Existential Road Trip

Jauja (2014) - Alonso








Loved it! Director/writer Lisandro Alonso along with co-writer Fabian Casas's take on western genre doesn't catch (small) fire until mid-point and turns The Searchers storyline into something that resembles more of a Conrad/Herzogian, existential road trip. Static long takes and 4:3 aspect ratio with round edges betray its supposed genre and picturesque landscapes. Nevertheless, Jauja is a gorgeous, seductive trip. Alonso's formalist, minimalist approach can be challenging but it's a worthwhile trip as it morphs into something much more adventurous and rewarding. There is hardly any music in its 1 hr 50 min running time and no close-ups. Viggo Mortensen's great as skulking Danish captain (of engineering team?), lost in the new, unforgiving surroundings. Stooped and lean and anxious, he wears the burden of all European men on his weathered face. The missing daughter is a macguffin of the story then resurfaces again as something else. Is this unreachable destination, the earthly paradise called Jauja, all but a dream of a 15 year old European girl? Daring in its style and structure, Jauja is everything I look for in cinema right now.

Delicious Twist

Seventh Code (2013) - Kurosawa

I don't care if it is an hour long promotional material of some Japanese popstar. It's KK's take on the espionage thriller genre and it's delicious. A frail looking girl, Akiko (Atsuko Maeda), with a huge luggage cart with little wheels is stalking Matsunaga (Ryuhei Suzuki), in the streets of Vladivostok. He is a major dreamboat and according to her, he snubbed her after picking her up and buying lunch back in Tokyo. After being dumped on the side of the road in a burlap sack, she gets friendly with a Japanese restaurant owner with a chip on his shoulder. From there, things progress in a very different direction. Absorbing and unpredictable, it's one of those films better not knowing anything going in.

More Human than Human

Strayed (2003) - Techiné



At first, this WWII drama progresses exactly the way it is supposed to be - a young pretty mother (Emmanuelle Béart) fleeing the war with her two children hooking up with a good looking, resourceful young man (Gaspard Ulliel) shacked up in a large abandoned mansion and playing family. A typical war time soap opera. Oooh la la. But Andre Techiné is a true master observer of subtle human emotions. People do unexpected things. Their actions defy their supposed roles. The intricacy of attractions between the two are much more complex than just primal or even logical. Strayed subtly, beautifully treads all these preconceived notions and have these beautiful feelings, desires and mutual understandings play out. Béart and Ulliel are superb in this.

Devil Worshipping

To the Devil, a Daughter (1976) - Sykes

Devil's offspring is born. Oh baby!

It's Nastassja Kinski's turn to inHABIT the nunnery

The baby needs to crawl back to the womb for some reason

Mr. Widmark is too old for this s**t!

Killer of Dreams

Labyrinth of Dreams (1997) - Ishii









I am a big fan of Sogo Ishii's serial killer mood piece Angel Dust. I've always regarded Ishii as a standout amongst 90s Japanese pop auteurs not only for his visual elegance but for the innovative use of sound. And I've been long to see Labyrinth of Dreams. Soft black & white photography reminiscent of old newspaper clippings, Ishii's period piece, the film is a seductive, hypnotic experience.

There is a rumor going around bus conductors that there is a serial killer who seduces women and discard them when he gets bored with them. One such victim is recently departed Tsuyako who's been suspecting her fiancé bus driver Niitaka (Tadanobu Asano) to be that killer. Tsuyako's been telling all her thoughts in her letter to her best friend, another young bus conductor Tomiko (Rena Komine). Niitaka reemerges at Tomiko's bus company as a newly hired driver. With his good looks and mild manner, all the girls are swooned naturally. At first, Tomiko's determined to capture him and avenge her friend's death, but can't help falling for mysterious Niitaka.

Its Hitchcockian theme of suspicion and obsession and its moebius strip structure give way to lush, dreamy cinematography with sporadic, atmospheric score, Labyrinth is a perfect quiet mood piece on rainy saturday afternoon. I particularly love Ishii's used of pregnant silences and delicate shallow depth photography. Really gorgeous.

