Karim Aïnouz on his biting new satire ‘Rosebush Pruning’

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco and this week I speak with Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz about his latest film Rosebush Pruning, a biting satire of a wealthy American family in a villa underneath the Catalonian sun. It's a telling of the absurdity of a traditional patriarchal family. Here is my conversation with Karim.

0:42People are roses. Families are rose bushes. Rose bushes need pruning. Karim Ainuz, what a pleasure. I'm a big, big fan and we're both Brazilians. We're going to talk in English, but that's okay. Thank you, thank you. Karim, my first question, I'm going straight to the point. Really enjoyed watching Rosebush Pruning. A question, the film is quite mad in a way. What was your first thought when you read the script, actually? Because it's quite an interesting, challenging film to film. It was very funny because we developed a script. We had a couple of conversations before the script was written. And the script is sort of a take on an Italian movie from the 1960s.

1:23It's very far from it, but it still has its same blueprint. And when a theme started to write it, I think the only thing I said, no, let's keep the same blueprint, but let's make sure that this film talks to contemporary audiences as much as the original film, which is called Fist in the Pocket did at the time. But I would like to change the centerpiece of the story and take out the mother and replace it by the father, because I was really interested in talking about patriarchy. I've done two movies back to back before this one that had this very, very toxic masculine characters, male characters.

1:55so I think it was very interesting because that was the only thing I said and he said to me can you tell me five songs you really love and I told him five songs and in one of them I think it was Paninaro and then I got the first draft of the script and I just could not believe it I was like whoa this is this is so mad but it's so exciting and it's such an exciting way to talk about themes without being frontal about these themes and yet to be really entertaining and yet I thought there was something very irreverent about his writing and about the story and very fun. So this combination of like being irreverent, fun and not being cerebral, it was a great surprise.

2:33And I did say to myself and to my partner, he said, maybe you won't be able to make another movie after this one. I said, I don't really care. I'm sure I will. And I think it's so important to tell that story. And there was something very brilliant about the writing, this deliciously brilliant. And so it was surprising to me, but I felt cinema is always about, I mean, it's so great when it is about surprising you and, you know, rocking the boat in a way. And I think the most challenging thing for me on this one was that it's a set eye, and normally set eyes, you have a certain distance from the characters and there's a way of looking at the characters and not being with them.

3:11so I think the big challenge on this one was how to be with the characters without judging them and and to literally engage the audience in a way which is not necessarily through empathy which is something that I kind of know what to how to do I'm not going to say well because it's pretentious but you know I kind of know how to do and and I think on this one it was a big challenge and I think talking in casting this movie I think one of the big questions that everyone across the board who was on the cast said how are you going to approach this material because there was a couple ways of going about it i think one way was to be very distant and to be very observational about these people as if you're looking through an aquarium if they were in an aquarium and and and i i didn't want to do that i felt um and this is funny to say but i really love except the father i really love those characters and i don't think there's a lot of conversations about the film that says it's about a dysfunctional family.

4:07And I think families are dysfunctional to begin with, like, you know, the idea of the blood family. But I think it's more interesting to talk about a damaged family. So I don't know. I think it was just very exciting to, you know, like I've answered your question in such a long way, but I think it's really a result of how exciting the material is and the writing and the story and the way that he brought this family to life. And it is a tale of privilege as well, But even there, I think you escaped from the cliches as well. There's been a few series in recent years. There is a genre, but it shows it in a different way, I feel.

4:44It was very tricky because there is this genre of like, and I'm not going to go into titles here because it doesn't matter, but there's a genre lately of having these satires about the rich and the over and the super wealthy and so on and so forth from TV series to feature films. And I always felt that it was a bit reductive. You know, I think, again, as I said before, I think these are human beings and they behave in a certain way and they're damaged. And I think they are cruel and vicious, not because they're born like this, you know? So I thought for me, it was very interesting to humanly, not understand, but to humanly explore these characters and spend time with them.

5:26And you as an audience, you spend time with them as well. Because I think at the moment, to start judging, it's really complicated. You know, I think it's very dangerous politically. And I think it's not that interesting. I don't think it brings the conversation anywhere. It's just, you know, they just become laughingstock. And I think here it's important they become something else. And that was my whole approach on making this film. And it's really interesting after the film has come out, I've gotten responses that are very violent and very loving. But some of the responses that I find very interesting is when they say, oh, these people, I just hate those people.

6:01And I just think it is so interesting to be in a room where you actually may hate your characters. I don't, personally. But I do think that there's something very interesting in creating a sense of discomfort with them. Jack's different.

6:19Poor Jack. You love my brother, I mean.

6:24Karim Aïnouz:I do. He's late. Because he was with that girl. and I just can't bear the thought of it. And the clothes she wears are just awful. Tell us about the cast as well. I think I read somewhere, maybe even perhaps in your director's statement, that sometimes it feels like a play, the film, in a way, but in a good way, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, it's wonderful. I'm a sort of, how do you say, a frustrated stage director because I've never done it and I would love to do it. And I will do it soon, hopefully. but what was wonderful about this script was that it did feel a very, it's a very, it's like a weak law, you know?

