Isabella Eklöf talks about her film, Holiday
We sat down with Isabella Eklöf, director of Holiday, which caused a stir at Sundance and recently played at Sydney Film Festival:
How did your film, Holiday, come to be?
Well, the simple answer is that I was approached by a producer of the book and at the time I wasn’t in a position to say no to anything at all. Of course the book also really interested me, it was a young adult novel by Johanne Algren who also became the cowriter.
The theme was kind of similar, it was the same protagonist and same setting but a different plot. I worked away from it because I wasn’t too keen on that environment. I guess there were a lot of things that fascinated me about it, of course the crime scene in Denmark, as in any country, is interesting because it’s a secret world so when you have direct access to it, like with Johanne who was obviously writing about herself and her own experiences.
That’s always interesting, I think with her personally it became kind of a frustration for me that she was looking for these kind of relationships, it was sort of a psychological trigger for me to find these problems and try to dive into it but of course also the repercussions or echoes from my own past and my lived experiences at the time. I have a tendency to get guys who are supercritical and not really into me, it’s kind of a coping problem I guess.
From my experience and the people I know, these women are together with people who either don’t treat them well… like not really good for them or just not very interesting people, and I wanted to look into what is that’s all about. Why? Like why do you stay?
Do you think your directing style had much influence on the film’s portrayal?
Well it depends on what you mean by how I directed it, the visual style…
Like directing the actors in their performance, in particular with the character of Sascha?
I don’t know how much that kind of direction really does anything. To me directing actors is 80% is choosing the actors and then letting them go on their own journey with trust. I guess my own experiences shaped the content of course, but I think more concerning the relationships between the people then the interpretation of the character Sascha. I would choose someone who I thought understood the character, Victoria did, and then maybe help her understand the relationship but she will go her own way and totally did.
With Victoria the story actually became less erotic because I think she’s not really into that kind of guy. It became more of a transaction, more of a ‘what do I get out of this guy’ kind of thing while me and Johanne were naturally submissive and would have played the part sensually or something.
I think my experiences with my father have influenced how I directed life. I believe guys think that, in order to be powerful in a group, they have to be macho [but this] is just absolutely not true; like they have to be brawny or something is a complete misunderstanding. They can be very smooth and calm and if you really have true power you really don’t need to assert it. That’s something that I always have to keep reminding guys; it’s not the first time I can remember that I’ve written a character like that.
A lot of guys think they have to play some bully in a very crude way. I really have work to make them stop and I think… I think a lot of men misunderstand. Like I could teach them how to get more assertive by being that sort of ‘alpha male’ and by acting less alpha and that’s my own experience. My father was always cool as a cucumber but a real sociopath and I guess that’s what I’m trying to recreate.
Taking about the masculine or the macho, it seems to me aspects of masculinity come through with the film’s portrayal of powerful men with cars and women…
Yeah, I tried to downplay that part, because it’s not interesting to me. I think that’s basically a hormonal thing that guys like to see action, because they have a lot of testosterone they need to get out and just generally they like to watch action in a movie and sports. I’m not going to do that, it just makes things really boring. It’s always the same, some guys with cars looking behind them and blah blah blah… I think it’s almost funny.
Regarding the female character and my own experience I suppose one aspect that is important to me is the playfulness in the relationship or her sort of independence with Michael. Some people are confused because Michael let her go out on her own, to me that is another symptom of being them. Being removed from that world, it’s not like you have to put girls in a box and lock them inside. I suppose it may be the Scandinavian aspect that even when you are the submissive in the relationship you’re still kind of assumed to have a physical freedom and a freedom to go out and explore the world.
People have different experiences, but my experience of abusive relationships that I’ve seen, you can come and go but you will return. Of course there are different types, I know there are other types which are more crazy and more horrible where women actually physically aren’t allowed to leave the house or have to report back on the phone every 5 minutes but that’s not my experience and not what I was trying to depict.
So is the relationship in Holiday is abusive?
Well the relationship is certainly abusive but I mean that’s a greyscale. It’s not like ‘here’s a healthy relationship’ and ‘here’s an abusive one’. It’s not a heathy relationship, it’s a relationship founded on an uneven power balance and that can never be good. He has too many things that she needs, not just material things but the allure of power and he’s got a family. To me, it’s very much about her needing that family and needing that togetherness. They’re a lot of fun and silly and stupid and fun which is what people need, so that was a very important aspect of it to me. It’s not Michael she’s going for, it’s the whole package.
