Lucile Hadži­halilovic: ​‘When I make a film, some­thing uncon­scious comes out’

In Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Ear­wig, images of cru­el­ty and ten­der­ness cir­cle one anoth­er. Adapt­ed from the nov­el by Bri­an Catling, Aal­bert (Paul Hilton) is the care­tak­er of a young girl named Mia (Romane Heme­laers) whose teeth are made of ice. Each night Aal­bert duti­ful­ly cleans Mia’s den­tal appa­ra­tus in their shut­tered apart­ment; report­ing on her well­be­ing to an unseen ​‘mas­ter’ on the phone.

There’s noth­ing soft or pater­nal here: Aal­bert keeps his dis­tance, express­ing fear and even repul­sion towards Mia. Even­tu­al­ly, the two are ordered to break this iso­la­tion. The out­side – a strange 19^th-cen­tu­ry world – brings Aal­bert into con­tact with with­held and unset­tling strangers Céleste (Romo­la Garai) and Lau­rence (Alex Lawther). Hadži­halilović stitch­es togeth­er the unrav­el­ing of her char­ac­ters by way of con­fronta­tion­al, unset­tling images that sub­vert nor­ma­tive rela­tion­ships and codes of behaviour.

LWLies: How do you view Ear­wig in rela­tion to your oth­er work?

Hadži­halilović: What I liked so much when I read the nov­el was that it was both famil­iar and dif­fer­ent. The dif­fer­ence was that the main char­ac­ter was an adult not a child – even if this adult [Aal­bert] is not very mature. I also liked that the book is pret­ty vio­lent and the vio­lence is more explic­it. I was inter­est­ed in hav­ing a bit of that in the film, for once, because before [in Evo­lu­tion and pre­vi­ous film Inno­cence] it was always under­neath. Then of course, there were some strik­ing images that I would not have thought of myself, like these ice teeth.

What sig­nals to you that a nov­el would work well as one of your films?

It’s very intu­itive. There’s a lot of res­o­nance in this sto­ry and this world: I could some­how recog­nise myself in it. Then, I thought that there was space to cre­ate a world because this is what I’m very much inter­est­ed in with films. I know that every­one is say­ing that this film is not so much about ​“plot” and ​“sto­ry”, even though there is a plot and there is a sto­ry. But it’s also about cre­at­ing a world. In the nov­el, I thought there was a lot of room for that. Also, the book was pret­ty mys­te­ri­ous, as you can imag­ine. Of course, it gives more infor­ma­tion than the film does: more flash­backs and all that. Nev­er­the­less, there was a lot to inter­pret. I was lucky because Bri­an Catling was very gen­er­ous about that. He said: ​“feel free to do what­ev­er you want with it – I don’t want to know any­thing.” That gave me a lot of freedom.

With regards to world-build­ing, your visu­al style and sets are very sparse, with one or two focal objects that we’re asked to con­tem­plate in-depth. How did you shape this par­tic­u­lar visu­al world?

One of the main ideas was to make it very abstract, to have empti­ness. For instance, in the apart­ment, we want­ed to make it as emp­ty as pos­si­ble inside. Out­side was a bit of the same thing: no extras, no cars. It was not only a ques­tion of mon­ey, it was a ques­tion of aes­thet­ics; to give that world a kind of abstrac­tion. To find the right bal­ance between some­thing real and some­thing which is not. We had a few ref­er­ences like paint­ings, and there were also some very strong ele­ments in the book, like this apart­ment with the shut­ters closed all the time. We worked very close­ly between the DoP and the pro­duc­tion design­er in terms of find­ing the colours, and the fact that we weren’t using any addi­tion­al lights in the apart­ment. Then, there are some objects that are almost like a char­ac­ter, like the fridge or the cabinet.

Could you expand on some of those ref­er­ences to art?

There is a Dan­ish painter, [Vil­hem] Ham­mer­shøi. His paint­ings rep­re­sent a lot of inte­ri­ors that are almost emp­ty. Some­times there is a fig­ure – usu­al­ly a woman – and she is back­wards or seen in-between two doors. That was the kind of feel­ing. Also, we had some Pol­ish paint­ings from the late 19^th cen­tu­ry, where the pres­ence of archi­tec­ture was quite strong and slight­ly men­ac­ing. Quite oppres­sive also.

Your films show impres­sive restraint when it comes to dia­logue. What is does silence allow you to do here?

