nonsense. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:16

I mean it's been a long time. Which one do you like? Is there any you would try a few and I'm like What's the one that's in the factory with Fonda?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:26

Is it the factory? I don't mind that one. But I will say, to to his credit and the whole French New Wave, their whole point.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:35

No, no, there is films in the French New Wave that I like.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:39

But what I was like, they their whole point is to make you aware that you're watching a film by, you know, as you know, like interjecting just blocks of colour, you know, or reusing poor takes instantly before another good take. It's that thing of taking the audience out of it. So when you say it's got bad acting, part of me does think like, well, is that partly intentional? Is that intentional because they're wanting you to, as the audience, acknowledge like this?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:08

What an excellent point, an excellent excuse you're using what the heck you're trying to defend that. I watched Zealand Dean like last summer. It's all three four. Famous in all the lists of the best films ever, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:23

Uh you you got a you got a friend in me with that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:26

I could not I was ready to fall in love with it. I did not.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:31

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:32

I don't know. I I don't agree with the intentional act uh bad acting. Because in in later films like Jill and Jim, where you have an actual story and it's not as you know, in the first few years they were getting very experimental, yeah. Like Alpha Ville, um there's a lot of this, but uh there's others that are more story-based, script-based, like Dark and J uh Jill and Zim. Ju Jules and Jim, yeah. Jill Zen by François Drefo. Yeah that follows the storyline clearly, and the acting is not amazing, in my opinion, of course, in my humble opinion. Uh so I just think they uh they are outdated a bit, some of his things. Um but for example, there's this film I don't know if you know, by Zach Rivette, it's called Celine and Julia Go Boating. Oh, I know of it, I haven't seen it, but yeah. Wait, let me Celine and Julie. Julie go boating there, I remember. Yes. So this one I really love, and if you want to watch some good French New Wave, I think Jacques Rivette has a couple of those. I do like Agnes Varda, Samot as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:01

Okay, uh, but yeah, as an unpopular opinion, I think it's uh it's such a dangerous one to ever criticize anything that Goddard does or like the French New Wave or anything. People are always just like, oh, but that, and I'm like, no no no no no no no no no. Like, don't get me wrong. I love it It's the same feeling I have about Monty Python. I don't I don't like Monty Python, but everyone that was influenced by them, Vic and Bob, you know, like that kind of stuff, absurdist comedy is where I play when it comes to comedy. Absurd comedy is where I love it. But just because Monty Python was like where everyone like that's the that's the the the the base of absurd comedy, I think it's been done better with time and more people. And that's not to say that it itself is not funny, it of course is very funny, but I think I prefer what other people have done with it, and I think French New Wave is the same for me. I don't like the core that is French New Wave, but without French New Wave, you wouldn't have Wes Anderson films, the earlier ones, not so much the newer ones. And I I really appreciate those early Wes Anderson films. And I think you wouldn't have a lot of Scorsese stuff if it didn't have French New Wave.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:28

You wouldn't have a lot of like very you wouldn't the cinema wouldn't be the same without Friends New Wave.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:34

Exactly. So although I don't enjoy it, I appreciate it as a concept, but that does not mean I will be.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:41

Well, just ten years before Friends New Wave, you mentioned Italian neorealism, loved it, still love the film, still can watch a visconde film and really enjoy it. I can really enjoy Fellini. Uh I can less tolerate the Dubin. Yeah, yeah. Nowadays. I don't know, maybe we've become more aware of this technical little mistakes that were okay back in the day. But I can still like the film and the pace is something I can follow. Pace is really important for me, I think. Oh yeah. You mentioned Tarkovsky. Some people find him very slow. I find his pace very like poetic, let's say. Yes. I mean you get to be in the mood, of course, but that's that's the point.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:29

If you're not in the mood for a Tarkovsky, fuck me. You're sitting there for about six days. But if you are in the mood, Solaris will fly by. You know what I mean? You can just sit there and be like, give me some more. Give me more of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:44

