– This film is the culmination of the Oslo trilogy, which began in 2006 with “Repetition”, and continued in 2011 with “Oslo, August 31”. Is there a possibility of a quad?
* Now I would like to start shooting the fourth movie. I’ll wait a bit, maybe 10 years. I wanted to say that I and my writing partner Eskell Vogt had planned it from the start, but it never happened. All three films are regarding feeling lost in existential moments in life, so we called them a trilogy. Hope this doesn’t sound cliched or frustrating.
– How do you explain the success of “The Worst Person in the World”?
* Many people identify themselves in Yulia’s story. I think we live in a time when there is a lot of interest in building your identity. We can define who we are, and with it come certain expectations. What choices do you make when it comes to your family, your love, and your career, and what does that say regarding you? We pressure ourselves to make the right choices, because we want to be valued for making the right choices. But life is more chaotic than just choosing between one thing and another. This is what our film is regarding: existential questions.
What also contributes to its success, is that we made a movie for the big screen. It is a complete experience filmed on 35mm film tape. Ultimately, as a filmmaker, I want to create a place where people like to be. I really enjoyed the movie.”Licorice pizzaPaul Thomas Anderson, who called our film the best in the world. That’s a big compliment. He’s my hero, his films are close to mine. With him it’s also regarding locations, characters and their behavior. The plot is less important. More and more moviegoers are open to this: a movie without a story.
If people only want to talk regarding the plot, then I ask myself: Yes, where am I going, how am I going to feel, what pictures do I see? That’s why we love David Lynch movies, right? You want a world full of emotion, something visible. Great filmmakers can do that, and that’s what I’m trying to achieve.
– You mentioned that the gist of this film was your desire to work once more with the lead actress, Renate Rensev, following her small role in “Oslo, August 31”. What sets it apart?
* She has a talent that cannot be imitated, a natural spontaneity that few people possess. Her energy and physical performance transcend the screen, when she runs and when she falls, it feels so cinematic. She can be very playful, intelligent, always present, and able to perform some dangerous and challenging situations. She has an amazing ability to detect and translate feelings, and when she appears in front of the camera, she immediately grabs her. I’m a big fan.
Yulia’s personality is attractive and complex. How did you draw it?
*Comedy and drama stem from privacy. I care a lot regarding details, for example, the morning light on a certain street in Oslo when you’re in love, or that father who reminds me of someone I know. Renate also brought careful notes. Since she read every version of the script, we had very interesting conversations.
All my characters come from me, I feel like I know them. Eskell and I were discussing who Yulia might be, and suddenly she became personal. In addition, as I said, we wrote the role specifically for Renate. Although not quite like Yulia, she partly shaped the character and eventually gave her life.
– Why do you think Renate Rinsev didn’t get more chances to play the lead roles before?
* The mean answer, perhaps, is that my colleagues in Norway must be blind, but it should be noted that, although the situation is changing, there is still a lack of complex roles for women’s tournaments. The irony is that in the past such roles were present in European cinema: think of Antonioni, Godard, Bergman. Often, their films were the result of collaborations with certain actresses with whom they had romantic relationships.
– In the previous two films, the hero was a man, so was your decision to give a female lead in this film a political decision?
I would say it was a conscious decision, but no, despite the fact that the environment affects us and this topic is very present in the current debates. What has happened is that I am getting older and stronger, which allows me to be more vulnerable to criticism. Regardless of the gender of the main character, she is one with whom I try to negotiate the relationship between fantasy, dreams, and annihilation. Time flies by, and I discover that life is finite, and that relationships we thought were fleeting were actually very important.
I get a lot of questions regarding that. It is usually a compliment. Many women see this as their story. Then the next question: How is it possible that two men wrote this character? But with Renate we did not have any conversations regarding sex. She thought the script was good, and she was more attentive to detail. For me, the work of the characters begins only as a director, not as a screenwriter. Then we start looking at clothes, timing, looks and things like that. This is also the moment when the actor leaves his mark on the character. The actors help give the film its authenticity and realism.
– In the film, clear lines indicate the debates regarding political correctness, climate change, nostalgia, and the controversy accompanying the “Me Too” movement. Did you want to open a discussion between viewers?
* Lately I feel like we live in a very aggressive, totally polarized environment, where you have to take one side or the other all the time. It’s all regarding adopting strong and decisive opinions. I understand the urgency of change, who can differ? But I also need a gray, hesitant and uncertain space, to be human, to feel wrong. I know that I am a man and that I have the privileges of being a man. But I still think we all need to be able to say “I don’t know”.
These big things are present in the film, because I wanted to touch on them, but I have nothing to defend. My writing partner, Esql Vogt, and I try to look at everything from all sides. We are interested in behavior. For us, it’s regarding showing the weakness of characters, not making statements.
Cartoonist Axel [حبيب يوليا – المحرر]For example, it was popular in the ’90s. His sense of freedom revolved around controversy, shock and rule-breaking: damn the old and the bourgeoisie! Then a few years go by and millennials say to him on TV: What I’ve made is mostly masochistic and childish. The new generation does not care regarding shock, but rather looks for subtle and subtle elements of culture. I can understand that too. Both generations want the same thing: freedom, honesty, and truth. Suddenly they find themselves at odds in an argument. My point is not that one is right and the other wrong. For me, it has to do with the complexity of time as it moves forward. My job as an artist is to look at the differences, the jokes, the jokes, the tragedy in this generational struggle.
Did you fall into the trap of self-censorship while writing and completing the film?
* I don’t wish I were. This is an issue that I actually raise in the film, this difficult interplay between our anxiety regarding being misunderstood, and a deep need to say something intelligent in times of chaos. Fortunately, I feel very free, but in Cannes – during the film’s first showing – I felt dizzy with the tampon scene. This is a small movie that was made in Norway and is now being watched by people all over the world.
The film mixes so many genres that it is difficult to find specific references.
* We wanted to do something a little atypical. On the one hand, there is a comedy-romantic composition modeled on the cinema of George Cukor and Eric Rohmer, in which we wanted to embody the idea of doing something lightly and recklessly. On the other hand there is serious drama. I’m Scandinavian, I like Bergman, I like long shots of people dealing with something wrong, and cinema gives you the possibility to be as close as possible to someone. The camera can give you violent intimacy. So the challenge was to explore both energies.
Sometimes the movie looks like a jazz piece, and at other times it looks like a romantic comedy. How did you work on weaving species?
I wanted it to feel like a “musical”, cutting out the dances and songs, but using the camera movement and colors typical of the genre to create a wave of emotion. On the other hand, I wanted to contrast the personal story with a literary structure that left room to breathe, so I used the structure of dividing the film into chapters, with small narrative threads, which allowed me to omit many things.
Did you not feel bound by this divisive framework?
* In cinema we value spontaneity and intimacy, because we want to feel close to the characters, and in love we are told that if you are free, everything is easier, but the paradox is that I discover this in life as in art: you need a framework to feel free. Just as the idea of monogamy and a safe and happy home a place of relaxation and a sense of accomplishment stands once morest the confused pursuit and switching of choices along the way; In this movie, using a constructivist allowed me to create very long narrative scenes, and allowed us to be very close to the character and generate an expectation/prospect for things to progress and grow. As I get older, I seem to have become conservative, but I find the interplay between methodological structure and freedom very stimulating.
Currently showing in Cairo.
