Insanity behind the street of Lithuania: Interview with Jurgis Matulevičius

Jurgis Matulevičius (b. 1989) is a director, screenwriter and editor form Vilnius, Lithuania. He graduated from the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy with a degree in film directing. Jurgis has worked with well-known Lithuanian film directors Šarūnas Bartas, Algimantas Puipa and others. He recently made 4 short films: “Absurd People” (2011), “Anima Animus” (2012), “Victim” (2013), “Interrogator” (2015) that were seen and evaluated well by critics, festivals and audiences in Lithuania and abroad.

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Tettyo Saito (TS): First question. I want to know why you become a movie director? And how did you become a director?

Jurgis Matulevičius (JM): I really wanted to be making movies from a young age. Because I like to dream a lot, I like imagining that I am not me, but somebody else. And movie directors fascinated me because they could create their own worlds in films and be in charge of everything what is going on in these worlds created. So, making a film is like to be or to live in a parallel world of yours, where everything is created by your imagination. From a character to a set dressing, music played, words said, and camera movement found. And when you combine all those things together - you get a movie, a reflection of this parallel world of yours. It’s amazing how you could reflect your thoughts to others when you are a movie director.

How did I become a movie director? Well I studied for 4 years film directing in Lithuanian music and theatre academy. I watched a lot of films and worked on other directors’ sets. I and my friends helped each other in making our movies together.

TS: When you start to be interested in film, what films did you see? Or what kind of films could you watch in Lithuania at that time?

JM: I think form the age of 10. It was back in 1999 when I became interested in films. My father had a VHS player and he was renting VHS cassettes every week. He would bring home 7-8 films. And on the weekend, he would watch 2 or 3. Some films we did watch together, because they were appropriate for kids, the ones not for children I watched alone after school. Sometimes I would pretend that I am sick, then I could watch films all day long. My father watched all kind of films from Hollywood blockbusters to classics or modern cinema. I remember watching Tarkovsky, Fellini, Kim ki Duk, Bergman, Wong Kar Wai, Wajda, Scorsese, Kubrick and so on. So, my father watched everything, and he wanted me to see good films: he would take me to the movies as well - to see "Star Wars", or "Die Hard", or we went to movie theatre see "The Mirror" by Andrei Tarkovsky. I really loved watching foreign films. The bad thing was that we watched all of the movies dubbed in Russian, so 7 years later I saw them all once more in an original language - the torrent era begun. When this torrent era begun, I remember watching 2 films per day, it was crazy. Important thing was I had a classmate who into movies as well, so I had someone my age who I could talk about these films we saw. After graduating school, he did study acting and I was studying history in university. I got very jealous, that in a year he progressed so much in movie knowledge, so I quit history studies and started studying film directing. These conversations about films and art with my friend I was longing all that time were back.

TS: Watching "Auka" is like seeing in the head of a madman. Shaky camerawork, vivid landscape, intense editing. All the elements reinforce this impression. I'm very interested in the reason you want to make such a crazy film.

JM: Well I used to read Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Bukowski as well as Freud, Jung, etc. at that time. In their writings they try to show what is going on in madmen’s head. I wrote this film script inspired by these writers and using the tools I have to portray this madness in my character’s head. So, this film is a combination of things I read, saw and felt at that time. As well I was really inspired by Gaspar Noe, Andrzej Zulawski and Lars von Trier films. I was amazed how these directors were able to create such an intense atmosphere to emerge their characters into and how deeply these characters appear in that madness. So this film is my view into this issue. It’s a film about a broken man who lost everything in his life, a big shadow landed on his brains demanding for a revenge. He wants to vengeance for all the good things and the beauty he couldn’t experience in his life. And a symbol of these things is a girl that he kills.

TS: What impressed me in your film is the terrifying mix of the images and sound. In "Auka", patient's scream and train's noise overlap crazy landscape, then sinister atmosphere is born. Could you please explain how you constructed this mix of the image and sound?

JM: The thing is when the film has no words, there has to be some kind of compensation for it, therefore to get the result, so then you start using your imagination to say everything you want to say using sounds only. Atmosphere that surrounds your character like diegetic sound. As I was trying to create a portrait of a madman, I needed lots of non-diegetic sounds to portray his thoughts or his traumatic memories. In this film I tried to put my viewer in to the head of a madman, whose thoughts were overlapping each other. So, I did the same with sound, echoing it, reverbing it, placing it a little ahead or a moment behind. Just to show how unstable this person is. And combining sound with a really intense jump-cut editing, reverse camera movements, cutting on axis - I got this construction of image and sound which supplies each other and keeps the tension during the film.

