LAFF ‘09 Interview: Alicia Scherson – Turistas

Alicia Scherson’s Turistas

I spent some time over the weekend interviewing Chilean born filmmaker Alicia Scherson whose film Turistas just made its US premiere at LAFF in the narrative competition. It tells the story of a woman who ends up spending several days in a national park with a young backpacker from Norway after she’s abandoned by her husband following an argument. You can read the LiC review here.

What was the inspiration for Turistas? What was the genesis of it?

Sort of the first image I got was of this woman who gets out of the car to pee and then while she’s peeing she sees this insect and just by looking at the insect really close she has this kind of, not a revelation, but this moment she sort of feels her life is going to change in a way. So that was the first image I had and I started there, sort of building the story on both sides. The other thing is I knew I wanted to shoot in nature so I guess I forced the story to go into nature somehow.

That’s a switch from your first film Play, which took place in the hustle and bustle of the city. What was it about nature that appealed to you?

I’m a city person. I’ve lived in Chile and I’ve lived in Chicago and Madrid, but I’ve always loved nature, but in the way city people love nature. You know, I like to go camping. So you have this sort of hesitant relationship between your love for the city but then you need nature. I always wanted to make a movie to think about that, you know, like how we relate to nature, how complicated it is to relate to nature nowadays being city people. That’s why I decided to use characters who were tourists instead of having like a local story of people from nature. I just wanted to have this view from outside like a city view inside nature.

There’s a sense too with city people being in nature that they’re sort of out of their element and off balance and awkward and maybe more open to revelation.

Exactly yes, I wanted this woman to be very awkward and clumsy and at the same time not knowing the codes of behavior…that’s something that’s always interested me, like we have these roles we play in the city and I think it’s interesting in movies when you take away that ability to know what to do. In Play, all the characters were sort of like characterless, they’d lost the code of how they had to act and I think this happens in Turistas too. She doesn’t know the right way to behave and that makes it more interesting to me.

Turistas has kind of a dreamlike quality, especially after she argues with her husband and she gets out of the car.

Actually when we built the trailer for the movie, we built it like that. We realized that this all could be just be her thinking of another possible life because the tone from the car has a different quality in terms of the dialogue and the acting. It’s more realistic. You think it’s going to be a different kind of movie and then it goes into this more fable kind of thing.

Yes, there’s almost an unreality once she gets to the park.

When you shoot nature there’s this whole reflection of what “natural” is. Everybody was like “No you can’t shoot digital in nature,” you know, like people have this weird association like film is more real and nature is real so you have to do film in nature. Nothing is real about that. Film is as fake as digital, you know, it’s all the same. It’s a real national park and it’s all real, but I wanted it to be really colorful and to have this artifice to it without being artificial. Just the way it’s framed and its color, just to defeat the conventions of how you shoot something natural.

So it’s almost like a postcard reality?

Yes exactly. But it’s just something based on film conventions because there’s nothing fake about it. But there’s something about digital in some scenes. For example, when she and her husband are talking and the kayaks are in the background going over the waterfall, when I looked at it in postproduction it looked like green screen. It looks fake, but it’s all real. Something about the way it was shot which I’m really happy with, and I can’t really tell how, makes things look like they’re standing in front of a poster.

So you have this dreamlike, almost artificial park setting, but also in the distance there are always these sounds of the highway being built.

I wanted her to find the border of the park at some point. We were in this fairytale inside the park and I just wanted her and the audience to remember that this was just a secluded area, like a reservation, this secluded demarked area and the world is going on outside. I wanted her at some point to step outside for just a little bit and come back. That was the idea. And I shot that construction part in 16mm. It was a way for me to bring attention back to the HD. Like you’re used to it and then you see this beautiful 16mm footage shot in a whole different way.

There’s a lot of humor in Turistas. Have you ever considered making a straightforward comedy?

Yeah, actually I always like to say this film is a comedy. Of course it’s not really, but I was so happy last night that people were laughing so much. I really appreciate that they connect with the humor. Yeah, I’ve been told that maybe I should just try to be funny.

You worked with Aline Küppenheim on your last film. Did you have her in mind all along?

Yes. I was writing and I was thinking of her. She’s such a good actress. In Play she had a very small role, but she was great. She tends to do those kinds of roles where she plays like a very beautiful, glamorous woman, the way she photographs is amazing, and then when you know her in person she never wears makeup and she’s very smart in kind of a nerdy way. She knows all these facts about things. She’s funny and she’s clumsy and she smokes a lot. So, when I met her and we became close, I was thinking that I really wanted to make a movie where she can use all those other parts of herself that we never see. Because she’s so pretty everyone puts her as a model. In Chile she does a lot of TV and she’s always like the beautiful girl. So I like to have her with no makeup and with glasses and playing a scientist and more neurotic. I think she does really good.

She’s great, but she’s still pretty. Even without makeup she can’t help it.

Yeah (laughs)

The film starts off with a conversation that hinges on abortion which is very much a hot button topic, but this isn’t a political film or a message movie really, is it?

I haven’t released the movie in Chile yet and I’m really curious what’s going to happen with that particular issue. It’s very conservative there. The movie in a way puts the theme in the background. The fight is not because of the abortion. The fight is because it was a one sided decision, and that’s pretty much how it is with a lot of people, but still the laws and the TV and the whole thing are very hypercritical about it. Even though it’s not my agenda I just wanted to put it in a very open way without any concession and let them worry about it. I’m curious to see if it makes any noise there.

Have you always wanted to be a filmmaker?

I got my degree in biology originally, but I never worked really. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do and I got this scholarship to study film in Cuba when I was 20 which was like this great plan more than something I was working for or looking forward to. I got this free trip to Cuba basically. I lived two years there and it was amazing. I think I found the right place. Like I realized being an artist…I didn’t know how to draw or do like plastic art, so it was hard because when you’re in school that’s all that counts. Either you know how to paint or you’re a scientist (laughs).

I come from a very scientific family, and I was really good at science so it was like a natural path, but I was really unhappy. I wasn’t doing the right thing. That happens a lot. After I switched to filmmaking, people came to me from the science world and it was like “Oh I wish I could do that” you know and they say “Oh I write poems” and I’m like “just do it!” You know, there are a lot of hidden artists out there.

Are there any films or filmmakers that inspire you?

I watch a lot of movies. I go through phases. I think all during my student time I was into French cinema and the Nouvelle Vague. I was crazy about the ’60s. But then I like a lot of American directors. Like I love Hal Hartley for example. I learn a lot about dialogue writing and humor and ways of being funny. I love his movies. I like Wes Anderson a lot. I really like that kind of American humor.

And of course I love Lucrecia Martel and some of the new Latin American filmmakers. I follow them a lot.

Antonioni is my big mise en scène master. I watch his films over and over. Like the way he moves the characters in and out of the frame and just the way he puts the camera is very inspiring.

That’s all I have. Thanks for your time and good luck with Turistas.

Thank you. That was great.

Filed under: Film Festivals, Interviews
Tags: Alicia Scherson, LAFF, Los Angeles Film Festival, Turistas