Partisan is the debut feature film from talented Australian filmmaker Ariel Kleiman. It’s a mesmerising, dark and twisted story centered on child assassin Alexander (Jeremy Chabriel), who lives in an isolated commune run by his father, the charismatic Gregori (played by French actor Vincent Cassel).
The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema - Drama Best Cinematography Award, and has gone on to screen at festivals around the world, including our own NZIFF. By the end of 2015, Partisan was getting honorary mentions on Best of the Year lists, and Kleiman is now regarded internationally as a director to watch.
Partisan screens on Rialto Channel on Saturday 9th January, 8.30pm and recently I had the pleasure of talking to the delightful Kleiman about the making of Partisan, and the joy of working with children.
FR: This is an impressive debut feature film- are you happy with the way it turned out?
AK: I’m never happy! I’m never happy, always thinking about the “what if’s” - that’s the way my mind works. That’s no different to any of my other films either so no, I never finish a film and feel happy – not yet anyway.
FR: Is it hard for you to know when to stop working on a film?
AK: There’s a bit of that. That’s why deadlines are really handy because they help you do that. I feel like my view on the film is so tainted because I’m so involved in the making of it. Along the way you certainly try and stay true to the story and the characters but at the end of the day when the movie is finished it’s not for me anymore, it’s for the audience.
FR: So, what were the “what if’s” with Partisan?
AK: There’s a million – everyday making a film there’s a million ups and downs and you finish a day shooting and you think of a thousand things you could have done this way or that way, especially when you have such limited time and decisions are made really quickly. That’s the nature of the beast. But I have no regrets – I don’t regret anything I did that’s for sure. I’m proud of what we did.
FR: Maybe I should ask the question differently, what were the things that you were really thrilled about?
AK: I guess, when we were shooting the film I was really thrilled with the chemistry I felt amongst the actors. On most days there was a certain kind of electricity that I was feeling between Jeremy and Vincent, and the other children. And that’s the stuff that gets me most excited.
FR: What surprised you the most about stepping up from making short to feature length films?
AK: [long pause] I was surprised actually at how quick it went. I was warned that it’s a marathon compared to a short, you need real adrenalin to get through it, but for me it flew past. It went very quickly the shoot, so that surprised me.
FR: In New Zealand, anecdotally, the length of time it takes to make a film is 7 years – how long did it take you?
AK: Well, we started writing it in mid-2010 and it premiered in January at Sundance Film Festival – four and a half years.
FR: That’s pretty good.
AK: Yeah, and with a lot of procrastination in the middle, mainly through the writing.
FR: I know there’s absolutely nothing easy about making a film, but did your success with your short films help get Partisan off the ground?
AK: Yes, I have no doubt in that. Luckily those shorts won awards which helps, but I think they gave producers and actors and everyone else who got involved in the film a strong taste of my style, or my way of storytelling. And I think it gave people with the script an idea of what Partisan would feel like.
FR: The story is inspired by a newspaper article about Columbian kids working as assassins – is that correct?
AK: It was an article in The New York Times about child assassins in Columbia and we read that at the start of 2010 when Sarah [Cyngler] and I had our feelers out for inspiration, and for like 3 or 6 months we couldn’t shake that article from our heads and kept talking about it. For us, the story of those kids and the image of them having guns put in their hands and being convinced to shoot people for money seemed to us like the biggest tragedy of all, and we knew we wanted to tell a story about that.
FR: How did you take that story and end up setting it in a decaying, timeless, identity less European town?
AK: It’s kind of a layered process. It started initially with the feeling that I wasn’t the right person to tell that specific story in Columbia – because that would have to be a Spanish language film and I didn’t feel like that was for me to make to be honest. I didn’t think it would be truthful.
But really what I was inspired by in that story was the human drama and the human tragedy at the core of it. Very early on we titled the film Partisan. We were inspired by the dictionary definition of the word which is ‘devout follower’. I guess the story we wanted to tell is, there is no greater devout follower than a child of their parents up to a certain age.
Early on, in a very natural flow on from the shorts in which we also experimented with timeless, mythic stories, it felt very natural to place that human story in this world shrouded with mystery. Because ultimately the world is very mysterious to this young boy because he’s been raised in such an enclosed environment.
FR: I don’t think I’ve ever been so intrigued in a film in the first 60 seconds as I was here…
AK: Well, I guess that’s the role of the first 60 seconds.
FR: But it doesn’t happen very often. The first 60 seconds might set the scene telling you where you are and when, but the beginning of Partisan drags you in because you don’t know where you are, it’s so mysterious.
AK: Interesting that was the way the film was always written in the script. The first 60 seconds didn’t really change that much at all through the writing, shooting or editing. I love the beginnings of films because they really give you a chance to get use to the style of the storytelling, but also you’re instantly thrown into a world you don’t know a lot about.