7:05So it's, it's super interesting how the plot is there, but the plot is there in a way that it allows the characters to really emerge and blossom or rotten, if you wish. And I think it was, it was very exciting to me to, to approach this as if it were a play, but yet to think that it's a film, you know? So it's a movie. So how do you keep it tight? and how do you keep it compact and how do you keep it focused? And yet there was something that it's not on a stage. And so, for example, the choice of the house where they live, which is clearly another important character for the story. For me, it was very important that there was transparency, that there was light coming in and there was nature that was present.

7:45So you unlock the kind of still quality of theater without losing the sense of artificiality that theater sometimes can have in the sense of excess. So it was a really interesting conversation between how can a play exist on a location and through time. And the ensemble, they worked very well together. I'm looking at the poster behind you, Pamela Anderson. No spoilers here, but she's not there all the time on screen. But I think everyone felt quite important in a way. There's not a main character, if you think about it. You know, like what was beautiful about this ensemble was that it was a true ensemble and there was a real connection between everyone.

8:30And I think one of the things that I try to do a lot, more and more whenever I'm making a movie, is to spend time with my actors and my characters and my people before. And we spent about two weeks on this one, rehearsing and finding the scenes. And also, it's, you know, I don't want to give any spoilers here, but the mother is no longer with the family when the film starts. she's gone and I thought it was very important that we understand that she's missed or she is not missed you know but that there is a relationship to that character so there's something very special um we did rehearse scenes that are not in the in the movie with Pamela so there was a memory there's actually one shot in the film which I'm not going to say which was was actually it was a camera test and it was so beautiful that we kept it in the film and it talked so much it told us so much about their relationship.

9:20And what was very beautiful was that she, during those, I think it was literally a bit over two weeks, she was there for the whole time. And she came for all the rehearsals. And even when she was not on the scene, she came to watch the family. So there was a sense of generosity in the way that she approached the role and the project that was very, very special. But all of them did. I think there was a real sense. It was like jumping, I don't want to again give any spoilers, It was like jumping from a cliff together, you know. So there was this sense of adventure and risk that I think created a really strong bond between us.

9:55And I love the way you use music in your films, not just this one, in general, like Motel di Scino and many others, but Paninato, I mean, this is, because I'm a big Petro Boys fan. I mean, are you as well? I mean, so tell us a bit more, Paninato, anything you can say, because it's quite frequent in the film. It was interesting because that song wasn't on the first draft. And then at some point, at some life of this movie, there was a moment that this movie was going to be shot in Italy. And it was up until the last minute that we shot the movie in Spain. When I heard that song, for me, it encapsulates the whole story.

10:35Like Paninaro is like spaghetti with ketchup, right? It's like how did the Italians sort of surrender to sort of Americana and how they surrender to sort of giving up Italianess, you know, and I think there was a sense of fashion and a sense of Paninari, there's something beautifully vapid about, you know, that culture. And I thought it was, you know, like when I'm doing a movie, I always have a song that somehow translates the story, and I call it the perfume of the film, you know, it's this thing that you can't catch, but it's there. And I think Paninari is the perfume of Rosebush, you know, because...

11:10Good work here. it's fun but it's strange and it's a bit taggy and it's beautiful but it's ultimately there's something very moving about you know listening to that song and playing that song and i think on on the movie i love it was it's used twice it wasn't on the script it wasn't indicated you know for those two scenes but i really love how it repeats itself throughout the story and it became sort of a, how do you say that in English? Like, um, it's how you say that in English? It's the chant of the film, or the hymn of the film, I would say, right? That's how you call it? Yeah, yeah. Hymn.

11:48Perfect. And finally, I just want to ask, Karim, I mean, of course you're Brazilian, and how do you feel, how do you divide, because you do a lot of Brazilian productions still, I wonder if your next project, how do you divide? Is there a big difference when you shoot in Brazil or abroad like this film? Not really. I think there's a way of... It's a craft and I think there's ways that... I've been doing this for so many years that I think you have... Not a method because it's a bit boring to say it like this, but you have a way of manufacturing these things, these babies and it's different because acting is different in different places of the planet and I think the challenge is always how to bring those those registers of acting mostly to the characters that you're doing and the characters that you're constructing but I mean the big challenge for me on doing movies outside of particularly the Brazilian context is the time with actors before the movie you know I think that there's in the sort of big Anglo-Saxon film industry there is a lot more money there is a lot more, you know, the actors are like really busy doing other movies and enjoying series and stuff.

13:01It's how to bring them to a place, what we just talked about, you know, this is like a play, how do you bring to a place of focus and of belonging and not being flying around between, you know, one week of shooting, that week of shooting. In this case, I think there's very, very little of that. And so for me, that's the biggest challenge on doing films outside of a context where cinema, it's a bit more artisanal than it is in this year, but it's always people it's always characters and so it doesn't really matter it's i mean of course language is an issue it's not my mother tongue but and i think i always try to have collaborators who can help me with that no matter how you know how good your skills are in other languages but i think it's always people it's always i was i was joking with a friend of mine i guess yesterday because i was i was anyway i joined another project and in japan and and they always were a catcher you know like it's a family it's like filmmakers and film crews catch this brand of clothing that you know people use a lot in film crews because it's you know it's very you know for the rain and for that so I think it's it's the same behind the camera it's more like what are the sort of settings of production blood is not only a thing that can turn you on but also something that can set you free from us thank you Karin and Rosebush Pruning is out in the cinemas in the UK and Europe now.

14:24The show is edited by Mariella Bevan and Lily Austin. I'm Fernando Gusto Pacheco. Thank you for listening.