In my mind she’s a very lonely girl, so if she left there’d really be nowhere for her to go and I don’t think most people are capable of taking that decision of going from something to nothing. I think people will go a long way to stay accepted within a group. I mean, we are social animals. We will do whatever it takes to be loved by the group not just the leader.
Are mirrors supposed to be a representation of vanity? Like when Sascha is constantly looking into a mirror during parts of the film?
I never intended for that to be a portrayal of vanity, I’m pretty sure 99% of the time girls look in the mirror they do it with a complete exaggerated criticism and self-loathing, ‘oh my god how could I choose that lipstick, colour, I’m so fat, etc’.
So I’m not sure. I guess vanity, when it’s destructive, is thinking that you’re better then someone because you’ve won the beauty game, but the beauty game can never be truly won, there’s always someone that will outrank you at some point, someplace, somewhere.
So this is a theme you’re interested in then?
That’s not a theme I’m particularly interested in. The mirror is all about trying to understand yourself in the context of the group, trying to understand who you are in that moment. To me, looking the mirror is always an extension because you walk around with a body you can’t really ever see. You don’t ever see yourself unless you actively go and find a mirror, which is a strange thing because everyone else can see you all the time and everybody else knows exactly what you look like and all your little facial gestures and quirks. You have no idea, you know? It’s a weird situation like that where we’re trapped in a body.
To me the mirror is about trying to understand who you are and specifically who you are in the context that you put yourself in. Here I am in a night club, here I am wearing a fancy bikini, does that work? Is that what we’re supposed to do?
Like how mirrors are about truly seeing yourself in relation to how the world sees you?
Yeah but specifically in connection to the group, which persona am I expected to take on, which attributes am I supposed to be wearing here, especially in the beginning when she buys a bikini which is like the fatal flaw, or something like that.
She borrowed money she shouldn’t have borrowed, it’s really just another attempt to fit in and to be accepted. When she meets him she’s got nice clothes, we are expected to wear nice clothes to fit in. I’ve always had a problem with that because I’m not interested in clothes at all and I have to take an interest. I hate that sort of mandatory, or else I’ll be seen as weird or ugly or whatever.
The expectation you need to wear nice clothes on red carpets…
Yeah and it’s fucking expensive! It’s like something you take off after the practice, it’s like a business decision just to be seen as normal human being, it’s fucking annoying.
I noticed the colour scheme and set design of the film causes Sascha’s character to fade into the background, you don’t notice her as much in amongst the bright sets even though she’s the protagonist.
I guess that’s a mixture of the protagonist’s dilemma, where there’s a tendency to give your protagonist too little speaking time because you’re identifying with them as the observer of the situation. That’s a common problem because they are the ones that come into a foreign situation and they need to understand, so they’re watching and thinking. It’s also a consequence of her situation, she’s ended up in a room with a lot of colourful characters and she’s still trying to fit in so she’s not going to be too loud or bring too much focus on herself.
The set design is actually something I’ve not thought about. Nobody’s pointed it out before that she sort of disappears into the crowd, that’s kind of interesting. That’s not just because of the brightness, that’s the choice of images too because I have sort of democratic camera ideals. I don’t want to get so close to the main character because to me it is almost impairing how we’re supposed to care about just one person and the not the rest.
I need to build a world where everybody is of equal importance just like in the real world, it’s sort of a political thing for me I suppose, I think it’s dangerous to see the world too much like a Hollywood movie like Die Hard where ultimately 200 people have to die because some guy’s got to save some girl. That’s not in accordance with my worldview, maybe those two people were actually more valuable. I think it’s seductive and dangerous to develop that worldview where one’s emotions are all that matters and everybody else can just literally go and die.
It’s kind of I suppose an anti-Hollywood thing that goes all the way back to Brits trying to intellectualise the audience and make them think, not to scrap feeling of course, I mean it’s important to still feel because that’s why we tell stories in the first place.
But also to activate the mind and encourage the eye to wonder and to read the whole situation and not just the protagonist’s. It’s sort of an anthropological look at humankind, who are these humans and why do they do what they do? That’s why I make movies, it’s to understand us.
I like to do it from a sociological perspective, it gives I suppose to me a rational, objective, or true view of the world.
