Vampires

As I've been finishing up the script for my next movie, Olalla, I've been thinking a lot about vampires. Mostly since my next movie involves vampires and we just wrapped on another movie about vampires, Dead But Dreaming, and we'll be shooting the second movie in that series soon as well.

The poster of the movie that ruined my 6th year

That will make my movie the third this year. So, what's with all the interest in vampires? For me it started pretty young. When I was about 6 years old my father showed me the movie Fright Night. I'm sure he thought it was appropriate for someone my age, being rated PG. It wasn't, it scared the living daylights out of me and I wore a scarf to bed for a year after that, even in the summer, thinking that vampires were going to come and kill me in the night.  Children tend to think that the world centers around them, don't they?

After the year was up and the vampires didn't come to kill me, I gave up wearing the scarf to bed and began thinking about the origin of the vampire myth. It was just around this time, I was 7 and in second grade, that I was learning about research papers and researching. So, I went to my school library and found several books about vampires. I read them all. In the midst of this, I began to understand the origins of the vampire in media.

She gives you that weird feeling

In my school library were a series of books about monster movies (Universal Studios) from the 30s-60s. The idea of the vampire in film began to take hold of me as a concept. My research broadened to the local library where I read more books and understood the vampire myth and where it came from. I thought about how amazing it would be to make a movie about vampires. It became a lifelong dream. Nay, obsession.

So, you must be thinking that I'm making a movie about the same kind of vampires as Jac's Dead But Dreaming. Nope. Dead But Dreaming's vamps are more classic, infectious vampires, bites, exchange of blood, and a little magical realism later, you've got a legion of the undead. Romantic vampires, with hopes and dreams, and vengeance, internal struggles. Good stuff, but not the same as my vampires.

In my research, I think I got to Robert Louis Stevenson when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I came across R.L.S.'s Olalla. It's the story considered to be the introduction of the concept of genetic vampirism, on which my movie is partly based. A soldier goes to a villa to convalesce, only to fall in love with the daughter of the decadent family who resides there. The family has a craving for blood. It's a strange story. At that time porphyria and related diseases were little understood, thus resulting in the idea that a "vampiric" disease could, or did, exist.

Olalla

My vampires are a family, a rather large family, who has learned to survive through the ages by keeping a low profile. They crave blood, they have to drink it, but it's not considered good form to kill thy neighbors, so they do it discretely. Some of them never even leave the house. And they tend to live longer than other humans.

My character* is named Olalla. She goes back to her family's home after a few years of attempting to escape them and her affliction; the prodigal daughter returns after having done something very, very bad.

For me, Olalla, inflicted with inherited vampirism, has a struggle that is literally superhuman. It separates her from the rest of humanity, it makes her a monster. At the same time, she has no desire to be like the rest of her family. Riddled by incest, they keep the line going, they do not mix their tainted genes with normal human beings. And there are other branches of the family as well. 

In an attempt to "educate" Olalla, so that she does not have to be "put down", her uncle Victor returns to the house to be her "teacher". What ensues is severe corporeal punishment, incest, nudity, bondage, all of the good nasty stuff that should be in a movie of this sort. You know what I mean. While I'm including a bit of camp, and it has its humorous moments like all of my films, it's a disturbing story.

*Yes, I gave the lead female role to myself. I really didn't want to do a casting for an actor who (might) do what I'll willingly do in a movie. I'm less trouble to work with ;)

Reasons

The very beginning of the film

With the release of Sirwiñakuy, I've been getting a lot more messages, emails, reviews, and commentaries. It's pretty amazing that people have taken so much to my first film. Something that not many people expect from their opera prima.

The beautiful response that I've had to this film is almost overwhelming, but it's made me think about why I make films. And since lately I've been feeling like I need a break from work, (you know, like, a vacation) I feel the need to revisit and coalesce the reasons that I make films.
 When I first released Sirwiñakuy in theaters in Bolivia the response was mixed, critics divided, some openly hostile, others supportive. The audience as well was divided, but didn't stop watching, word spread that it was a film that needed to be seen, and so it stayed on the big screen for 5 months.