Great Art Needs Suffering

The Public Woman (1984) - Zulawski









Ethel (Valerie Kaprisky) does a nude modeling for money. But when she goes in for an audition for a film adaptation production of Dostoesky's Possessed, and catches the eye of Kessling (Francis Huster), the charismatic director/star of the project, everything changes. But soon Kessling realizes that Ethel is not much of an actress. She lacks life experience to portray everything that he wants in the role. His megalomaniacal demands from his cast and crew don't help either. Their tumultuous onset/off set romance also suffers. While being laid off from the project, Ethel starts romancing with a poor Czech immigrant, Milan (Lambert Wilson), whose actress wife might have been murdered by Kessling in some insidious political maneuvering. Milan gets manipulated to kill an archbishop (in order to save his wife) and being pursued by the secret whatever. So in real life, Ethel starts playing the role of Milan's wife.

As usual, Zulawski creates another manic, emotionally charged, over the top melodrama where he pushes his heroine to the brink of insanity. Baby faced Kaprisky bares it all as an actress whose 'acting' bleeds in to reality and vice versa. Huster's amazing as the mad genius and Lambert Wilson's intensity betrays his wispy, melancholic features. The film's energetic, 'revolution is in the air' mood is created by Sacha Vierny's fast moving, virtuosic cinematography.

Zulawski seems to suggest that truly great art (and therefore life) needs suffering. All the hell Ethel goes through, she becomes a better actress at the end. There is no succinct distinction between art and life in his films. We all have roles to play on this stage we call life. It's messy, tragic and full of intrigue. The Public Woman is another dense, heady film. I can't help but admire Zulawski's bravura filmmaking.

Sea of Life

Balaou (2007) - Tocha



I've been thinking about death a lot lately. And since I don't believe in afterlife, it hurts me to think that I'll lose everything I love eventually and die. But we all do and that's part of life. We deal with our grieving in a personal way. Gonçalo Tocha lost his mom and wanted to get away from earth, he jumps on the opportunity to sail the sea with his family friends, Florence and Baru, an older couple on their sailboat. While on land, Tocha records his large extended family, asking about his mother. Then he zones in on tight lipped, 91 year old great aunt who has basically given up and waiting to die. She doesn't have anything nice to say about life anymore, "91 years is way too much," she says.

Florence and Baru has been sailing since 1985. They quit their jobs and took to the sea ever since. The news on land doesn't interest them anymore, not because they are selfish but it's always too busy, too noisy, too many wars, dead bodies, more of the same all the time. Florence doesn't say much. Baru occasionally spits out some sailor wisdom - "only thing you know for certain is a departure date, everything else is unforeseeable", "have to have a goal that you will land somewhere", and so on. For 8 days, with the couple and their white cat for a company, Tocha sails, while being seasick most of the time. The sea is rough. Gonçalo doesn't really know why he is on Balaou. Is he continuing the agony that her mother felt during her last days? Seeing the land after 8 terrible days making him appreciate life more, at least a little while? Infinitely wise without trying too hard, Balaou turns personal grieving process into a gentle reminder that death is part of life.

Allegorical Algeria

Bloody Beans (2013) - Mari











I've been wanting to see this one ever since I missed it at Art of the Real this spring. There are no English subs for it but I decided to go for it and I'm glad I did. The general chatter (in about half of the film) of these Algerian kids is pretty much inconsequential. Something about them being tired of eating red beans all the time. The draw is in the gorgeous cinematography and controlled chaos of these almost feral kids being playful, a la Lord of the Flies without murderous intentions.

Narimane Mari is not too subtle about the allegorical nature of the project - a woman beating white man wears a pig mask and kids throws stones at him shouting Dégagé! (clear off!) and Viva Algeria! The kids decide to raid a French military barrack because they've heard there are chocolates and other delicacies. They end up with taking a French soldier hostage. In one stunning scene after another in a span of one day (morning- night- dawn), Bloody Beans is an amazingly visceral experience: the camera is always there in the middle of the kids capturing all their activities. It's beautiful, especially the night time shots, lit by only a flashlight, accompanied by pounding electronic music and great sound design.

Trailer / BLOODY BEANS / Directed by Narimane Mari from DocAlliance Films on Vimeo.

Storytelling

20,000 Days on Earth (2014) - Forsyth, Pollard

It was around the same time I discovered Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds when I saw Wings of Desire for the first time in the late 80s. Wenders, a big fan of Cave, put him in the film and he performs two beautiful songs on stage. Dark and moody, his outback gothic music was gripping and electrifying. Cave hasn't changed much. His hairline receded a lot but stopped around mid 90s, his sharp features dulled by age a little bit. But album after album, he remains magnetic as ever and still gives amazing performances on stage.