I do want to mention now that you're talking about pace. Do you know a Thai director called Vereh Apuchapunk Veresatakul? It's a hard name to pronounce. So you maybe maybe you know his films. He won the Palm Dor a few years ago for a film called Uncle Boon Me. Recalls his past lives. He also did a film with um Tilda Swinton called Memoria. Anyway, he's this Thai director that has a very specific pace. Yeah. It feels a bit slow, but it's some would find it slow. Some like me would find him hypnotic.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:26

If you wanna make the difference.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:28

I think there is a difference. I think there's, you know, it's the same as um Gaspanoe, like you can either sit through three hours of neon lit nonsense and think, what is this shit? Or you sit there and completely get it. You know, and I think there's nothing wrong with not getting it. Like, if you don't get it and it's not for you, sick. Like, you don't have to like or understand every single piece of art. You know, I walk around the the Tate Modern, I'm not like Chef's kiss. Every piece of art in here, perfect. No, I'll I'll look at like a Rothko and be like, oh that's lovely, and then I'll look at something else and I'll be like, this is horseshit. Like, and that's the beauty, like it's the interpretation of it. And if you're watching something and you think this is poetically lovely, this is there's the rhythm of this, which is exactly like on beat with me right now. I mean the perfect mindset for this film, you know. I I I've completely got lost in it. I'm gonna have a fucking tear of joy at the end, regardless of what the film is, because it's done something so much for me, then I love it. And then the exact same film can hit me the wrong way the next day, and I'll be like, ah fuck this noise.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:45

It's funny how films have become longer, like action films have become longer, and then drama or horror has shrinked.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:53

Well, it's uh I feel like the action film they need to justify the cinema ticket. No one wants to see. Yeah, as in like you're paying your ticket and you're gonna wall and see SMS. Have you never read a short story? Like you never read a novella? Like that is really sad, it feels like dystopian. Oh, it's pay-per-minute film, like it's truly the end of narrative cinema, and I hope it's not um narrative Hollywood cinema. Yeah, yeah, of course. I think you know, like Hollywood may have just had its run. It had a good hundred years.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:33

That's why going to the theatre is so important. Going to the actual screening room, turning off your phone, yeah, turning off your fucking phone. Yeah, genuine. Everyone, turn off your fucking phones. Like I know it's harder, I know like maybe it will take more effort to enjoy a three-hour film by Hamaguchi called Drive My Car. Yeah, but but you have to follow, like maybe it's good to follow someone else's rhythm. There's a reason. Sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's super fast. Sometimes it has to be like really slow, like everything should be on screen. Like it doesn't have to be fast. I hate when people say this is slow.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:24

For the wrong reason. Because it's like it's not slow. Like you just don't fucking you're not in sync with it. You're not in line with what they're trying to say. It's not slow, you just don't get it, and that's fine. Like, except you don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:39

It's slow. What does it mean? Like, when is life slow or like how what's the is there a barrier that's slow or fast? Or an average speed? Yeah, like no, there is no.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

And like it's slow because you're bored, so change your language, just say you're bored. You're bored. It's a bit slow. Yeah, I was a bit bored through it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:02

But also don't say you're bored before you try to to get into the story. If you've decided to purely your projection, I am bored with a Marvel film. You're bored with drive my car because it's driving a lot for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:19

There's a car driving.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:22

You know what they're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I will say, even yesterday, uh, like whenever I'm driving, I try and do that. Like, I think of her saying, like, my mother would and I would slow and I would try and do the softest pull aways and stops. So when I'm driving now, I always want to try and get it as smooth as possible. And I think of that film.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:45

But I love this about cinema, how it's like really it it can really become an actual sensory experience. Yeah. Like and and really feel what's going on and get the like the sense that you're living next to those characters. And not just observe things.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:05

Like I always love it when a character something happens to a character, they get stabbed, they get killed, they die, they fall in love, they don't fall in love. If an alcoholic falls off the wagon, that always gets me. Like, and when my first reaction is, oh no, I cared. I cared about that character. I wanted that character, I wanted this completely fictional person who I know that actor is not that person, but I when I see them slightly falter, slightly fail, and I'm like, oh no, I'm bought in. And I want that person, I want this character to do the actions that they were meant to do, and I want to see it through. And if they don't make it to the end, I'm like, oh my god, you're not gonna you're not gonna live. I'm never gonna know. I'm never gonna see you after this film. After this film finishes, I'll never see this character ever again. But in my head, I'm like, oh, I hope they have a good time, and I love that, and I absolutely love it. I love coming out of a film and just I was allowed to be a part of their life for two hours, and it's like, oh, that was lovely.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:10