FR: Where was the film shot?
AK: We shot five weeks in Melbourne. We basically built the compound in an existing building we found that was unused in a small winery region called Mt Elisa, and that building actually used to be a boys home for delinquent boys and then it was brought by a winery. The only use it had was married couples like to take photos in front of the distressed wall – that was the main use it had. We were really lucky to find it as it allowed us to take over the whole building and design it all from scratch like the character Gregori would have done when he came across it in the story.
Then we shot for a week and a half for the exteriors in Georgia, the country, and that was another thing that was introduced to the film very early when we started writing the movie in 2010. We travelled to Georgia, Sarah and I, just for adventure, really. We were absolutely mesmerisied by the landscapes and country there, and instantly felt like this nowhere land, this middle Europe, this decaying Middle Europe, was what we imagined for the film.
FR: Was it an easy process shooting there?
AK: No, definitely not easy. I mean parts of it were incredibly easy like, for the first shot of the film, the location I wanted to shoot at basically required shutting off the main connecting road of the city in the middle of peak hour because of course I wanted to shoot it at dawn. In Australia that would be next to impossible, but over there it just happened over night. So that part of it was really easy and kind of a dream as a director. But there were the usual language barriers and we quickly realised that Georgian time was very different to Australian time with how long things would take. But I’ve got to say though, the Georgians are by far the most hospitable and kind people I’ve ever met and it was a joy to make the film in that country and with them.
FR: There’s a sense of unpredictability throughout the film that life in the commune is like a ticking time bomb – which obviously you have to capture in the shoot, but how much does the edit have to do with creating the simmering tension?
AK: It’s a huge part and it’s that element that we probably grappled with the most in the edit. A lot of that dread stems from Gregori we found. At the beginning of the edit I actually fell in love with Gregori and Vincent’s performance a bit too much and in the early incarnations of the edit he was just like a rad Dad. He does all these horrible acts but he was like incredibly loveable. He had an interesting quality to him, but he was missing that dread that the film is so reliant on, so driven by. And that was the amazing thing about Vincent’s performance, it had so many different shades and we really could shape it. He gave us so many options to shape that character in the edit. It was quite remarkable to watch.
FR: Vincent Cassel is so magnetic you can’t take your eyes off him even if he’s standing there doing nothing.
AK: I find him most watchable when he’s not saying anything at all and just observing other characters. It’s a rare quality to be that magnetic in that way.
FR: Did you write the role with him in mind?
AK: No, we didn’t write the role with anyone in mind because we didn’t want to get upset. We didn’t want to spend two years writing the role for Daniel Day Lewis and the reality is, him never being in our film. Throughout the writing and as soon as we started thinking of which actor could play this role, if I lay in bed and closed my eyes at night his face would certainly come to mind and so it was definitely a dream come true when he made the trip down to Australia to make it.
FR: Was it hard getting him on board?
AK: It’s tricky to get his team’s attention in the first instance, and let his team know that this is a film that he should read. To be honest that was the trickiest part and took the most time, but once they read it and enjoyed it, and felt like Vincent might like it, that process happened quite quickly.
FR: How do you get Vincent’s team to read a script?
AK: Just harassment. Stalking, harassing. Being annoying – attacking it from all angles. It was just perseverance really and I knew the fact of the matter was we were a small film from Australia and I’m a first time director, but I did have confidence because I thought the one thing we had was a really great script and a really great character. I had this confidence that if he read it he might like the role. It’s a juicy role to play and luckily that’s what happened.
FR: The kids, especially Jeremy as Alex, are naturals – do you like working with kids?
AK: I do. I do love it because kids are incredibly pure performers and they have no self-awareness, you can put a camera right in close up to their face and they act as naturally as if it wasn’t there and that’s a dream for a director. You know I’m not going to lie, the volume on set definitely got pretty loud on most days and a lot of the crew members were giving me very hateful looks for getting them involved in this, but I loved it, I think I was in my element with them.
FR: The material is pretty dark – how did you approach it with the kids, and their parents?
AK: It’s interesting because even though the film is very dark and it’s filled with dread, most days on set and most scenes that involved the kids are actually quite fun and light and playful and warm and loving. So we were able to shield all the kids I’d say from the dark elements of the script. With Jeremy we had a very strong dialogue with his parents and they were pretty awesome in helping us explain everything to him and navigating the best way of approaching it. Jeremy read the script and he understood everything, he’s an incredibly bright young boy and he got it all and he was just a total natural and professional actor.
FR: Are you still traveling and promoting Partisan?
AK: The film is still going around to Festivals but I’ve jumped off the train for now. I came back from London in October [2015] where it had its UK premiere and that’s the last festival I’ve attended at the moment. But who knows, if I get an offer from like the Bahamas or somewhere, I’ll be there.
Partisan screens on Saturday 9th January, 8.30pm on Rialto Selection.