I think it gives a great ten­sion. It also cre­ates this oneir­ic feel­ing of some­thing that is a dream, or not total­ly real. I think silence makes space for the visu­al and for sounds. It cre­ates room for mak­ing this world real, in a way. It comes nat­u­ral­ly that there is not so much dia­logue because this man and the girl don’t talk to each oth­er. This is also a film about the dif­fi­cul­ty of com­mu­ni­cat­ing. This man is not real­ly able to com­mu­ni­cate prop­er­ly, he’s very trapped in his head. I think not speak­ing goes with that too.

Your films are ground­ed in the body but there’s also an intel­lec­tu­al dimen­sion to your treat­ments of par­ents and chil­dren. Are you draw­ing from a the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work at all?

Ear­wig is a sto­ry about repres­sion and Arthur has repressed mem­o­ries and they come back in a very strong way. He’s also lost in repressed desires, fears, hal­lu­ci­na­tions and dreams. In that way, yes. I per­son­al­ly don’t want to analyse my work, because it will pre­vent me from doing the thing. When I’m mak­ing a film, it’s very much about some­thing uncon­scious that comes out. I guess that’s why I’m also inter­est­ed in fairy tales because that’s a way to make the uncon­scious come out. Again, I don’t think it’s so easy with words but with images. That’s more like Jung than Freud, but…

Mir­rors and oth­er reflec­tive sur­faces come up repeat­ed­ly in Ear­wig. I was espe­cial­ly drawn in by the scene when Mia sees her own reflec­tion in a lake and falls in. Can you dis­cuss the sig­nif­i­cance of that moment?

It’s the first time she’s see­ing her­self prop­er­ly, because there’s no mir­ror in the apart­ment. It was delib­er­ate that there’s only a mir­ror in Aalbert’s room. It’s only after the lake scene that she goes to his room to see her­self. Of course, she’s tak­ing con­scious­ness of her­self, and see­ing her­self as an inde­pen­dent being. It looks like she’s drown­ing her­self, com­mit­ting a sort of sui­cide because she’s not mov­ing in the water. But I think it’s some­thing more, that she’s fas­ci­nat­ed and it’s a strik­ing thing for her to go through. She has to go through the mir­ror, through the water. After that she becomes more inde­pen­dent: a bit less pas­sive; like a teenag­er that rebels a lit­tle bit and wants to go out, to freedom.

You’ve resist­ed genre labels in the past, but there are dis­tinct body hor­ror ele­ments in Ear­wig. How would you posi­tion your films in rela­tion to genre?

I don’t real­ly think about genre when I’m doing a film; maybe a lit­tle more with Evo­lu­tion because there is a sci-fi moment. Here, of course, there is more of a hor­ror ele­ment. I was think­ing about the Goth­ic: you have the con­straints, the fact that there is a mas­ter – the dev­il­ish fig­ure in the bar – moti­vat­ing [the pro­tag­o­nist] to com­mit some vio­lent act. The black cat, even. These were a few ele­ments that belong to the Goth­ic tra­di­tion. I didn’t think of genre – cer­tain­ly not the rules of it. Rather, I tried to fol­low the log­ic of the film itself. The film is a night­mare. It’s Aalbert’s night­mare with a dream log­ic, which has its cur­rents but is not rational.

Your films seem to res­onate more with sur­re­al­ism as a his­tor­i­cal cin­e­mat­ic and art movement.

It’s more inter­est­ing for me to talk about sur­re­al­ism because its more open, it’s linked to dreams and poet­ry; to cre­at­ing new links or new images. So, I think its more excit­ing than genre which seems to have so many rules [that dic­tate] whether you’re in the genre or not.

I was so excit­ed to see this cast because these actors have all shown an inter­est in play­ing trans­gres­sive sub­jects in their pre­vi­ous work. Why did you seek out these par­tic­u­lar actors?

The actor whose work I knew the most was Romo­la Garai. I also saw Amulet, the film she direct­ed her­self, and I thought she must be a real­ly inter­est­ing per­son. Paul Hilton – who has not done so many films, but is more of a the­atre actor – I saw in Lady Mac­beth. It just hap­pened that with Paul, for instance, I worked more with the cast­ing direc­tor. I was think­ing a lot about Ger­man Expres­sion­ism when I was doing the film, because it also has this aspect of dream log­ic and silent films. When I saw some pic­tures of him I though he had some­thing expres­sion­ist, which made me want to work with him. Then with Alex Lawther, I think he is real­ly spe­cial. I saw The End of the F***ing World and I thought he had such a charis­ma. Nice and weird and transgressive.

Ear­wig is released in cin­e­mas 10 June via Anti-Worlds releas­ing.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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