Forsyth and Pollard records the musician's creative process and documents where those lyrics are coming from. For some, 20,000 Days might come across as self-important, but for fans, it gives a rare, all too brief glimpse of the origins of his brooding narratives in his music. This doc is lyrical and floaty, instead of being a usual talking heads doc. Don't get me wrong, Warren Ellis is a great musician. But I prefer Cave's earlier stuff myself, more so than Ellis era (mid-90s on) Cave. Ellis is very visible here as an important collaborator of his work, exchanging funny anecdotes about how cool and electrifying Nina Simone was (once she apparently demanded cocaine, champagne and sausages all at once before the show). His friend Ray Winstone and Kylie Minogue show up for a ride. There are also a lot of songs featured from his latest, Push the Sky Away album. Great stuff.

Men versus The Avalanche: Ruben Östlund on Force Majeure

Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund's new film Force Majeure, a wickedly funny jab at modern masculinity, garnered a lot of buzz as it made the rounds on festival circuit. It has earned its fair share of love from the Twitch community as well (read Ryland Aldrich's review from Fantastic Fest here).

I had a chance to sit down with the director the day of the New York premiere of the film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Östlund, in person, was very friendly, easy going and eager to talk about anything from the role of modern men in society, Swedish humor, his influences to Seinfeld.

Your take on Swedish society really fascinates me. Your previous film, PLAY, was such an impactful, divisive film. How did FORCE MAJEURE originate?

Well, Play was very well regarded by critics in Sweden and pretty much all over where it was released. About Force Majeure, I have to go back 20 years. I used to make ski films, so I spent a lot of time in ski resorts. When I was accepted into film school, I left the ski world and went into the cinema industry. So I have been looking for a way to get back into that environment and use my knowledge about it. It's been hard, I mean, Play is raising questions that are existential and it's about human behavior in a wider perspective. To find a topic that takes place in a ski environment is quite hard to make existentially interesting.

But the idea of the avalanche came up in my mind: Tomas running away from his family in survival mode and coming back and facing his crushed self-image. It asks questions about a man's role in the family, expectations on gender roles in society from a behavioral perspective. So at that moment, I felt I could be able to do a feature that takes place in a ski resort, even though the idea of a film taking place in a ski resort is so kitschy- neon colors, people that are in control of their lives, have a lot of money and wear matching underwear and reflective shades and so on. So it all came with the idea of an avalanche.

Is it a normal destination for a Swedish family going on a ski trip in the Alps?

Yeah. A modern ski resort was created in the 50s in the Swiss Alps. They had an economical plan: over 30 year period, they set up 300,000 hotel beds in the mountain regions of Savoy. That changed the lifestyle of the whole of Europe, I would say. There was a growing middle class that had money to go on ski trips. It's quite common to go to the Alps.

Having seen your other films, I am wondering if Swedish society is a constant inspiration for your comedies.

Yeah I guess so. I think it comes across like that because I'm a Swede and the context and situations are reflected in Swedish culture. But in this film, I think that you can use the situation in almost every culture and you will have similar results. I think the expectations of a male is quite similar. I think it would be even stronger in North America because the context of a nuclear family is more pronounced. If you look at cinema history, it's all heroic men. It is so prevalent in Hollywood.

Sure, Bruce Willis, Liam Neeson, it's still very much 'father knows best'.

So it would be even more interesting to see it in an American context.

Yeah I can totally see the Hollywood remake of FORCE MAJEURE at some point.

The statistics of survival rates of major disasters that came with the press notes for this film were very interesting. I was quite surprised that the male survival rate is a lot higher than that of females, and of children. Is it safe to say that we as men, deep down inside, are all cowards? Is that what you are trying to say with this film, Ruben?

I think we all have ability in acting egoistic when it comes to crisis situation. And what happens with women, maybe they...it's hard to say it's biological or cultural, but men are more likely to abandon their kids. [laughs]

But what I really like about this is, if you look at the culture that we live in, we are brought up to think that we should stand up for our family if there was an outside threat. But when it comes to survival instinct, the culture is put away. Even though men have been conditioned to be loyal to their country, to their family, or to their football team or whatever, when it comes to survival instinct, all those things are put to the side. But the idea of men being loyal to something bigger, like a country, of course, we have to raise our young men to go to war and such. We are not looking at the film industry as an ideologue, but it's pretty obvious that it's producing a certain ideology about family, about the kind of politics that are used to make young men to be in the military.