TS: In "Auka", I'm also impressed by its vivid color. Like, yellow in underground station, deep red in apartment. Could you please elaborate on your decision to use vivid colors?

JM: Of course I used it on purpose to exaggerate my character’s state of mind. It’s almost like he’s is tripping. This trip is not on drugs, but on evil, that is sunk in his soul. And he is powerless to confront it. This shaky camera and irregular compositions, these vibrant, sharp colours is how I imagine the madman would see the world he is in. With these tools plus acting of my main character and finally jump cut editing I tried to show how a possessed person, a madman, as you say sees the world.

The cold blue in the hospital depicts feeling of death. I tried to show it as a porch/ entry way of hell according to Dante where malevolent, egoistic people stay.

About the yellow underground my DOP Simonas Glinskis said that this color was a feeling based choice - it arouses a sudden excitement for a spontaneous action in our characters head.

Deep red in the apartment illustrates passion, sex, blood and murder. In the film when you move with a character through different locations you get more red in each scene. And the final scene is stained by the red of the traffic light.

TS: In your film, you depict the dark side of the humanity keenly. Could you please explain about your obsession with this darkness?

JM: When I was writing this script I lived in a train station neighborhood of Vilnius. And my windows where facing the main street. Every night I saw this episode going on and on. I saw prostitutes picking up clients in the street and behind them was a gravestone shop. All the different gravestones were exhibited outside. Alongside there was a 24h liquor store/bar which had this amazing glowing sign board and lots of different colorful lasers besides. I liked to go downstairs at night to buy myself a drink and just watch these women doing their job, getting in and out of cars, and coming to the bar and drinking themselves to obscurity, getting beaten by the pimps. And all these things I observed were colored in this vivid laser light. Day time I was spending time with my friend who little by little lost his mind and was hospitalized.

It’s not an obsession. I enjoy my living. I have friends and I am happy. I like to experience happiness, but the thing that interest me and triggers me is the opposite. With my films I try to question myself and my viewer, why are we feeling unhappy, why are we cruel, why are we mad?

TS: First two films I watched ("Absurdo žmonės"＆"Anima amus") are monochrome, but "Auka" is a color film. For you, what is difference between making a monochrome film and color film?

In my black and white films, the characters seem somewhat detached from reality since the image is drained of its lifelike color. The use of monochrome helps to achieve a dramatic effect or to focus on the character him/herself in the picture instead of the colors that are captured. But more importantly, black and white changes a movie thematically, providing atmosphere, tone, and visually providing stark contrasts and a dreamlike view of the world. It can at once make a film feel more real (like time period accurate film) while making it feel unreal. While filming “Auka” the main character was a maniac, and you could see it from the first minutes. So I was interested in the world he sees, understands, therefore I used color to take of attention from character and point it more to what surrounds him

TS: I heard that your favorite film is "Possession" by Andrzej Zulawski. How do his films impact you and your works?

JM: Every time I see a film of Zulawski I am finding something that inspires me to create films. From scriptwriting, to directing actors or editing. It is wonderful how he manages to keep the tempo and drama, when sometimes it seems that there is nowhere to go. It seems the edge and the end of the line. But there always is something even more. And I think that we have something in common. Our characters are always possessed by unearthly forces, by very powerful engine for them to move forward.

TS: How is the current situation of Lithuanian cinema? From outside, it seems good. New talents pop up like Giedrė Beinoriūtė, Marija Kavtaradzė, Karolis Kaupinis and you. But from inside, how do you see the current situation?

JM: It’s good. As you already said new talents pop up. We have different people speaking different cinematic languages, portraying a variety of themes. It’s not the USSR anymore. Although during soviet times we had a bunch of wonderful directors and script writers, who are still inspiring me. I love their films and how they struggled to speak freely in that regime. I could say everything is moving towards bright future in Lithuanian cinema.

TS: When movie lovers in Japan want to know Lithuanian cinema history, what Lithuanian films should they see? And why?

JM: Žalakevičius, Grikevičius, Bartas, Puipa. Their films you must see, because they are the masters of their time.

TS: Do you have a plan to make a new film? If so, could you please talk about it to Japanese readers?

JM: I am in the process of writing a new script, and my first feature film Isaac is premiering in this year at Tallin Black Nights Film Festival. Also I am finishing a short documentary called Golden Flask.