Or in a similar way, when you are watching a very horrifying situation, the one that I described in previous films, you have like this physiological experience of feeling like you're with the characters sometimes, like you you watch their skin, you watch the blood, you watch the blah blah blah. All of these things, and but there is the safety blanket of fiction, yes. So you get to experience something truly unusual, unsettling, but you have the safety of fiction, which I think is really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:48

Yeah. I mean to go back to Gaspino, like in irreversible, when people complain about the rape scene going on too long, and you're just like, how long do you reckon it would feel to be raped? It'd feel a lot. Fucking longer, and that's the beauty of that scene is that it sits you in that uncomfortable, it doesn't cut away, it doesn't do anything, you're stuck in that one position for the entire time of that film. So you start to you go, Oh, that's horrible. Oh, it's still going on, isn't it? Oh, it's still fucking going on, and then the people walk in at the end of the corridor and they observe it and they walk away. Your one saviour walked away, and you're like, what the fuck is going on? And all of that, I I think he's a fucking exceptional filmmaker, but like all of that builds into this thing where you're just like, Oh, you've m you're making me sit here and you're making me feel, and there's nothing wrong with feeling. I think a lot of people are afraid to feel, but it's like, nah, have a good fucking cry. That's for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:49

Like, that's for me a little bit of a red flag when people, especially people who love cinema or they claim to love cinema, when they're like, he's a sick director, he makes me feel uncomfortable, he's taking it too far. With very few exceptions, again, I most of the cases is you not being able to actually feel comfortable with the story that's been told to you, internalise your emotion. Yeah, exactly. That's the point. That's the point. Then again, if you don't if you want to protect yourself from this kind of images, and that's also something you can do. Maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:32

Maybe, but uh I think you're a more rounded individual if you uh understand your emotions, and if there's something that makes you feel uncomfortable, I think there is nothing wrong with um exploring it and digging into the root reason. Why does that make me feel uncomfortable? Why do I not like body horror? Why do I not like these things? Oh, it's because of this reason. Oh, now I know it's because of that reason. Oh, okay. Now if I watch that, it probably isn't as bad anymore, but at least you've got a better understanding. And you know, I used to not think like years ago, I wouldn't go to therapy. Because I was like, no, I'm I'm a writer, this is all my shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:18

And then I was like drama.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:22

I need my drama, and then I was like, that's absolute horseshit because uh I don't know I don't know how to write that. I know how to live that and I know how to you know act out in it. But if I want to write a character with with those emotions, I need to know the other end of it, I need to know the base cause of those reasons, I need to know what those re those actions look like when you've calmed down and got past it. Because if I don't learn how to get past it, then I've not written a w a rounded character, I've written just a very monosyllabic character. So then, you know, I've been in therapy for about five years now. It's beautiful. Like, I I to be honest, I probably don't need to go anymore, but I like it. And it's very much that feeling of just like fully understanding an emotion, really digging in. Why? Why are we doing this for this reason? Okay, got it. Now I know. And I think people should be doing this. I don't know why they're all it does require a little bit of of work from the audience as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like going to the to the movies is I think it's because it's so accessible and so easy, and you just turn on the TV. Yeah. Uh or you just pay a very small amount to go see a film. Not so small nowadays, but still not as much as a play or concert. Yeah. I think it gives the impression to be well that I don't need to do anything, this is just entertainment. Yes. That's I think I I would wish people would go more open-hearted to watch a film as something that could change them or could be an experience that would stay with them. And not just three hours of entertainment.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:15

