Mr. Komasa, how would you describe your main motivation as a filmmaker?
I would say I'm always thinking about the viewer’s experience. That's where I come from. You know, I watched Terminator II probably a hundred times when I was a teenager, and I was always wondering about James Cameron's approach. He was always trying to find something that he can pioneer, some way that he can surprise viewers with a new approach to cinema, or challenge boundaries of filmmaking. As filmmakers, I’d love if we could forget a little about being creators and instead being almost scientists or developers. I want to try to find something the viewer hasn't seen yet. I think about films in an engineering way, I'm trying to find an engine for the film, and from the engine, I want to craft emotions and and build on that. If I'm successful in finding something that I haven't seen in cinema, I'm always interested.
And that could be in any way, right? From production size to character story to genre…
Yeah, whatever it is, I’m always like, “Let's go there. Let's unlock the new territory.” Even if it's the smallest, tiniest territory, I want to push the envelope with filmmaking, otherwise it’s just repetitive. And that might be fine to some people, comforting even, but it doesn’t let you develop that much.
“I’m trying to capture this zeitgeist anxiety, which I think is something people have felt over the ages.”
Apparently your film Good Boy really hit the mark for you. You’ve said that when reading the script for the first time, there was a new surprise every 10 pages.
Good Boy
is absolutely an example in that respect. I love that about cinema, be it a storyline or be the storytelling format… I feel like a chef! I’m trying to give you, the viewer, a taste you haven't tasted, and I'm trying to make it so specific that you might not even like it, you know what I mean? You’ll always will remember a different taste, like a cyber drama, or dystopian family, or a social horror. That kind of thing keeps me focused, because I’m clinging to the actors, and I’m so focused on the psychology of it.You seem to almost specialize in those types of “social horrors” that hone in on our current reality.
Since my debut film Suicide Room in 2011, I was always fascinated with what I would call civilizational illnesses. I find them fascinating because I feel like humanity has entered a time that needs chronicling. I'm trying to capture this zeitgeist anxiety, which I think is something people have felt over the ages. My new film Anniversary also explores this: It’s a dystopian look at the family structure. It’s set in a future where your thoughts and your words can be tangible enough to cancel you or even kill you, and what pushes people apart is just the simple fact of what they think and what they believe in. The closest people become enemies.
It’s also incredibly on the nose in our current political climate.
Sure, but the story actually came to me in 2018 so it was way before any current events took place. I know people will watch it through the lens of now, but this is an old movie — an old idea.
At the time of filming, this was your first English language feature. Was that another challenge for you?
Actually not really, the biggest challenge came from the fact that we started shooting and the SAG strike started. We were all very much in solidarity with with the strike, but at the same time, we were in Dublin trying to make this film, so the level of anxiety I had was deep. And it was hard for the actors as well, all their work that we’d put in already might have been gone. So they decided to just full on, give everything they had because it might have been their one and only work that year, and so they poured their hearts into it from the very, very beginning. So having this ensemble cast, almost with eight leading characters, with all of them giving so much… It was an amazing experience.
Those kinds of challenges must really benefit from veteran actors like Diane Lane, or Stephen Graham who worked with you on Good Boy.
It’s interesting because some experienced actors who are in their 30th or 40th or 50th role, not all of them can hold the “hunger.”
The hunger?
(Laughs) Yes, my father is an actor, and so growing up I was always watching him getting his roles, and it was exciting and scary… He always told me, “Try to find an actor with a hunger. If the actor has a hunger, it will push him higher.” And so sometimes you can have a great name who is just not hungry for the role, maybe they’re burned out, and it will be really hard for you to get to the places you have to go with them. But with actors like Diane Lane and of course also Stephen Graham, they made it feel like it was new for them. They look at their work like a development opportunity. I think the actor needs to feel the challenge. And if the challenge makes the actor, I would say, excited, that's your actor. If the actor feels defensive about the challenge, then it might not work out. It’s not a rule of course, but it’s always easier with someone who wants to go there with you.
“I’m always trying to find someone who’s hungry to do something weirder.”
I guess younger, up and coming actors really have that hunger you’re looking for.
Young actors have a lot of hunger! That’s probably that's why many of my characters are young — like Bartosz Bielenia, who starred in my film Corpus Christi, is a great example of that kind of hungry actor. I'm always trying to find someone who's hungry to do something weirder, and young actors always are because they’re still developing and learning things about themselves.
You were nominated for an Oscar for Corpus Christi when it came out in 2019. Did that achievement feel like an essential part of the journey to getting to where you are now?
Yeah, absolutely. For us directors, we have something called “the window of opportunity,” where you have a couple of months around a film’s release when everybody wants to listen to you, and that's when you have to market your next idea and pitch it to producers. So between Corpus Christi being announced by Venice Film Festival up to, I guess, the Oscars ceremony, we had four months during which I was able to get two projects into production, Anniversary, and Good Boy. But that is the only time we have! So if you're not ready, you will be waiting for a long time to make your next film. It’s a big leap of faith, and you have to be ready with the next film, the next idea. You have to be ready.