What should we all have learned from the avalanche?

Well, I hope, everyone who saw the film would have a easier time confessing something they did that they are ashamed of. I know it's very very hard to confess because I think one of the things we humans are most scared of is to lose face. For example, if you look at the captain of Costa Concordia [shipwrecked on the coast of Italy in 2012], now dubbed as 'Cpt. Coward', famously said that he 'fell into the lifeboat'. He was trying so hard not to lose face, you know. I think it's very human behavior.

Because outside perspective we have on ourselves, I think that's something that sticks out in humans when compared to other animals. And that outside perspective also makes us very good in cooperating and it makes us very efficient. This is why we are such a successful species. But this fear of losing face is sometimes bigger than survival instinct. I think it's very interesting. You remember the principal who was on the South Korean ferry who abandoned his students in the fit of survival instinct. But then he killed himself to avoid losing face. And I think that's extraordinarily interesting that you decide to kill yourself when your instincts want you to survive.

FORCE MAJEURE is shot quite differently than your previous films. It's less formally vigorous than your other works; there are close ups and camera movements. I wonder how that came about?

Well I think there's a lot of drama that takes place inside the character this time. So I needed to step closer and focus on what's happening on the faces. That was also important when I was choosing the actors, because they had to be able to express what's going on inside on their faces. This is one of the reasons. Both Lisa Loven Kongsli [the wife, Ebba] and Johannes Bah Kuhnke [the husband, Tomas] have very expressive faces. But also, when I made Play, it was very hard to create dynamic scenes when I was editing it. The film consists of 42 static, wide shots, so we cut it after we premiered in Cannes.

Wow, I didn't know about that.

Because we didn't manage to do it in the best sense. This time I wanted to have more opportunity to be more dynamic and able to change the rhythm of the film- going fast to going very slow and deep whenever needed to.

Were you influenced by Roy Andersson? Because I can totally see his influence in your films.

Yeah sure, I mean, if you were brought up in the 70s in Sweden, you have his commercial films in your blood. So I guess he was much more influential to me than Ingmar Bergman was. We have been working with the same producer also [Philippe Bober, whose credit includes Songs from the Second Floor, and Ulrich Seidl's films]. Andersson is an extraordinary filmmaker. He is unique in perspective from all the directors in the world. I really love his kind of humor- his way of taking very trivial situations and treating them as deadly serious, I think it's beautiful.

There was another recent American film that dealt the same theme of male emasculation in the face of disasters called THE LONELIEST PLANET by Julia Loktev. Have you seen it?

No. But when we were preparing this film, people were telling me about that moment from the film, when he was trying to hide behind his girlfriend when threatened by a gunman but I've heard so many funny examples about the same kind of stories when I was talking about the avalanche situation.

A friend of mine told me about his friend who was supposed to have a bachelor party. They were doing a fake kidnapping on him. So, a bunch of them in ski masks and guns knocked on his door and when he opened the door, he was so scared he hid behind his fiancée. And they were supposed to get married like in 2 weeks. And they had a really hard time getting over that. And there is this episode of Seinfeld- when George Costanza is at a children's birthday party and the fire alarm goes off and he pushes away all the children and runs for the exit. [laughs] So there are some moments that remind us of the same kind of conflict and expectations of men.

I know that the avalanche seen from the terrace was shot on green screen. I read somewhere that you used CG in your other films. But I couldn't really place where.

For example when the kid was doing push ups... in Play, how do you say it?

Yeah, push ups.

He does like ten and stays still but in the film he does like 89 push ups or something. That was CG'd.

That's cheating.

[laughs] Oh and the beginning of Play, that surveillance shot with the camera panning? That's also one static shot that we manipulated.

My time is up. But thank you very much and have fun at the NY premiere tonight and LA Tomorrow.

Thank you.


Force Majeure opens Friday, October 24 in NY and LA. The film is Sweden's official Oscar entry this year.

Film Society of Lincoln Center just announced IN CASE OF NO EMERGENCY: THE FILMS OF RUBEN ÖSTLUND, January 14-22, 2015. Östlund will be in attendance to present the series.