I think there's nothing wrong with um I go to a theme park to be entertained and maybe a little scared. Right? That's why I go to a theme park. And then I go to a play to maybe experience something a bit more a bit deeper, right? And I don't think there's anything, you know, there's nothing inherently wrong with going to a Marvel film and being entertained. If your life is so that whatever you're doing, you are content or you're not content, or whatever, whatever. But you go and watch a Marvel film, because it's for three hours, I can turn off and I can just enjoy it. I got nothing against that. But in the same way that fast food, every now and then I like a uh a McFlurry. Every now and then, you know? But if I ate McFlurry every day, I'd be a mess of a human being. And that's the same thing. I feel like there's nothing wrong with enjoying a bit of shitty cinema of a movie, you know? Go watch movies, go watch them as much as you want. But watch films as well. Like, I think you need to have a route a balanced diet. Like, if you're watching, you don't turn off a comedy because you're going, I'm laughing too much here. I don't want to be too much.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:30

Listen though, you're not going to enjoy or watch the entire three hours of Tolkien on your sofa. That's the that's the main problem. Like, the experience needs to be a communal experience as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:45

That's true. I think there does need to be a bit more emphasis from the cinemas to be like, you know what's a great film? X, you know, not X, but like, and then it's like let's re-release it for six weeks, and just you know, everyone should go see that at the cinema. Like, that's just the thing everyone should go see at the cinema and then go watch it. Like, I I would say before I left London, Prince Charles was the only cinema I really went to because it was showing old films. Like, I mean, I I saw new films at Odeon and stuff, but Prince Charles was the one that I was I would check what's on at Prince Charles today. It's like, oh, I can go see uh you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:26

What's the other one? I forgot the name.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:29

Um where is it? Garden Cinema. Do you know it? Oh the one in Islington, the screen on the green.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:38

No, no, no, no, no, this one. I hope I'm not wrong. Uh the one in in Holborn Uh it's like very art decal with small screening rooms. It has a lot of classics. No, no, no, no. Wait, I'm gonna do this. Okay. So yeah, it's the garden cinema.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:59

The garden cinema? I don't know that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:01

That has a lot of like old classics and retrospectives.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:05

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:07

Okay. Well, I think I'm down for uh a screening uh in October, so maybe I'll try and get that in as well. I'm off to it's Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, followed by a live recording of the General Witchfinders podcast. Uh and that's I think it's in it, maybe Acton, I don't know. But uh, I got invited to that by the podcast guys, so I thought like, oh, that could be fun. So, what have you been watching recently?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:36

Yeah, what have I been watching recently? So the last time I watched at the cinema was The Invite. Did you watch this one? No. Which one is The Invite? The Invite is uh by Olivia Wilde uh with uh Penelope Cruz, Seth Brogen.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:56

I know the one you mean, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I didn't watch it. It's meant to be quite good though.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:00

That that yeah, I was about to say I was quite surprised. I liked it. It was it was good. It was good. I enjoyed it. Okay. Um give it a go. I I speaking of Woody Allen, and I f I I thought it was like exceptionally directed from the perspective of performances. Oh nice. Let's not talk about Woody Allen. I don't know why I'm meant to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:26

Polanski, Woody Allen, Tom Cruise. We get hitting all the hitters today, man. But anyway, you know, I'm I don't want to put Tom Cruise in that list. I'm gonna take Tom Cruise away from that list. No, no, yeah, yeah. That's not what I'm saying about Tom Cruise. He's a wonderful man.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:41

All agree that Woody Allen introduced a new type of like performances and dramas and comedy.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:47

We have to uh separate the art from the artist. Yeah, like uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:52

