Alma Har’el is one of the most interesting freshman filmmakers of this year’s Berlinale. Her exciting debut, Bombay Beach, tells the story of a forgotten community of misfits and youngsters living on the east shore of the Salton Sea, deep in the California desert. The most immediately striking thing about this leonine filmmaker, hailing from Israel but based in Los Angeles, is her exclamation mark plume of tousled fiery hair. But as this feature documentary suggests, there are more vivid colours and jolts of energy lurking within. I had the good fortune to spend a chilly Berlin evening discussing the film with Har’el, along with her editor Joe Lindquist.
ND: So you shot the film entirely on your own?
AH: That’s right, I shot it on a Canon Vixia HD. It’s just a consumer camera, you can buy it for like $600 at Best Buy. I was alone out there, with the headphones on and the boom in one hand, holding the camera up to my face the whole time because it didn’t have a viewfinder and it was impossible to see the LCD screen in the sunlight. And it was 45°c out there! So it was sort of crazy; but it was so much fun hanging out with them for four months; it was like a second childhood. They are all so interesting, and they just became my friends. I still go to visit them every few weeks.
ND: It is clear from watching the film that you were really looking for the human aspect: telling the story of people you know, and not pretending not to know them?
AH: Well this was my first film, and I didn’t really have any interest in looking for the ‘drama’ as many documentary directors might. Like when Red had his stroke, some people might have thought, “Great! He’s in the hospital!” but that really wasn’t my state of mind. I mean there is a lot more stuff that I could have put in the film – there are paedophiles and meth addicts and hookers – but I didn’t think it was necessary or relevant to what I was doing. When we were editing we slowly noticed that there were just certain things we weren’t going to include. It became clearer and clearer what our stories were. While we were editing we brought in people to give us notes, and one quite famous editor said, “What are you? A filmmaker or a social worker?” I thought, “Well I don’t think I’m either of those things.”
ND: Was it a conscious decision to concentrate on the courage and strength of the community, and ignore the failure of outsiders to help them?
AH: You know, I don’t think it is as easy as it looks. It’s not as if there is someone that was supposed to be helping them. When I first came to America I thought everybody only cared about money; but the US actually has more philanthropy than anywhere else, so there are tons of organisations in the area that try to help educate, and give food, and do all sorts of things. Of course there are things that aren’t justified, and capitalism and greed do exist. I mean this area has just been completely forgotten, and they have been left there, and somebody should take care of it of course; but it’s just not what this film was about. What matters is how these people that I care about deal with their lives. And I think they are very heroic the way they go about it, and the dignity that they manage to find in their situation, and the love that they have, it is really beautiful.
ND: You do make a more overt statement on one specific social issue in the US: the pharmaceutical industry.
AH: Well I am not against pharmaceuticals at all, in fact I am on pharmaceuticals; but I think that the problem, as with most things, is how people use them. In America, things gets out of control and lose perspective. When I arrived there I was shocked and wanted to find out how it was possible for a child as young as Benny to be given so much lithium! There is so little research, and no one even knows if these drugs will help such a young mind because it is still developing. It is really tragic, but I tell myself that Benny’s spirit is so strong, and his imagination is so strong, I have faith that he is going to be stronger than the medication. I think it is sad because now, in America, one in every four children is medicated, and the children that are most medicated are actually in poor areas, and they don’t even get therapy with it.
ND: Can you both talk a bit about the process of discovering this fairly personal and pioneering style of documentary storytelling?
AH: There were a lot of people that wanted to edit this, and some of them had a lot more experience than Joe, but there was something about Joe where we both felt we were going to discover this thing together. When we had a rough cut we brought more experienced people in to give us notes, and everyone said they thought it was beautiful but they weren’t sure that it was working because they had never seen anything like it before. It was definitely a difficult process working out what we liked, and then holding onto it when we got told it wasn’t working.
JL: Yeah, after that visit we were all sort of down because we had been trying to make a point of not using any standard conventions, but people didn’t really get it. One of the first things I saw that Alma had put together was a rough assembly of the kids in the kitchen making fun of Benny, followed by “the Benny dance”. The essence of what it became in the film was all intact at that early stage, and for me that was the moment I knew I wanted to be a part of this, because of how unique it was. The dances are a reflection of what has just happened, they are birthed from the actual story, so I knew that if we could do that throughout the whole movie, which was Alma’s intuition, for me that was incredible.
ND: One of the people listed in the ‘Thanks to’ credits is Werner Herzog. How did that come about?
AH: Werner’s wife, Lene Herzog, is a beautiful photographer and a good friend of mine, and I showed them the film when it was finished. He gave me the funniest notes! They were mainly technical notes about the sound; but he loved the film and thought it was perfect the way it was. The people that came into the screenings would always say, “but what is this film about? Just put it in a logline.” But when I showed it to Werner he was the first person that just said, “Its about the American Dream, the broken American Dream.” And of course he was right.