I’ve read that the rape scene caused a bit of controversy, could you talk a bit about that? The fixed wide shot seemed to frame the scene as observational but felt a bit intrusive.
Yeah some people take offence, I guess the wide shot wasn’t the issue for the actress because that only means the camera’s further away which is nice. It was definitely a closed set and of course we made extensive preparations checking that Victoria was alright and we choreographed the scene very precisely so there would be no surprises. We used a prosthetic, visual and special effects and it was actually not that hard to do. Other scenes were harder. It was a complex scene but it didn’t cause any emotional issues on set.
The believability of the scene made it pretty shocking to watch.
The whole point of a movie is to tell a believable lie. I mean the characters don’t exist, the situations never happened so whatever happens on set is nothing to do with what you’re experiencing, hopefully.
I find it a little funny that a guy was also kicked down stairs but nobody’s reacting very violently to that. In my mind I guess it’s all about what you’re used to seeing and I think it boils down to that you’re not used to seeing an erect cock and that in itself is shocking, and then what you do with that cock is sort of second rate. Especially in America I suppose, I mean they have weird laws that you can’t say fuck on television as if saying the word fuck is somehow dangerous to the fragile mind or something.
Did you take issues of censorship and classification into account when planning to make this film?
This movie was never made to be a box office hit so I don’t really care about classification. I would have if I’d taken that into consideration but it was my first feature and you don’t even know if anyone’s going to see it. I didn’t know it was going to go to Sundance so commercial consideration isn’t really a priority to me and luckily not to the people who backed me.
When you do your first feature, you have more freedom because nobody knows if it’s even going to be a good movie. There’s no point taking consideration how much you can sell because you don’t know if anyone is going to buy it at all. There’s no expectation of commercial success, which gives you more freedom because nobody’s pressuring you, but that being said I did lose a producer over that scene. I had to change producers because she was trying to veto it. Just generally if someone tries to veto me I’m not going to talk to them again [laughs].
To me censorship is the worst evil. There’s a lot of shit being done in cinema but censorship is to me the worst of them. Worse then sexism and racism really because you have to keep talking about things, that’s the most important. It’s better to have people say sexist and racist things and then contradict them, than forbid them to say those things because they’re gonna be still thinking them.
It’s like in a relationship, if you start suppressing your frustrations it’s just gonna end in violence, psychological or whatever. You gotta keep the communication channels open or it’s going to start eroding and that’s why to me censorship is the worst of all evils. You have to keep talking about everything. To me, the ‘me too’ movement was a great relief because it was a kind of censorship because women’s issues were seen as boring, not interesting, challenging, or artistic, and they were swept under the rug. I really felt that with Holiday, one reason that this girl’s story hadn’t been told before is that nobody was taking an interest. I felt a great relief when it became we can finally talk about some of the shit I’ve certainly been through, I know a lot of other women who have too, and how we’re not talking about because people find it icky.
Are you talking about how women’s problems are being suppressed or made irrelevant?
When women suppress their problematic stuff, the stuff that’s not clean cut, it’s just depressing. It becomes as if it’s not relevant to humankind, it’s just a woman thing. That attitude has got to change but of course a reason why it’s been like that is men have been in power, so of course they’re gonna talk about guy stuff. That’s why I’m absolutely pro the whole… I don’t know if you’ve had that in Australia, but in Sweden and Denmark we’re talking a lot about how we’re gonna allocate spaces for women when giving grants in cinema for example. In Sweden 50% of the movies have to be made by women or they’re not going to give out the rest of the grants. In Denmark it’s not happened yet but I think it’s a good thing, because you’re going to have some movies made by women who aren’t really good but the thing is they’re replacing guys who also were not that good.
If you’re shit at making films it doesn’t matter your gender.
Exactly. In fact my friend who is a researcher recorded some very cool research about it, it’s never going to be the quality guys that get ousted, it’s like a cleanup. To me it’s politically important because of what stories get told. I’d like it to be implemented with other stuff as well not as a hard rule but as something to watch out for in terms of ethnicity for example. That kind of diversity is simply affecting how we see the world, from what perspective.
Films made should be reflecting society’s diversity, kind of like a mirror.
