Interview Thomas Vinterberg (‘Submarino’)

Amsterdam, Embassy Hotel, Thursday 2 September 2010

With his latest film ‘Submarino’, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (let’s just put it: that of ‘Festen’) returns to where it all started ten years ago: emotionally troubled young people and their search for meaning under grim stars. Vinterberg – recently divorced and a young father – has matured as a filmmaker and as a person after his master’s debut and a few mixed international productions. Does a movie need a happy ending? “Not when there is cynical sentimentalism. As a sign of hope.”

Thomas Vinterberg (1969) with his outgoing personality looks far from an author/director who himself piles trauma on trauma, which is (again) the case in his latest production ‘Submarino’ – the story of two brothers trying to find their way into adult life after growing up with an alcoholic mother, with eldest brother Nick as the anchor point. “Their world is far removed from me – as a bourgeois filmmaker – but I have delved into it and see proud people through poverty, who may not always be friendly but are direct; somehow Nick is very to the point with that awkward big body; that makes me feel empathy.”

To clarify: Nick is the ‘rough shell, white pit’ type: someone with a good heart and loose hands – whether it is to protect a friend or to show the noisy neighbor his place. ‘Submarino’ is based on the book of the same name by Jonas T. Bengtsson, which Vinterberg came across when things were not running smoothly in his own life. “My relationship broke down, my film career was not going well and my financial situation was like shit. I was crying in the room and came across this book.”

And the filmmaker Vinterberg had left. “An artist’s dream you say? Yeah.” The Dane certainly doesn’t want to complain but turned out to be stuck after his lightning start; with his latest film, however, Vinterberg’s second film youth seems to have begun. He is overflowing with enthusiasm for ‘Submarino’ – his most mature film to date. Vinterberg belongs to a generation that has no difficulty in exposing personal life, although as an artist he can shape it as he wishes. “After ‘Feasting’ I thought ‘this is it; I’m done’. I was stuck with Dogme’s pattern and I couldn’t go any further. I now know that ‘It’s All About Love’ will be appreciated differently later on and that ‘Festing’ will always prove to be the sexy lady of my oeuvre; with ‘Submarino’ I even return to my graduation project (‘Last Round’; an Oscar-nominated short film about the farewell party of a terminal patient; JKV).” Is ‘Submarino’ a hot movie? “If you think so, I’m happy about that. But I don’t choose my audience.”

Nick from ‘Submarino’ has almost messianic traits – not only in his behavior, but also in the symbols he is presented with. For a large part of the film, Nick wears a bandage on his injured hand that can easily be linked to the suffering Christ. “I hadn’t looked at it that way myself, but yes. So you see that a lot happens unconsciously. I hardly manipulate in my films. The fact that it snowed in Copenhagen when we filmed was also a matter of sheer luck.”

We are not so gullible about a film director who is also the son of a film critic, but Vinterberg is referring to the pursuit of effect as is often applied in films. In this context he speaks of cynical sentimentalism. “Then you have to think of strings, for example, or the tears of a child; they are often used manipulatively. ”Vinterberg says he never fell for it; He also strongly denies that fame made filmmaking more difficult for him after ‘Festen’. “It just got easier. I now work with a smaller group of people than then.”

Ideal for a book adaptation that was created at the kitchen table. ‘Submarino’ is a work of cathartic pain; that of Vinterberg, of main character Nick and also of the viewer. A grim, deterministic but powerful and ultimately hopeful film. You wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy what happens to the main characters and at some point you say as a viewer – with Nick: enough. Did Vinterberg deliberately put so much misery in his film to give the tender final chord more expressiveness? “No, that’s the reality: there are people who actually experience what happens to Nick. I wanted to do justice to that fascinating personality from the book – the structure of which I deliberately left intact – and give the viewer a message of hope, without falling into sentimentality.”