Polish director Tomasz Wasilewski, who won the Berlin Silver Bear award for "United States of Love" (2016), is a regular at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for his new film Fools. 2022) premiered in the Proxima Competition section of this year's film festival. The protagonist, Marlena, is a sixty-two-year-old woman who works in an obstetrics and gynecology hospital and lives in a remote seaside town with her partner, Tomash, who is twenty years younger than her. Ever since Marlena decided to take care of her sick son in the apartment the two of them live in, their established lifestyle has fallen apart. Marlena and Tomash may be perceived by society as the "fools" referred to in the film's title, whose unusual love transcends socially imposed, insurmountable boundaries, but is simultaneously two-way and selfless. As a result, their suffering stems from an irreconcilable conflict between individual choices and collective norms.
It's a hard-to-talk film with overwhelming taboo themes that don't hesitate to speak out for even the most unimaginable scenes of lust, while also sympathetically looking at the protagonists trapped in them. When the audience watches the movie, they will also be pulled into the abyss they have dug, constantly guessing, and then questioning themselves, and only at the end of the movie can they get the final confirmation.
Oleg Mutu, known for his in Bloom (2013) and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), is an expert in navigating complex human emotions and relationships in the home space. Here, he skillfully uses the cool tones of blue and gray in Marlena and Tomash's residence, unfolding the drama of emotional concussion while maintaining calm precision and meticulous scheduling. The gloomy atmosphere without any soundtrack, contrasted with the loud cries of seagulls on the shore and the screams of human anguish, and the free-flying seagulls that break into the apartment from the closed windows are a poignant reminder of Marlena's son's inability to move, unconscious, and close to death. Although the coastline in front of the family's window seemed infinite, they were trapped in a spiritual cell they had built.
"Fool" has a framework structure, and it is not until the end of the film that the meaning of the beginning of the film is revealed. Is this something you already thought of in the script writing phase? How did you come up with this story?
It's a huge subject and a taboo topic, so I realized that there needed to be enough time for the audience to get to know these characters and enter their lives, so I decided that I should postpone the exact unveiling of the mystery to the end. I don't think taboos are the most important topic, because this film is also about motherhood, mutual love, and the loneliness and despair of mature women returning to the role of mother again, all of which are very powerful and difficult emotions in this film and in our daily lives. I don't want the confirmation of the forbidden relationship to be the only message in the movie, although that's a very important moment for the protagonist, Marina. When she had the courage to say who she was, it was very powerful for me.
For me, the structure guided by emotion is the most important. Before we started shooting this film, we rehearsed for a whole year. I had already written the script at the time, but in these rehearsals, I worked with my actors and later with the cinematographer Oleg Mutu, and together we built the emotional line and explored how to tell the story. For me, the relationship between the two protagonists is normal, even though it is so difficult to talk about it. Even now, six years after I first started making this film, I still wish there were more tools to use to talk about the subject. This topic about motherhood is very important to me, and I think that's the crux of the movie, where Marlena had to make that sacrifice in order to be with Tomash. They were doomed from the start, and no matter what decision she made, they would end up being fools because they believed that love would triumph over everything.
Is that why the title is "Fool"?
I think they are "fools" because they believe in it. They are not stupid, although they may be naïve, in fact the life created by our society is too cruel. The film isn't about abuse or violence, because I'm talking about two adults who decide to be together autonomously, but society as a whole is stopping them. I realized that I was part of society and one of the people who hurt them, which was very sad for me.
There is a very strong physical love in the film, how do you think about the presentation of lust in such a complex relationship in the film?
As I have done in all my other films, I see carnal love the way I look at scenes about emotion. For me, it's also part of their lives, their language, their love, which is very important to me. Compared to my other films before, this movie actually has fewer erotic scenes. In my life, it's a natural way to express love, so I do the same in movies.
How did you design the cinematic space with Director of Photography Oleg Mutu?
The space I want to create for Marina and Tomash is the end of the world; We built every scene in the film ourselves, without using any of the spaces that existed before, because I felt that we needed to create a new world for them. They must flee to the end of the world, although they cannot escape themselves. Oleg and I created a format that was narrower than a panoramic lens, and I wanted to give them a huge amount of space, but at the same time this space was also a trap. Although you can see the beach, the dunes and the wind, there is no flowing air there at the same time, and the clouds do not move. Even if you have all the space, you are in a prison. In the moment when Marlena fell in love with Tomash, wherever she was, she was in the prison she had built herself. That's why I designed the calm nature of their world; Nature was her emotion, constantly attacking her from the beginning.
Nature is also strongly presented by the background sounds of seagulls and waves. How do you design your sound?
Sound is very important to me because there is no music in the film, so from the beginning, I knew that the middle of the picture would replace the function of music, representing Marlena's emotions. So, the design of the scenes and the sound design is crucial to the film and the characters, and another dimension can be added to the story.
The sounds in the windows, the sounds in the basement, the screams of the seals, and the birds entering the apartment were All of Marlena herself attacking herself.
The film begins with the maternity hospital where Marlena works and ends with a funeral. There is a scene in the movie where Marlena and Thomas carry one bed upstairs, and then in another scene they carry the same bed downstairs. Do you think this movie has a strong element of repetition?
Of course, it's like a cycle of life. It was something she had to witness as a mother and it was very painful for her. I have not experienced the death of a child, but in my imagination I feel that it must be a pain that exceeds the limit, and this kind of pain is difficult to imagine. At the same time, the guilt that Marlena has been carrying all her life is also there. They carried the bed upstairs and downstairs, which to me was a metaphor for life.
Marina spinning and dancing alone in despair is a very powerful scene, is it the result of improvisation or rehearsal?
In that scene, she first went around in a circle and then sat down and screamed, while in the script I only wrote that she would go in circles. When we filmed this scene, almost in one of the last few scenes filmed in the film, we already had a better understanding of her character and emotions. Dorota Kolak, the actress who plays Marlena, after the first shoot and spin, I asked her, how did she feel? Then we found out that she was actually completely broken. So I suggested, if you spin and scream, do you think it's appropriate? She said, yes, I felt like I had to scream out loud. This scene actually captured the moment we felt on the set.
The relationships in your films are usually very tangled and inextricably linked. What attracts you most about this relationship?
For me, I don't draw any boundaries, and although there are boundaries in my life, these are fluid, not black and white, but always gray. The older I get, the more I realize that there is no basis for what we say, what is right, what is wrong, what is white, what is black, these are all too easy, all nonsense. This is how we hurt ourselves and others, and this gray area in the middle of the two is the most appealing. I think it's very difficult to say that someone is right or wrong, because the truth is always in between, and it can't be strictly separated.
You come from a Catholic country, what do you think will be the reaction?
I'm very curious, I don't know how people will react. Not only in Poland, but also in other countries, I can't imagine the reaction, just hope that people can see people in their own predicament.
Film scholar, film critic and author, and host of the podcast show Reel Chats.
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