Yeah, I'm not going into this. Anyway, yeah. Horrible if he did all these things that have been accused. Yeah, but anyway, back to Livia Wild. I was impressed because I've seen her other films and I was not a big fan of. But this was uh this was good. Like, like I thought she did a really great job with the actors, and it's a complex story and emotionally very packed with different elements and like different layers of the relationship, and it goes really deep into it, and it's very funny, it's hilarious, and in the end, very moving. And I it's interesting that there was a lot of improvisation, so it's it's really fun to watch, I would say, and it takes place in one place, it's in in a house, so it's not like you're gonna see elaborate camera work or any of these, but you will see elaborate performances. Perfect. Um yeah, I mean, two days ago I watched a film called The Innocence. The original one? French one? No, no, no, no. Uh an original film, I think it's 2021. I know which one you're talking about, which I really like as well. Um, Escovoid, yes. Yes, I want to I this was yeah, I I I had it on my list for a long time and I just watched it recently, and it was one of the most hard to watch films for me because it has very disturbing um painful to watch scenes, um but it's a really interesting take on the like it's very it's a supernatural horror film, kind of follows the Scandinavian movement, like let it let the right one in. It's a little bit like this kind of vibe. I realize that this director of the film did also write or co-wrote the scripts of Joaquin Trier's films, you know, the guy who did Sentimental Value, Worst Person in the World, Selma. Very different films, very Bergman-like family dramas. But this one is a good one, and I really do recommend it. It's uh I don't know, because it's it's it's children, like all the actors, and you do stay with the children, like all the perspective of the story and the images and everything is through the eyes of the children. Okay, it's really hard to watch because of that reason. I feel like it's it feels quite cruel to be honest. But uh, kids get some type of superpower, and they gradually realize by meeting with each other, and like they realize they all have these superpowers, and they use, of course, they use them for the wrong reason, and everything goes bad. But that was that's that's a good one, and because of this, I went back to see uh Ruben Osland's one of his first film called Play, right? Which I also recommend, and it's also about bullying and very interesting filmmaking long shorts, improvisations if you haven't watched recommendation.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:23

I haven't seen that, but I will. I don't know. I'm a bit of a I like I'm it's a shame. Like there's some things I really like about his his work, um Ruben Oslands. Like I really enjoyed uh Is it the Square? Yeah, I enjoyed the Square, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:48

I did not enjoy the last one that won the Palm Dorothy. The Triangle of Sadness. Yeah, I didn't like the side.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:54

Yeah, I do I could not care for that film.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:56

Everyone was I just thought it was too pretentious, like to the point of like, come on. Right? Come on, yeah. Like a lot of people have the same opinion, by the way. I don't know, it's interesting. But a lot of people found this film a bit too pretentious and too caricature of his own filmmaking.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:14

Fine, there's I don't know, there's I have you know, I get called out uh for not enjoying films more than I enjoy films. Like Okay because most new films annoy me and I don't think it comes from a like a place of like uh pretension, I think it comes from a place of like oh it probably is pretentious. Um like the amount of cinema I watch, this isn't the best example of it. But if all you've watched is Marvel, I imagine that is one of the best things you've watched. And I don't want to be a shitty bad like bag of shit when I say that, but I do always feel a bit like eh, like when obsession was getting loads of stuff, and like I was like, it's a perfectly fine film, it's not amazing. It's a good film, it's well made it's well made, it doesn't make sense, it's not well written. Um and when everyone's saying like it's like uh amazing, I'm like, uh it's not. Be careful where you throw those words, and then with backrooms as well, I was like backrooms.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:22

And this is you know, to be honest, sure, sure. Like something you would enjoy, I wouldn't, and vice versa, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:32

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:33

And depending on the time exactly, perfect example. I did like Obsession, I didn't think it was amazing, but I did think it hit the mark, like it was good timing for the film.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:49

I think it is um the way Richard Linklater good performances, yeah. Uh she was spectacular. She was really good. But in the same way that like Link Later with Slacker and like the before, the first two before films, I think he really sums up that Gen X sensibility, and I think you know, Kevin Smith to the same degree. Like there are filmmakers that really captured their age group. I think uh Curry Barker Baker? Curry Barker Dominic's name, yeah. I think obsession may be one of those things where it's like, oh, I might be a bit of a boomer and I don't get it because I it's I think it's such a uh a film that resonates with a certain age demographic, which I'm now just a bit older than, and that's that's not a that's a comment. I'm a lot older than the demographic. Oh no no no no no. I think there's still a way because I really like like linked latest films, I really like Gen X films because I I think I have more of a Gen X mentality. That's interesting. Whereas you may have more of like a a Gen Z mentality, like which isn't to say anything other than that, it just is. Um you're just you're just scrabbling for your youth, is what I'm saying. And and like you might watch that.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:17