Blowing The Whistle

Citizenfour (2014) - Poitras

In 2013, Filmmaker Laura Poitras along with reporter Glenn Greenwald from the Guardian were chosen to record and represent Edward Snowden as he was blowing the whistle on NSA's sweeping spying program. The short video image of the youthful looking whistle blower talking in some undisclosed location in Hong Kong that played over and over was that of Poitras's. Unlike Alex Gibney's Julian Assange/Brad Manning documentary, Citizenfour is a very straightforward, no nonsense filmmaking. Even though the erosion of civil liberty since 9/11 is no big news anymore, Snowden's whistleblowing reminds us in a big way that Obama broke his campaign promise of transparency in gov. The reason he decided to come out with these frightening facts is because he was so disappointed with Obama. Instead of curtailing these programs, he and his administration have been expanding them ten-folds. It's not only subversive groups and terrorists these agencies are after. They are mining 125 giga bites of data per second (and this was a couple years ago) on ordinary citizens all over the world indiscriminately, with the help of willing companies trying to cash in on information about their competitors. The doc shows Snowden taking every precautions in that Hong Kong hotel room from his computer and mobile devices (and advise others too) to the hotel phone while strategizing what comes next, marooned in there for 8 days. As Greenwald and Snowden exchanges hand written notes in front of Poitras' camera then tearing them up, you can tell there are more revelations in the near future with more whistle blowers on deck. Citizenfour is an explosive documentary. And I can't ever look at Obama the same way ever again.

Act of Cowardice

Force Majeure (2014) - Östlund

Formally less vigorous, Force Majeure is a departure for Östlund. Gone are the static long takes and distant wideshots, ala Roy Andersson style, it only focuses on one family and their immediate contacts in a luxurious ski resort up in the Alps. A well to do Swedish family, headed by handsome, Clark Kent jawed dad Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), mommy Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and two young blonde kids, is a picture perfect white family straight out of a Banana Republic catalog. The massive resort and ski area is well kept to a tee by daily ground maintenance and subject to 'controlled avalanches' (I'm guessing, to make snow fresh for skiers). On day two of their ski trip, a controlled avalanche comes down to where Thomas and his perfect family are having breakfast on the balcony. In blinding panic, Tomas flees the scene, leaving horrified family behind. But it turns out that the avalanche didn't reach where they were, just blowing some snow over them. It was no big deal. Tomas comes back, as if nothing has happened. But for his family, their inner peace is shattered, forever.

Östlund takes a crack at that concept of impenetrable masculinity. Tomas wouldn't admit the fact that he ran away- it's too unmanly to man up and admit his mistakes, and Ebba can't let go the fact that he is a sort of person who'd leave his family behind in time of disasters. If Julia Loktev's The Loneliest Planet examines the male's cowardliness on an individual scale, Force Majeure gives it a societal/familial context. The incident and subsequent talk gives Tomas's divorced friend (Kristofer Hivju) who is on the trip with a 20 year old girlfriend, a pause. Up in the mountains, the only choice to vent, for these scrubby and bearded manly men, is to scream from the top of the mountain (and risk another avalanche) or do a stag night with bunch of shirtless meatheads: drink, vomit while yelling at each other/at anything and repeat.

The question is, how does Tomas reclaim and show his family that assurance? Do we keep going with 'Daddy Knows Best' tradition, or go with 'Daddy Doesn't Always Know'? Do we admit that we are all scared shitless child inside, despite our manly exterior? Östlund seems ambivalent about the answer. Not that his other films are laugh out loud comedies, but I found Force Majeure more disturbing than funny.

Force Majeure Actor Johannes Bah Kuhnke on Being a Coward

Johannes Bah Kuhnke, the hunky lead in Ruben Östlund's biting Swedish comedy Force Majeure, was in town to promote the film along with his director. I had a chance to chat briefly with the actor who plays a character carrying the burdens of all men.

I know you are mainly known as a stage actor. How did you get involved in this project?

Well, a casting agent called me and she wanted to set up a meeting with me and Ruben. So I went in and we started talking and I must've been the last one because we were talking for three hours. He finally looked at the watch and said, "Wow, we have to record something (for audition)". But then I knew I had this connection with him.

Have you seen any of Ruben's other films before you met him?

I've seen Involuntary.

Also very uncomfortable comedy.

