DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

In Ingmar’s Bergman’s “Winter Light”, there’s a scene between Pastor Ericsson and the fisherman Tomas where the pastor confesses to Tomas his lack of faith in the existence of God. He calls his God a “spider God, a monster…”

Regardless of our belief in the existence of God, the admission of a lack of belief in God coming from a pastor was something that shook me and made me rethink our notions about what lies at the core of our faith system. As Kierkegaard says, faith is nothing without an undercurrent of self-doubt running through it. But just how strong can this stream be and how does it mesh with our faith? What if we realized one day that the Eiffel Tower was built on top of straws? Where exactly does our faith start to disintegrate, and does it dissolve into nothingness in seconds or does it chip away slowly over years? And what can lack of faith do to our existence? Especially to an existence that is steeped in solitude. And what is the texture of solitude? To what extent does it help us discover ourselves?

These were some of the issues that I wanted to tackle in this movie. But I wanted to do so in a manner that was more subtle, more demanding from the viewer - show as little as needed, interpret as much as you wish. And this is where Josh’s ability to fully absorb the breadth of Philippe’s character but reveal only small glints of his emotional landscape was such a valuable asset.

People often have a vast and varied range of emotional reactions to a change in the status of the relationship with their partner. I was specifically interested in how this change sculpts itself over time and evolves to become, perhaps, a part of their personality, their inner thoughts. What was challenging to me was mapping this progression of emotions over the “mind-clock time”, rather than the wall-clock time.

One of the ways I thought I could do this was to slightly alter our/the perception of cinematic time and space. To truly be able to map out the cartography of Philippe’s mind, I realized that I would need time – probably as much time as it took his emotions to change and evolve.

And I thought that time could, perhaps, play very seductively with space here.  Most of the movie happens in the confines of a rather tiny studio apartment. The size of the apt was a valuable aid in establishing the ‘emotional’ position of the camera – drawing the line between the audience and the protagonist. I wanted the audience to frequently cross this line back and forth, hoping for a blurring of the definition of “our space” and “his space”. I doubt that this would have been possible without the aid of the ability to stretch time as I felt like.

Victor Hugo said that the “grass must grow and the children must die”. True…but though the winds of circumstance may take our destinies where they wish to, we, as humans, may perhaps still continue to sail where our inner winds take us.