I I did I mean, listen, I enjoyed it, I thought it was well executed. I did the thing about obsession that I found interesting was the use, uh it was quite new the way he used the narrative. I don't know if you know it it had something fresh about it that I can't really explain, and maybe has to do with the generation, and maybe has to do with a lot of things that are naive and not make sense, yes, but in many films and especially horror films, things don't make sense. Sure. And the Willow thing is not something I would buy very easily, but like when we eat, yeah, that's fair. I was like, this is such a like a cheap a cheap way to to to base your whole story. Yes. Well you have by the way, you have the same kind of thing in the weapons, in weapons. Remember? Did you see this part?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:16

I don't like yeah, I don't like weapons. I like the last part of it. I think I would have liked the last part of it had it not been like preceded with the first part, if that makes sense. I think if you'd given me a feature that was the end of the film, I would have been more on board. Or if you had finished this film correctly, I would have been more on board. But I I feel like there's a point where they are two separate films, and I don't think they they they meld together, and that annoyed me. Let me clarify something.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:50

When I say I liked obsession or weapons, this is purely through the perspective of a horror fan. I'm not gonna put obsession or weapons on my best of lists. What I'm trying to say is a horror fan. If I'm gonna go and see obsession, I'm gonna be satisfied fully. I'm like, dude, I had a good time. This was good acting, I had a few jumps, I like it has all the elements that make a good horror film. Is it exceptional? Probably not, but it serves the purpose of being a good horror film.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:23

Which is why I'd say like it's a solid three, three and a half out of five. That's not a shit on it. Like a three out of five to me is like three and a half films. A three, three and a half, like that's a good film, you know what I mean? That's that's what it is. Back rooms?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:38

What's your agent? A lot of people did not like backrooms.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:44

Two, two and a half. I okay after after an hour it had outstayed its welcome. Like, I was like, right, where's the story? Because you've run out and now you're coming up with some nonsense. And I'm like, can we get like I don't think it had I think because what was it, like an hour and 40 minutes? I think it's an hour and fifty, it's nearly two hours, and it's like, where? Where the fuck have you got two hours story out of that? Like, there's there's something you could have done that was so creepy and unsettling. Liminal space, I like like I'm on the Liminal Space subreddit. Like the subreddit of Liminal Space is one of my favourite places. Thank you. The fact that there is a film, like there's a film about liminal space, and I was bored. It was like, come on! Like, what are we doing here? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:40

Good horror films recent from the last decade? Which one would you say like last 10-15 years?

SPEAKER_00 1:47:49

For horror.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:51

I'm I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:52

Uh no, that's fair, because like I said, it sounds like I hate everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:56

Do you like Ariaster?

SPEAKER_00 1:47:58

No.

unknown 1:47:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:00

No, I don't like Ariaster. Something about their work just doesn't just doesn't hit with me. And like I've seen Hereditary, Midsummer, and Bo is Afraid. Midsummer, I think, was like fine. Um Hereditary, I thought like, yeah. I really like Hereditary.

unknown 1:48:18

Good film.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:18

We are not agreeing on this one. We are not agreeing. No. Let me try and find a good horror that I enjoyed. Uh there was a short film called Light Can't Escape. That was great fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:29

Do you like Julia Ducorn, the French director who did uh Titan Titan and Raw?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:36

I liked Raw. I haven't watched Titan yet. I want to see that. Uh the documentary about the Blair Witch project, that was very good. These aren't watched this one. Um Smile 2. I enjoyed that. Okay. Um Mads, I quite liked. Which one? Uh Mads. Uh David Moreau film. Teenage stops off to see his dealer to test a new drug before heading off for a night of partying. On the way home, he picks up an injured woman and the night takes a surreal turn. That was good. I did like the substance.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:10

The substance, uh speaking of. Um what's her name? I forgot the name of the director, but she did a film before this called Revenge.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:20

Also quite fun. Oh yeah? Let me add that to it. Oh, I saw Revenge. Yeah, Revenge was good. Yeah. I thought it was good. That was good fun. Chime. Did you watch Chime? Yes. I quite like that. A good cursaur. It's hard, because I watched a lot of short films.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:37

That's a whole different genre. We kind of like not appreciating as much as we should are.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:45

Oh, 100%. Short films. We should be looking at short films with so much more like joy. I liked men. Garland's men.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:54

Is that with uh Jeff what's her name?

