Interview Caroline Strubbe (‘Lost Persons Area’)

Amsterdam, Eye Film Institute, Monday 3 May 2010

‘Lost Persons Area’ is the first full-length film by Flemish director Caroline Strubbe, who received a lot of recognition, both at home and internationally, with her two short films, ‘Melanomas’ (1992) and ‘Taxi Dancer’ (1996). She wrote on the project for five years. “The film has grown very organically,” Caroline tells us in a personal conversation.

The director/writer has plenty of ideas. “Sometimes you wish you could implant a USB stick so that you can easily store the input you get throughout the day,” she laughs. Bringing structure to the ideas is something Caroline has a lot of trouble with. She likens the writing process to making a photo album from a box full of photos. I put all memories, images and dialogues in a box and at some point, if it is too full, it has to be taken out. I have to give it a place first, as if you are pasting in pictures, before I can continue.” As a result, Caroline doesn’t feel like a director. “I only turn when the box is too full, when I need to get rid of something. I’m a director if I don’t have to say anything.”

Scenario version 27a

Because Caroline had so many ideas, the script before the shooting started was a whopping 370 pages. “I had everything written out in detail, I was already at version 27a,” she laughs. Because that turned out to be too much, she mixed everything up, but worked with flashbacks and flashforwards to get rid of the story. “Two weeks before we started shooting, I found out that this wasn’t what I wanted. I then decided to only play the first part.” In this way Caroline managed to preserve the linear structure of her story and she could tell the story in a slow rhythm. The other two parts of the story each become a movie.

Variety

Because working on ‘Lost Persons Area’ was so hard, Caroline wrote the script for a tragicomedy in between – in three months’ time. “I wanted to get out of the melancholy and this gave me that opportunity.” Despite the fact that Caroline received positive reactions to the comedy, she does not yet dare to make it into a film. She already has in mind exactly how the film will be. “You can compare it a bit with ‘Minnie and Moskowitz’ by John Cassavetes. The actor’s game remains important and I will put the camera in function of the actors, just like in ‘Lost Persons Area’.”

Pilot

‘Lost Persons Area’ was recorded in Rotterdam. “I already made a short film there twenty years ago and I felt really good there, despite the fact that people from my team shouted that they wanted to leave.” No doubt it has to do with Caroline’s childhood. “My father was a pilot, so as a child I often found myself in canteens and on runways. Filming brought back all those memories.”

Intuitive

The filming of ‘Lost Persons Area’ was not without a struggle. For example, the filmmaker had great difficulty getting a team together that wanted to comply with her terms. “We filmed without rehearsing. Without artificial light. Without the cameraman knowing what the actors’ movements were, so that they were often just too late to capture them on film. With a super expensive camera on our shoulder we turned in cinemascope, in a Rolls Royce in the mud. Many assistants did not want to do it, only the sixth cameraman (Nicolas Karakatsanis, ed.) was enthusiastic,” says Caroline. The Flemish director also refused to use references. “On many sets they show pieces from other films, to mimic the atmosphere of, for example, a Tarantino. I didn’t want that. The style of ‘Lost Persons Area’ is completely determined from the mise-en-scene.” In addition, Caroline left the actors completely free, because they were completely imbued with the character they played. Caroline: “We had known each other for over a year.” So ‘Lost Persons Area’ is made very intuitive. Because the film was shot in chronological order, it was often necessary to adjust the storyboard after the shooting day. “Then we didn’t need a scene anymore, because we had the impression we had already told it before,” said Caroline.

Power play on set

In a way, Caroline’s working method resembles that of the Kazakhstani filmmaker Sergey Dvortsevoy (‘Tulpan’). Caroline agrees, although ‘Tulpan’ is still on her to-see list. Like Dvortsevoy, she struggles to keep her crew together. “The scenario is only an instrument to communicate with. To keep it alive you have to be creative, and it depends if you can do that with 35 people around you. It’s kind of a power game.” Caroline mentions the Dardenne brothers as an example, who have written a book about it. “It’s like being held hostage by the squad. There is a kind of hierarchy, they know you can’t do without them.” Still, Caroline managed. “Just don’t try to be popular or you’ll go wrong.”

Learning process

Caroline did learn from making this film. “Daring to let go is a process in itself. However, I have always done all disciplines separately and have therefore been writing for far too long. While I am now inspired by the actors and the locations. It’s really nice that my own process is actually the subject of the film. The characters have to learn to let go and that’s what I’ve learned.” Still, Caroline does not regret the fact that she spent five years working on the screenplay. “You can’t improvise until you know your notes. Thanks to those five years I knew very clearly what I wanted and nobody could change that. Only I could improve it myself.”

Label

Following on from those references, we ask her what she thinks about the fact that she is compared with other filmmakers, such as Antonioni and Wim Wenders, as stated in the film description of ‘Lost Persons Area’ on the Eye Film website. “I’m actually kind of sad that it’s on there, even though it’s filmmakers who inspired me, and whose films I saw when cinema became pivotal in my life. However, I prefer that no label is stuck.” Caroline does admit that the subjects in her films are similar to those of Antonioni, such as the search for your identity. “But he had a lot more control over his shots than I did,” she adds.

It is funny that she is compared to Wim Wenders, she thinks. “If there had been bad weather in Rotterdam at the time we were shooting there, the link with ‘Paris, Texas’ would not have been there. It’s something so small that puts my work next to his.” But here too Caroline admits that there are indeed links, such as the freedom that the film exudes and the people who are on the road. “I wrote the character Szabolcs long ago for Bruno Ganz. His character is also reminiscent of the seventies, thanks to his mustache.”

‘Lost Persons Area’ has a positive ending, according to the filmmaker. “It’s actually fascinating. The film tells a lot about the viewer, because what they say to me when they see the film tells a lot about themselves. Everyone sees the end of the film differently.”