 |
Having had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival back in January, Partisan has now found its way in Australian cinemas. I caught up with the Melbourne-born Kleiman to talk about the filmmaking process and his experience with the movie so far…
Matt: I believe this is your first feature film. Can you tell us a little about your background?
Ariel: I’m from Melbourne and I studied at the Victorian College of the Arts where I did a 3 year film course. Thankfully, the short films I made at film school got a bit of attention at film festivals around the world. That led to me being commissioned to make Partisan.
Matt: Are there any particular filmmakers that you think have helped shape your own style and development?
Ariel: Yeah, heaps. I was a huge movie junkie growing up as a kid. I actually played a lot of basketball as a child and would train 5 times a week. I’d be so tired after training that I’d always watch movies. When I was really young, I was influenced most by my brother who is 13 years older than me. He would always be telling me what to watch. He really liked violent action films from the 80s and 90s so that was my first introduction to cinema.
Matt: I’m always careful when reviewing a film not to give too much away and this film begins by creating a very mysterious scenario indeed. What do you tell people when they ask you what it’s about?
Ariel: I tell them it’s a kind of mythic tale of a very angry, misanthropic man named Gregori who is played by Vincent Cassel. He is essentially raising his children to hate people as much as he does. The story is told from the perspective of his oldest son, Alexander, over the course of time between his 11th and 12th birthday.
Matt: I had trouble trying to work out where this film is actually set. The accents make it even more difficult. Was this always your intention?
Ariel: Yeah, exactly right. It’s a fully Australian film but we didn’t want to set it anywhere specific. We labelled it “nowhere land” and it was like a middle Europe that existed in fables we read growing up. We wanted to make it clear to the audience that it’s not a literal story. It’s a fable, it’s impressionistic, and it’s open to interpretation.
Matt: Vincent Cassel was quite a big name to attract to your film. How did you get the script in front of him and then get him on board?
Ariel: A lot of harassment. We attacked his team from all angles. These big actors have huge firewalls protecting them from people like me. It took a while to get it to him but once he read the script and saw my shorts, he really connected with it.
Matt: There are a lot of children in your cast. How easy was it working with them? Giving them direction and then providing what is asked?
Ariel: I’ll be honest and say it wasn’t easy. I have a newfound respect for primary teachers. Funnily enough, if you can get the kids to do what you say, they are usually very natural performers. They have no self-awareness and you can put a camera right in their face and they’ll still act natural. We had some amazing kids in the film with big personalities and I think they shine on screen.
Matt: How did you come across Jeremy Chabriel for the role of Alexander? I was looking him up on the Internet Movie Database and he doesn’t have a single other credit to his name?
Ariel: We found Jeremy through a French school in Sydney. As part of this “nowhere land” setting, we were looking for kids with non-Australian accents so that led us to this French school. Jeremy responded to an advertisement and came in for an audition. He’d never acted before. I watched his tape in Melbourne and he had this strength and maturity about him that was incredible for a boy of his age.
I flew to Sydney to meet him and in that audition, I asked him to sing a song because the character has a fairly crucial scene where he is required to sing. He brought Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and I offered him the role straight away. (laughs)
Matt: There are some quite challenging scenes for Chabriel – some which involve violence, others which involve the film’s confronting storyline. How easy is it for someone so young to be able to deal with all of that?
Ariel: It was a tricky balance. He has to act out some confronting and horrible scenes. Most important for us was that Jeremy and all the kids had fond memories working on Partisan. We didn’t want them to have any scarring moments. There’s a bit of movie trickery that makes it look a lot worse than it is when we filmed it. I can comfortably say that most days on set were light and fun.
Matt: I was reading that more than 2,300 dramatic features where submitted to this year’s Sundance Film Festival and yours was one of the 79 selected. What was the process? How did you get yours in the mix?
Ariel: It’s a bit of a lottery when it comes to film festivals and you never know what’s going on behind their doors. There’s a lot of luck involved. You may have something that they connect with. I was lucky enough to have 2 of my short films screen at Sundance and I was also fortunate to workshop Partisan at their writing and directing labs in Utah so there was a history of me being at Sundance and they had shown a lot of faith in me since film school. It was really special to be able to show Partisan there as its world premiere.
Matt: How was your film received? What sort of reactions did you get from the Sundance crowd?
Ariel: It was incredible. At our first screening, only about 10 people left before the Q&A which apparently is rare. People were taken by the story and the characters and they seemed to be entranced by the world of the movie. Most pleasing was how they connected with Jeremy, the young boy, because he is the hero of the film.
Matt: How easy was it securing a cinematic release here in Australia? It seems to be harder and harder these days for smaller films to weave their way into cinemas.
Ariel: Yeah, it is. With Partisan, we were lucky to be working with Madman from the start. They came on board early and believed in it from the very beginning. There are so many ways to watch movies these days but for me, I designed and conceived it for the big screen and to be watched with a group of people in the dark. I hope a lot of people can see it that way.
Matt: Where to from here? Do you have other projects that you hope to get off the ground?
Ariel: I’ve only got vague, rough ideas at the moment. We’ve all been consumed by this Partisan journey so far. Now that it’s finally in Australian cinemas, we can send it out into the world and hopefully move on to something new.