I think the minimum is to reflect the society we actually live in or aim for it and we don’t. We’re still reflecting the elite even though most people are completely overwhelmed by movies about wealthy people with wealthy people problems and that’s an issue because films are influential and everybody starts seeing their world that way and they start thinking that if you can’t afford this and that it’s because you’re lazy. Someone who isn’t in the situation is not going to know how it is to not be able to do something. Going back to Holiday, people that wonder why Sascha doesn’t just leave are partly speaking from a position of privilege where they’re never felt emotionally or economically powerless.
I remember having this discussion with a screenwriter, until 2008 Denmark’s economy was much better then Sweden’s, I wrote a story about two siblings and they were both unemployed and both depressed. My Danish screenwriter who had never experienced unemployment said ‘why won’t they just get a job?’
If only it was that easy!
It’s very much a Marie Antoinette situation, why don’t they just eat cake, completely ignorant of one aspect of the world. It’s political thing, we need to mirror people or again, if you don’t talk about things, there’s going to be a riot, pent up rage. A lot of these social issues we’re having are because people are not being seen for who they are. They are not being seen and valued so they take a place that is destructive, Taxi Driver style. I think empathy is the key.
Who do you think’ll be watching Holiday, it seems like it’d appeal to young guys with the sex, gangsters, and drugs aspect?
To be honest I don’t know if anyone is going to be watching the film apart from the festival audience. It’s a hard sell, we’re trying to cheat by making it look more about sex and drugs then it really is. I’m not expecting the film to sell very well outside the festival circuit and I’m fine with it really. I wish everybody wanted to expand their horizons and talk about the hard things, but that’s not the world we live in unfortunately. I think people get used to what you give them, the whole ‘the audience wants that’ argument is bullshit in my opinion. If people are used to high quality content they will want that and if you hook them on fast food and starch that’s what they’re going to be wanting. The traditional Hollywood narrative, a good looking hero with an easy goal, it’s like getting those easy to access emotions going, getting the audience hooked until the movie’s over then you can forget about it.
It gets fucking boring after a while then…
It really does. Fortunately, after some time people can feel that there’s no nutrition in this food and they go looking elsewhere. The problem is that it’s hard to find if you’re not part of the cultural elite, it’s not going to be easily accessible and you might not even know what a film festival is, and that’s the true issue.
Cultural elitism is this barrier, it seems there’s a cultural divide between film festival goers and those watching box office movies.
There is and it’s very unfortunate because I’m Scandinavian, I believe the more we have in common the more we trust each other, the more we’re going to build something together that works. The worst thing that can happen is that we build walls around our communities like they do in the U.S. and South Africa that’s where society is really going downhill cause that will only increase the tension, jealously and rage and it’s not going to end well.
So talking about it is important…
Exactly, and real psychical meetings like stop ghettofication in both directions, ghettofication is not just about the lowest socio-economical practice of being isolated the rich are being isolated and it’s bad for everybody.
I noticed there’s a lot of languages used in the film. Can you talk about this?
Yeah, English, Danish, Dutch, French, and Turkish. It’s just being true to the world we live in, I think it’s more strange to you in an English speaking country then for everybody else cause you’re used to everything being in your language but everyone else grew up with subtitles, so it’s not a thing.
But was language used to divide characters and create separation?
It’s more a way of just trying to be true to the world we live in where people do walk around speaking different languages and expressing a sense of belonging. Language is a very, very strong separator, you’re right about that. Some internal wars have been fought because people have been speaking different languages and really they’re the same ethnic group, it’s just the language barrier. It’s an interesting world we live in where they’re getting more and more mixed up and people are travelling so much. Everyday in the street you’re hearing 5 different languages, at least I am [laughs].
I think films should reflect that and I have a love of language, I treat the sound of language like poetry and part of the sound design and a part of the rhythm of the film. I think to me it’s just really aesthetically pleasing and also fun like when the guy starts speaking Turkish or the guy on the beach starts speaking French, it just gives new flavour and a new perspective. I really love language.
Yes definitely, I speak Cantonese at home and English when I’m out. I think it gives me a different viewpoint or perspective on things.
Great! People should go out of the way to learn languages, that’s one of the ways of keeping the communication channels open which has been the theme of this talk [laughs]. Language defines how you think, words that are available to you define because words are all metaphors and that’s how the brain works. We work with metaphors and depending on what metaphors you have at hand you’re going to see the world differently. It’s amazing the power of language.
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Find out about Sydney Film Festival here: https://www.sff.org.au/
Interview by Addy Fong.