SPEAKER_00 1:49:57

Uh what's her face? What's her name? Jesse Buckley? Jesse Buckley. Jesse Buckley, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:04

I like that. This is a bad one. This is this is you know. This looks like I don't really uh watch that much horror anymore, but I really do. Just a lot of old horror. No.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:16

I mean there's there's a lot of horror recently in the last few years, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:23

Yes. Did you watch Hokum? Damien Scott's new one.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:28

What did you think of that? I do like the fork horror element of it. Yeah. What's was the one before this one he did. Oddity. Oddity, I did really like this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:40

See, I think Hokum was good. It was good, but it was a Hollywood sanitized version of Damian.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:47

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:48

That's you yeah. Yeah. And it's a shame because it was like, oh yeah. If this is the one.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:54

I would prefer it to be a little bit more raw, more less sanitized than you say. Yeah. Yeah. You know the Welsh, uh there's this Welsh director, I believe, who did this for core recently. What's the name?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:09

Did they do Fruacca? Is that?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one. This was interesting as well. I believe he's Welsh. I could be wrong though.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:17

Uh Irish, Aslan Clark. Uh Irish. Okay. Is it Irish? Yes. Female. But I will watch. I will watch anything. That's the thing. I'll watch anything that's someone says give that a go. I'm like, yeah, go on then. And I'll add it to the thousand plus films on my watch list on Letterboxd, and I'll eventually get round to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:36

But it's interesting how, like, uh finishing up with horror, like when I was growing up, I kind of remember horror films were a bit of a B-movie thing. Yeah. They were still not highly appreciated. And I think this has changed a bit in the last few years. It has. That's why you do see a lot, like you see body horror, you see arthouse horror, you see folk horror, you see all types of horror out there that's beyond the actual slash shows and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:09

Yeah. But and I still love those B movies. Those like shitty B horrors that like are from Italy. I love 'em. Like just crap films are so much fun to me. Films where they're they're fully in on like uh cinema lore, where it's sort of like a cop can be an idiot, yet also the chief of police. And it's like, yep, sure, I'll buy that. Like, and this person can go into this uh abandoned house, not be worried about that at all, until things get weird. Yep, sure, I'll buy that. Like, I I I love I love those. Like, I think they're my uh Marvel films, they're just like, oh, I'm just gonna have some lovely slop to enjoy. So uh there's been some good good choices, and I will add some things to my watch list. Is there anything you want to uh promote? Do you wanna sh give yourself a shout out?

SPEAKER_01 1:53:03

Not at the moment. I mean I will keep you updated. If anyone wants to follow on Instagram, there's probably the this is the place where I will announce my next film, uh, which is coming probably next year, earlier next year, and all my work is there's also my website.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:25

But yeah. I'll link all those in the in the comments below. So that well in the comments, but in the thing so everyone can access it. And uh yeah, it's been great having you on. I think you've had some great choices to and I wish we could.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:40

I mean, uh there's so many films we can talk about and amazing films that we didn't include. I think we focused more on like my love of horror and how this uh developed throughout the years, but I do love a lot of different other films.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:55

Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:56

On another occasion we can talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:59

But that'd be good. I I I think it is odd that you know obviously we worked on Japanese samurai sword, we worked on.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:05

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:06

And that was ten years ago, 12 years something like that. Was it 2014, 2015? So about yeah, like over ten years ago. And it's it's bonkers, like obviously, you know, we very loosely stayed in contact all this time, very loosely, and uh but stayed intact physically. Yeah. Yeah. And it's yeah, I think it's very interesting that like imagine ha if we had spoken to each other about film back then. We would have been like, oh look, someone else who understands it. But it's been great having you on. Thank you for coming on, and it's been great.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:42

Thank you so much for having me.