In this special bonus episode, Andrew gives a quick 1-2 minute review of Brotherhood, a new film from Denmark that follows the homosexual relationship that forms between two neo-Nazis. He then interviews the director of the film, former fashion photographer Nicolo Donato, to find out more about the movie and its production.
Click below the break for trailers, an interview transcript, and show notes.
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SHOW NOTES:
TRAILER:
THE INTERVIEW:
Question: I know that the genesis for this project sprung out of a documentary that you saw in Germany related to homosexuality and neo-Nazis. I know that this sort of sparked this idea for you. What else can you tell me about the genesis for this idea and why you chose to focus on it?
Answer: I didn't know that there were so many gays in the Nazi community in Berlin. I thought that was a funny and new point of the Nazis, and afterwards I just thought it was a good love story to start out with. There is this leader in this Nazi group you followed in the documentary and he was in the gay bars at nighttime and in the daytime he was, like, beating the gays. It just seemed like a black-and-white kind of thing. So that's why I took my hands around this little story. But I found a good love story, a love story I think you may not have seen before, and that's why I took this little rose, so the idea came from that.
Q: How did you prepare for this film? Did you research different neo-Nazi groups, did you talk to any neo-Nazis? How did you approach it?
A: Yeah, we did. We have seen a lot of things and read a lot of things. And after that we just threw all of that away and just had all the things we could remember and put it in the story. And also I have been talking to an ex-Nazi guy. We've been talking a lot about how he was one of the big guys in one of the Nazi groups here in Denmark, and he is like a mirror for Jimmy. He's not Jimmy, but some of his history kind of thing in the Nazi community he'd been in is some of Jimmy's character. After that, it was just like talking about <unclear> and love people, human beings. And all of us have this little thing as I said when we started shooting that, "No people get born bad." So we just need to, like, go into this movie and just see it as human beings, and I know it's hard for some people but I think you should do that because we ain't born bad. So that was the whole point of the idea of this movie, and how we tried to do it.
Q: Once I saw the film it seemed kind of surprising to me that no one had tackled this before because it almost seems obvious when you step back and think about it. I mean, neo-Nazi subculture is so male-oriented, it only seems natural that a lot of them might be homosexual.
A: Yeah.
Q: Yeah, so I just thought it was a very interesting approach, particularly when one of the main themes in the film is that this group is very hung up about what is and isn't natural.
A: Yeah.
Q: Tell me about the casting for this film. I know a lot of actors wouldn't be brave enough to handle this sort of material, particularly given some of the love scenes and stuff like that. So how did you find Thure Lindhardt and David Dencik.
A: Thure Lindhardt was on the project since Day 1, actually. I met him in Cannes some years ago and said that I have the perfect role for him. So after that, after I got sober again and all of that and went back to Denmark, then we got in touch and I sent him a synopsis of the movie and the idea for me to do this movie. Afterwards, he called me up and said, "I would like to do this." We got together and now after almost five years, we have done it. With David, I didn't know if Thure needed to be Jimmy or Lars, so we went almost a year before we were sitting down and saying, "You need to ahve this role." And afterwards, I couldn't find Jimmy. And I'd been looking at a lot of guys, and then I saw this film school kind of film, and I saw one film where David Dencik is in it, from many years ago. And I said, "I need this guy." And his agent called me and said he would love to do it. So that's how I found David. And Nicolas, he was in my mind from the first time like Thure, because he's so brilliant and I love him and I love actors. And then we started to talk a lot together and I'd been traveling to LA as well, where I met with Lindhardt when he was doing Angels & Demons. And I traveled to Sweden for David, and then the others actors were in Denmark. So I was traveling a lot to talk with them and give them information and research materials. I always find my actors and afterwards I try to change the story around them. After I've got the idea for the movie, I'll always get the actors and then I work that way around. That's why it was so hard for me to not have David from the start, so... but that's how I picked up my actors and all of that. For those guys who give their life in my hands for the sex scenes, and all that, we just need to respect each other, that's the thing.
Q: You mentioned that you sometimes like to change the film after you've got your actors and sort of rework it with them in mind. How did Brotherhood change from your original script and your original synopsis?
A: No, I didn't change it afterwards, I just said I would like to have my actors with me and work with me with it. That changed a lot about... how can you say... develop the script with them. So I don't want to change so much with them, but I listen a lot, and it could change some things. I do it on set. I say, "We ain't gonna do this because this doesn't matter," or I do it in the editing room. So that's how I'm working.
Q: Well they're both fantastic in the film, both Thure as Lars and David as Jimmy, and I'm curious about your approach to working with actors. Do you give them a lot of room to improvise or are you pretty strict in regards to the script and their mannerisms. It sounds like you're very open to input from your actors.
A: Oh yes, yes I am. You know the relationship between actors and directors, that we hate them. I hate them a lot, but i love them as well, because they make my job easier. So I guess they give a lot. I give them everything, because if I give they're gonna give me back. I don't have so many rules, except the rules I do for myself. And then we don't talk that much on set, we always talk before because when you're around the set you cannot do anything of... and just do what has been written in the script, or just forget about it, like respect the scene or what you're gonna do. So I don't have this pressure on them, but I have it... I have a temper. A big temper for my movies and what I'm doing. So it's both sides, because I don't give them pressure on set because I don't tell them what to do, kind of thing, but my temper does. So yeah, I'm Italian, so my blood is gonna come out when I'm doing my things. Maybe on my next movie it will go down, I don't know. But that's how we did it. I don't have so many rules on set. I don't, I don't. I love to see the actors come with something I didn't know, or maybe another side of the story and thinking. I just say, "Play it and let me see," and if I love it I go to the next scene and if I don't I'm just going to do a little bit about it, and I'm just gonna shoot. It sounds easy, but it's not.