ND: So you already had a relationship with Zach Condon [of the band Beirut] before you began the project? What was his involvement?
AH: That’s one of the best relationships I have. He is just a beautiful, inspiring, artistic person, and a very good friend. I am a huge fan of his on every level, and I have learnt a lot from him. So we did it like this: first I listened to all the albums, and I chose all the songs that I thought could maybe work, which was probably about fifteen or twenty songs. And then he sent me a hard drive with all the songs that I had picked in separated tracks (so each instrument in splits) and said, “Do whatever you want with it”. That was such a trusting thing to do and we were so thankful. So when we had a rough cut I went to New Mexico for a week and stayed with Zach. He has a studio there so everyday we would go and work on a scene and he would just write stuff and record it on the spot. And we went to his parent’s house in Santa Fe with microphones and recorded stuff on this organ that he used to play as a kid.
ND: Do you think your unusual decision to incorporate music video and magical realist elements into the film could attract a slightly different audience of music video fans?
AH: Yeah, perhaps. There is such a problem with music videos and with the industry in general. I loved doing them, but at a certain point I realised there is less and less room for them. I hear things are actually improving again now, but I took a break from that and realised I needed to find a new way to incorporate music videos into my work without needing to do it for a label. Because it is still a legitimate language.
ND: You finished the film two days before arriving in Berlin. What are your plans after this?
AH: Well we have already been invited to 20 more festivals after our Berlin screenings, and hopefully more will come along. So I think we will just go around and show it at film festivals and see if people like it. It’s not going to be easy; it’s not going to be a film that people jump on because they cant see how they would make money off it right away. But if people write about it and talk about it and get interested in it, then maybe it will make it to the cinema.
Bombay Beach screened in the Panorama section of the Berlinale and will certainly screen at a variety of festivals around the world this year. As for a general release – it would be a triumph for our languishing film medium if distributors could summon up the courage to bring this film to a cinema near you.
ND: So you shot the film entirely on your own?
AH: That’s right, I shot it on a Canon Vixia HD. It’s just a consumer camera, you can buy it for like $600 at Best Buy. I was alone out there, with the headphones on and the boom in one hand, holding the camera up to my face the whole time because it didn’t have a viewfinder and it was impossible to see the LCD screen in the sunlight. And it was 45°c out there! So it was sort of crazy; but it was so much fun hanging out with them for four months; it was like a second childhood. They are all so interesting, and they just became my friends. I still go to visit them every few weeks.
ND: It is clear from watching the film that you were really looking for the human aspect: telling the story of people you know, and not pretending not to know them?
AH: Well this was my first film, and I didn’t really have any interest in looking for the ‘drama’ as many documentary directors might. Like when Red had his stroke, some people might have thought, “Great! He’s in the hospital!” but that really wasn’t my state of mind. I mean there is a lot more stuff that I could have put in the film – there are paedophiles and meth addicts and hookers – but I didn’t think it was necessary or relevant to what I was doing. When we were editing we slowly noticed that there were just certain things we weren’t going to include. It became clearer and clearer what our stories were. While we were editing we brought in people to give us notes, and one quite famous editor said, “What are you? A filmmaker or a social worker?” I thought, “Well I don’t think I’m either of those things.”
ND: Was it a conscious decision to concentrate on the courage and strength of the community, and ignore the failure of outsiders to help them?
AH: You know, I don’t think it is as easy as it looks. It’s not as if there is someone that was supposed to be helping them. When I first came to America I thought everybody only cared about money; but the US actually has more philanthropy than anywhere else, so there are tons of organisations in the area that try to help educate, and give food, and do all sorts of things. Of course there are things that aren’t justified, and capitalism and greed do exist. I mean this area has just been completely forgotten, and they have been left there, and somebody should take care of it of course; but it’s just not what this film was about. What matters is how these people that I care about deal with their lives. And I think they are very heroic the way they go about it, and the dignity that they manage to find in their situation, and the love that they have, it is really beautiful.
ND: You do make a more overt statement on one specific social issue in the US: the pharmaceutical industry.
AH: Well I am not against pharmaceuticals at all, in fact I am on pharmaceuticals; but I think that the problem, as with most things, is how people use them. In America, things gets out of control and lose perspective. When I arrived there I was shocked and wanted to find out how it was possible for a child as young as Benny to be given so much lithium! There is so little research, and no one even knows if these drugs will help such a young mind because it is still developing. It is really tragic, but I tell myself that Benny’s spirit is so strong, and his imagination is so strong, I have faith that he is going to be stronger than the medication. I think it is sad because now, in America, one in every four children is medicated, and the children that are most medicated are actually in poor areas, and they don’t even get therapy with it.