Yeah. When I saw it, what I liked about it is that there are so many different ways to see that film. Everyone has a different reaction to his films.

What did you think about FORCE MAJEURE when you first read the script?

I was trying to get at what it was about. We talked a lot about that. In a way I was hungry for playing something more complicated because despite of my age (42), I always get to play young lover types- uncomplicated, good looking. A man that women fall in love with. So I've been longing for this kind of role so much.

Nomally, in acting, you play a better version of yourself - more beautiful, smarter, sexier, more evil, something more attractive. This part was definitely the most unattractive side of yourself or in other people.

Are all Swedish men cowards?

[laugh] The film shows that every man in the world is a coward. If you saw the statistics in disasters, more man survive than women or children, not only because they are stronger, but they can be egoistic. There is the code of honor- 'Women and children first'. But as it turned out in Titanic, it was enforced under threats. There were guards with guns enforcing that.

Why Tomas would deny what happened?

I think that's where I don't agree with Tomas. You can act in such a way but if you face it, you are not weak. But I think it's also got to do with their relationship, their lack of communication.

When Ebba first breaks the silence is when she had a couple of glasses of wine in front of everyone. He then tries to save his ass and makes up lies that comes out of nowhere. He can't step back. He thinks that it will just pass. But it doesn't and he gets deeper into trouble.

You think there is a back story where things weren't going well with the couple even before they took the trip?

Some people who watched the film think they have a dysfunctional marriage but I think they are as normal as they can be. They are married for ten years. There are not many surprises left. You know they need to change the marriage bow - from "'Til the death do us part" to "Til you're bored to death do us part".

Very true, very true.

The scene where you break down and cry outside the hotel room and Ebba says, "you are not even really crying," and you start crying for real, like a baby, really interests me.

I think in the beginning he's trying to communicate with her. He just cry as a form of communication but it doesn't work. So the pressure is built up so much it just bursts out: that he was unfaithful and everything comes out. But I think that was kind of...catharsis for him. But he doesn't really take good care of the situation. It doesn't really lend very well to the situation. Because we have this idea of men crying in the movies: you usually see a stone faced man and a strand of tears rolling down on his cheeks and straight after that, there is some big decision that needs to be made. But we really want to make the scene really really over the top. I also found an inspirations on youtube- "worst man cry ever" and different daytime TV talkshows.

You did a great job!

I remember in theater school that there is a task when you do a scene in Macbeth where you wash the blood off your hands. You don't start out with freaking out and screaming, "Blood!" but you do it with "oh there is a blood on the tip of my finger, let me get rid of it, then "oh it's not coming off, let me wash it off," to "oh no it's all over my hand and I can't scrub it off!" You can find the right moments and right emotions and  build up until you can push very far to go over the top.

It struck me as a little boy crying.

Why wouldn't you cry like that now? What's the difference? Some social code?

Probably.

It's this portraiture of male that is engrained in us by films and all.

Right. You don't want anybody see you crying. It's too vulnerable.

So, you are vacationing with your family and there is a catastrophe. What do you do?

Well, I'm not trained for those things so I don't know how I would react. But according to statistics, I would run. But I do hope that I could be strong enough to reveal my weaknesses. The problem with Tomas is that he can't live with the picture of him being like that.

It's one of those movies you take your date to see and make men very uncomfortable. I'm wondering what your wife thought about it and your performance.

Well...she despises Tomas. [laughs] That's funny because women despises male weakness and men gets aggressive on male weakness. There is no place for male weakness in our society, the structure that we built. There are some men who prefer weak women but I never met a woman who wants to be with weak men.

It's true.

I think it's also the problem in this society to be happy all the time. You see face book and instagrams of all these happy smiling faces and perfect life. You want to be a role model for your children but then you stop being a human being. You are in fact, acting in real life to give the expression that you are feeling good.

So at the end, when she asks if he smokes and he says he does, I think it's a kind of happy ending because he lends himself to be more human, that he is not perfect.

Would you work with Ruben again?

Yeah, we've been talking about doing something.

Could you tell me a little bit about it?

We had one project before...it was based on an idea of a monk. There will be 12 actors playing monks, stark naked for three hours but it didn't really happen. There is another one that we've been talking about but I need to catch up with him to see where it is.

Force Majeure opens Friday, October 24 in NY and LA. The film is Sweden's official Oscar entry this year.