Q: You used to be a fashion photographer. This film has a very distinct look to it. There's a lot of low lighting, there's many shots of silhouettes. How did you approach the films' visual style with your cinematographer Laust Trier-Morch?
A: I love photography, and I love our own director Lars von Trier, Wong Kar-Wai, Jim Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, and also I've never been to film school. So I don't have any rules around me. So I just have to go in and see the movie how I want to see it, and then I have my photographer and he's been working with English/Danish photographer called Anthony Dod Mantle. And Anthony put him and me together and Anthony said to the guy, "If you can take pictures, you can only work with this guy." And he was right. We have the same kind of style, me and Laust, the photographer, and we don't talk that much either. We just do it. Before, yeah. Before we figure out how much lighting there should be, and I don't like light. So I said, "Not much light. Only when you need to use light, use it." Or else I just want to do daylight, as I did with my fashion photography. I never used light in my fashion. So that's a little thing I took from the fashion world to the film world.
Q: How did you make that leap from fashion photography into filmmaking? Was it just sort of a natural progression?
A: No, no. It wasn't. I'd been living for New York for like 6 months, something like that, and I'd just got me an agent. And one day I just turned around after I'd been shooting a fashion story for a magazine, just turned around and just thought that this is not enough. Because my pictures started to get darker, and a little bit more realistic. And I didn't want to do any Photoshop. I wanted to go back to my hand print in the darkroom. So it came out like I can't stay here anymore, I need some more energy. I need to work some more with it before I can leave it. And when I came back, I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I came out of school and after that I just figured out I should be here in the movie business. Then I started to do small kinds of things, art films, so... no, it was not like, "Oh I would like to be a director now" when I went back to Denmark. So that's the little story about that.
Q: The ending of this film, without giving anything away, could be viewed by some people to be a tragedy. But I also got the feeling in the final scene that there was an element of hope there. What were you ultimately trying to communicate with the ending of this film?
A: Interpretations, I think? I don't... for me, there is big hope. A lot of it. And I don't know how much I can say without giving the ending away, but love conquers all. And I think that's the most perfect thing to say about this ending.
Q: Well, it seemed to me that one of the recurring themes of the film was that violence in many ways breeds more violence. And the final scene of the film sort of, in many ways, stands in contrast to that, which is what I found very hopeful about it. Do you have any thoughts on that?
A: No. I can say you're totally right. But I don't... I don't want to give anything away. Because I think that the ending, all those people that have seen Brotherhood right now, always gonna come back to me, or write in mail or Facebook, and say, "We didn't think about the ending you just showed us." So that's why I don't want to give anything away, and now I think I already did. But I just think that people, if they have the time, to go and see this movie. Because this movie is not about violence or Nazis or gays, this is a love story between human beings. So it's not like... there is a little bit of violence in it, yeah, and there's gays and Nazis in it, but this is not about that. This story is about humans trying to find themselves and trying to conquer this role in their own way. It's how you've got to get raised and how the change in your life you're gonna take, you don't know where you're gonna come out on the corner. So you just need to try to do the right thing for you. And I think this movie is a little bit about that. But the biggest thing about this movie is that this is a love story. I call it... I don't know if I should say that, but after I've seen the movie five or six times, I saw a little bit of a Romeo And Juliet kind of story in it, but that's maybe too much to say.
Q: Well I thought the film was very well-done. You wrote the script with Rasmus Birch, and you're now working with him again on a film called August. What can you tell us about August and your upcoming work?
A: There's another writer on it as well called Peter Asmussen. He is the screenwriter for Breaking The Waves with Lars von Trier, so he's on it as well. My next project is also a love story, but it's a little bit harder love story about depression and when love is being taken away from you when you're not suspecting that. It's about a guy who has this daughter who's going to die of cancer, and after that, it's his way back into life. And he's gonna meet some people and find himself and find love and trust in love again, in my new movie. So I try to promote love again in environments you really haven't seen before, I think.
Q: Yeah, it seems like that's sort of becoming a common theme in your work, is love in the midst of difficult circumstances.
A: Yeah. I'd say that I respect love and I don't want to disappoint love and feelings, so I just want to try to promote it, because I can and because I feel I can do it because I respect it and love it. So that's why I'm doing it.
Q: Well, Brotherhood opens in New York on August 6. How can people in the United States who want to see Brotherhood find it if they don't live in New York? Will there be a DVD release in the future? What can they do?
A: Yeah, I think there is a DVD release this fall, I think. They can see it on OliveFilms, who bought the film for the States and Canada. So if they go to OliveFilms.com they can see it, I think.
Q: Okay. Well, is there anything else you'd like to promote in regards to the film. Is there a website for the film or anything else you'd like people to know about Brotherhood before it gets released?
A: Yeah. There is a Facebook, of course, on Brotherhood. You can just Google it, just "Brotherhood" or "Broderskab" as it's called in Denmark. No, I don't want to say so much about it anymore, I just want to say take a chance going to see it because I don't think I will disappoint those people that will see it. They're going to see it with their heart, and it is an art house film, so just go and see it.
Q: Okay. Well, Nicolo, thank you very much for joining me today on MovieChatter. It's been a pleasure talking to you, and hopefully a lot of our listeners will go out and see Brotherhood because it's a very well-done film.
A: No problem. Thank you for your time.