ND: One of the most noticeable things about the film is the magical dance sequences that you created with the people in the community. Did you already have that idea before you started? Or was that something you thought of while you were there?
AH: I had an idea in my mind to do a film like that for about a year, but I just couldn’t find the right context. Then when I got to Bombay Beach I thought that these people could really get something out of it… and they might just be bored enough to agree! And also I knew that the location itself could pull it off. I believe that, in life in general, when contrasting feelings are embraced they can create beauty. So sadness and happiness, and loneliness and celebration; they can come together to create a more rounded feeling of what life is like. And I felt it so strongly when I got to Bombay Beach: it is surrounded by dead things but also bursting with life, with all these children running around with the dead fish. It is all together there, so I just wanted to try to take it all in, that was my journey.
ND: Can you both talk a bit about the process of discovering this fairly personal and pioneering style of documentary storytelling?
AH: There were a lot of people that wanted to edit this, and some of them had a lot more experience than Joe, but there was something about Joe where we both felt we were going to discover this thing together. When we had a rough cut we brought more experienced people in to give us notes, and everyone said they thought it was beautiful but they weren’t sure that it was working because they had never seen anything like it before. It was definitely a difficult process working out what we liked, and then holding onto it when we got told it wasn’t working.
JL: Yeah, after that visit we were all sort of down because we had been trying to make a point of not using any standard conventions, but people didn’t really get it. One of the first things I saw that Alma had put together was a rough assembly of the kids in the kitchen making fun of Benny, followed by “the Benny dance”. The essence of what it became in the film was all intact at that early stage, and for me that was the moment I knew I wanted to be a part of this, because of how unique it was. The dances are a reflection of what has just happened, they are birthed from the actual story, so I knew that if we could do that throughout the whole movie, which was Alma’s intuition, for me that was incredible.
ND: One of the people listed in the ‘Thanks to’ credits is Werner Herzog. How did that come about?
AH: Werner’s wife, Lene Herzog, is a beautiful photographer and a good friend of mine, and I showed them the film when it was finished. He gave me the funniest notes! They were mainly technical notes about the sound; but he loved the film and thought it was perfect the way it was. The people that came into the screenings would always say, “but what is this film about? Just put it in a logline.” But when I showed it to Werner he was the first person that just said, “Its about the American Dream, the broken American Dream.” And of course he was right.
ND: So you already had a relationship with Zach Condon [of the band Beirut] before you began the project? What was his involvement?
AH: That’s one of the best relationships I have. He is just a beautiful, inspiring, artistic person, and a very good friend. I am a huge fan of his on every level, and I have learnt a lot from him. So we did it like this: first I listened to all the albums, and I chose all the songs that I thought could maybe work, which was probably about fifteen or twenty songs. And then he sent me a hard drive with all the songs that I had picked in separated tracks (so each instrument in splits) and said, “Do whatever you want with it”. That was such a trusting thing to do and we were so thankful. So when we had a rough cut I went to New Mexico for a week and stayed with Zach. He has a studio there so everyday we would go and work on a scene and he would just write stuff and record it on the spot. And we went to his parent’s house in Santa Fe with microphones and recorded stuff on this organ that he used to play as a kid.
ND: Do you think your unusual decision to incorporate music video and magical realist elements into the film could attract a slightly different audience of music video fans?
AH: Yeah, perhaps. There is such a problem with music videos and with the industry in general. I loved doing them, but at a certain point I realised there is less and less room for them. I hear things are actually improving again now, but I took a break from that and realised I needed to find a new way to incorporate music videos into my work without needing to do it for a label. Because it is still a legitimate language.
ND: You finished the film two days before arriving in Berlin. What are your plans after this?
AH: Well we have already been invited to 20 more festivals after our Berlin screenings, and hopefully more will come along. So I think we will just go around and show it at film festivals and see if people like it. It’s not going to be easy; it’s not going to be a film that people jump on because they cant see how they would make money off it right away. But if people write about it and talk about it and get interested in it, then maybe it will make it to the cinema.
Bombay Beach screened in the Panorama section of the Berlinale and will certainly screen at a variety of festivals around the world this year. As for a general release – it would be a triumph for our languishing film medium if distributors could summon up the courage to bring this film to a cinema near you.
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Verly interesting! Thank you very much because I really got a lot out of if! By the way, I'm a young student who want to be a film editor. I'm running a blog concerning editing advices/interviews to editors/references and so on. May I translate this interview in order to learn and share it with Spanish speakers? (take for granted all my translations have quotation/original writer and link)
ReplyDeleteThank you again and best wishes from Salamanca (Spain).
I hope it doesn't bother you. I have translated and share it: http://editorunderconstruction.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/bombay-beach-documental-y-entrevista-la.html
ReplyDeleteWith the best of intentions,
Pablo.