Luis takes Anouk's wrist

Going with Sirwiñakuy to CineKink 2012 was a wonderful experience, and the response was touching. One woman told me that I expressed something with my film that she had never had the words to say. Others simply told me how much they liked and, how great the movie is.

And there were comments in magazines as well. Good stuff.

Now, with the release on DVD and download, that beautiful response has been coming in from all corners of the Earth. I'm amazed by how easily word of mouth spreads over the internet.

A Danish couple sent me some messages and the wife, a prominent Danish D/s blogger wrote a great review that can be read here in English and read here in Danish.

Things get interesting...

The messages read as follows:

Audiences are divided about whether this is rape or love-making

"On the odd click I found 'Sirwiñakuy' last night and decided to purchase and download it. My purpose was for my wife and I to take it in - in bed - as a pleasant conclusion to a 17 hour drive from Austria to Denmark. I feared I might fall asleep at some time during the 111 minutes. That never happened.

Here's a quote from the sparing conversation we had while totally enjoying your movie:

Her: This is an A movie. Not a B!
Me: I agree. It's an A+. .... I never said it was a B, I just said it was low budget.
Her: ... fantastic ....

We were particularly taken by the intricate expressivity of Veronica Paintoux, particularly the facial expressions, signaling the struggle of temptation, urge and reservation.

It takes an excellent director, a great actress and a good eye behind the camera to bring this out in such detail. Come to think of it, another director who has that ability is our own (ie. Danish) Susanne Bier, who recently returned from Hollywood with an Oscar. The movie also reminded us of Lars von Trier's work with dogma movies.
As I said: We were completely taken by the story, the acting, the directing ... and we will definitely watch your movie anew and find new facets on every occasion - just as we have with the classic 'Story of O'."

They went on to say in a second message:

A breach of boundaries?

"Your work is a sovereign example of someone having the guts to do what is right and true for them. Carl Th. Dreyer was criticized to death as Lars von Trier has been all along. I'm quite certain it escapes even Susanne Bier why she's currently (commercially) one floor above you in the tower of film.
In our opinion you're poised to become - you are - big. I think we most certainly 'got it' and the sensations you stirred with your work still linger with us. What more can anyone ask than to make a difference to someone. To give something to somebody. Not anybody but those appreciative and grateful somebodies. Eg. us."

A detail...

I would have to be made of stone for these words not to touch me. Touched, was I indeed. The second message made me tear up a little. It didn't hurt that they compared me to Lars von Trier, Susanne Bier, and Carl Dreyer. That's something that would put a smile on any young filmmaker's face.

To have someone say to me, "your movie touched (insert other positive verbs here) me", or "you said something with this film that meant something to me on a personal level", means so much to me. That I might have impacted another person, even one, in a positive way, that I gave something wonderful to another. That is a big reason why I make films.

Anouk admires Luis' ancestral home

Sirwiñakuy, being my first film, has a lot of "me" in it in terms of art. The soft light, the characters, the way the story plays out. Not every film has so much of one's self in it. This movie was something kicking around in my head and on paper for more than 10 years. It was a part of me. A part of me remains in the movie and will always be there.

I wanted the movie to be right. I wanted to wait for the moment when I could understand the characters, when I had the maturity to make this movie. The story needed to be told carefully, about this delicate, violent relationship. And so they tell me I did.

So... Soul-crushing criticism? Check! Bouncing back with the even better (and better written) complimentary criticism? Double check!

(You might want to have a snack handy while viewing)

I've since gone on to make 2 more films, very different each in their own way. And I don't believe in going back and re-editing. Every film is a new adventure, a new opportunity to learn.

This subject of putting my "self" into my movies has come up more lately because I'm finishing the script of what I hope will be my fourth film. It's about a family of vampires. I play a member of the family. Can a film director make a movie about a family without going over their own family issues? Is there a reason they're vampires? *cough* We shall see. This one is dark, most will find it darker than the last three films.

But even in a dark film, there is an opportunity to give of the light, a thing that shines for someone. Even tears or anger can be a gift sometimes...

You can get Sirwiñakuy on DVD right here and on download right here!