Translated with Google Translate. Original post here.
Wettlaufers Enke is a short film with world premiere during the year’s Ramaskrik in Oppdal. Film film was fortunate enough to interview several of the involved behind the film, director Kristian Moe, scriptwriter Espen Aukan, main actor Margrethe Røed, actor Arne Reitan and producer Marius Øfsti.
August:
Can you tell me a little about how the production started?
Kristian:
It started with me and Espen having an idea of an anthology with three short horror films that would be a whole movie. We knew Margrethe from before, and she got up straight away. This was made at a time when it was completely impossible to borrow a camera for a whole week. In the end, producer Frode Dreier had ready to get equipment here and there for a whole week, and then we started.
Espen:
We had made a short film together before this as hot hotel Madden, where Margrethe played the lead, so we wanted to bring her this time too. I wrote in particular to the character Agnes Wettlaufer, and I remember and Kristian wondered how we could bother her as much as possible. Can we throw her down a staircase like? We bothered her pretty much under Hotel Madden as well. She had to learn kung fu and stuff.
Margrethe:
But apropos fall down the stairs. It must be said that Kristian showed me how to fall down the stairs first. He probably got bruises everywhere, and then I could not be anything worse, so I slid myself down the stairs I and. Have had pain in my knees since, but it was fun. It’s a lot of fun to have a recording with that gang here. Kristian is also a very good director. He thinned me quite a while too. It was a scene where I had to break into cry and then it was never to be thankful. I never think I’ve had to cry for a long time ever. It became a very crisp film, and it’s so strange in the minds of that gang here that is a great pleasure to work with them.
August:
Yes, for this is a movie about a woman named Agnes Wettlaufer, and her husband who gradually becomes a demon.
Margrethe:
Or is he really a demon …? “Dun-dun-duuuuun!”
- all laughs *
August:
But where did this idea really come from?
Espen:
Well, it’s a little complex. When we met Gudmund Saksvik who had make-up at Hotell Madden, we knew we had a good make-up artist, so the idea ran out of how we could use him and Margrethe. It was also a period where I read a lot of H. P. Lovecraft, and many of the short stories are about people who begin to turn into monsters and so forth. We would love to have tentacles on him and everything, but the idea of the idea came as if from there. There is also a lot of Dario Argento and a good dose of Stephen King in all I do, so that’s a wonderful mix of the three in it.
Marius:
Yes, I was a producer of this, and on a low budget deal like this, it means sending e-mails and arranging things, but we have discussed the topic a lot and I really like the idea that this is a universe that contains one kind of basic love-powerful evil. Still, people generally manage to be evil entirely on their own. As Kristian once said, this is really about a marriage that goes from bad to worse. It is also something common evil in this universe that people can relate to in their real lives. It is at least an aspect of the movie I like.
August:
Yes, but after recording it took quite some time before something happened. Can you tell me something about why it happened and what made it actually realized?
Kristian:
It’s a lot because I felt like I was missing something. I felt all the others knew exactly what needed to make a movie and that they knew what the recipe was. I had no recipe, so I became incredibly unsure of myself. With that uncertainty, there was also a great fear of showing off something I had made. The fear was simply so great that I did not dare to finish it. I have brought these recordings in one bag in every move, and every time I’ve seen them, it’s been a bit cramped in my stomach. What happened changed was that I joined a group of people where we are six men talking about our lives and then trying to push each other out of patterns and thoughts we are very convinced to be real. It’s about trying to pushe each other against the turmoil rather than making ways around it. When you get a good job from the others, you look at the whole body, so when the group saw how my body reacted when it was about completing this movie from 2001, the task was nail. It scared me crazy, but then it’s been very nice! It was not really scary at all.
August:
How was playing the cop in this movie then, Arne?
Arne:
Yes, this was a fun experience for me too. I was only on one recording day and that’s all I’ve had with this movie to do until I was invited here to Ramaskrik today. And it’s a little fun, because I and Margrethe have been scared earlier in a set-up at Trøndelag Theater where I worked for 45 years before retiring. Now I also have time to take part in movies and so on. In the past, I had to sneak into it to get time, but I always thought it was fun to film. It’s always fun to work with such creative people, and I’ve always been looking for opportunities for film plays in Trondheim. Yes, I’ve been looking for it ever since I moved here in 1970, and I’ve been involved in almost everything I’ve received from student films. It’s probably up in 20 movies so far, and it was incredibly nice now to suddenly be in the middle of it again. The movie did not get too bad either! I actually thought it was very good. For those who had not been involved in recording with madame fermentation, there were really scare effects and. I’ve always been a fermentation myself, so this was really fun.
August:
But the movie is consciously very theatrical. Why was this something you wanted to do and how was it playing in such a way?
Espen:
It’s enough time for Lovecraft again and his very literary way of writing a dialogue. I started the writing process with the names, picked up my phone directory and found a Wettlaufer in Trondheim, thinking: “It was a funny name, how does a person call it?” There is also a kind of own musicality in the theatrical way of talking. It just sounds very nice and it also fits well with the names. At least I think that when you have names like Agnes and Ernst Wettlaufer and Rikard Sylvander, who blend well together, it does not matter how they speak. When you have theater actors who are used to talking to the back row, it’s also nice to use it for something.
Margrethe:
There is something like that when the man of my grade is over the bath with blood all over his face while he asks, “Are you not feeling well, Ernst?” A clever phrase to say, so it’s a bit in your script , Espen. I have to admit that I did not really try to get it theatrical then. Maybe I’m just a little theatrical of me, but I love it too. It’s not theatrical in a negative way. I feel it’s a kind of reality there, as there’s something very real about.
Kristian:
I can also add that it was important for us that the police hearings were more theatrical than the story of Agnes. We wanted to touch the reality of the film a bit. There should be a distinction in which not only the music but also the game was different.
Arne:
It’s funny that you should mention this with theatrical drama, because at the theater we are working with people to hear us in the back row as you say, but we also have intimate scenes. Then we do not speak to the back of the bench, but to 80-year-olds on the first bench, and they really appreciate you coming straight to them and talking to hear what you’re saying. Throughout my life I have been busy with dialogue at the theater, and I’m a little talked about the young people today who speak so everyday that I do not hear what they say. It will be mumbled and talked as soon as it becomes impossible to get involved with the dialogue, and then there is no point in standing on a scene. I like natural dialogue, but it must be so clear and so thought it’s to believe even when you’re on a stage. That’s why it’s so fun for us theater actors to be in the movies. It’s really a completely different way of working.
Kristian:
When people call movie plays for theatrical, it’s too often so negatively charged. I love the theatrical on film and have really had enough of naturalism.
Marius:
It’s a bit boring that naturalism has become the only right for movies as well. Looking at classic Hollywood drama, it’s not realistic at all, but it’s often incredibly well-written yet and has completely different qualities. Naturalism and the theatrical are not a question of good to bad, but there are tools that you should be able to use as with everything else.
Espen:
I mention Lovecraft all the time here and I have to add at the end here to book Margrethe goes around and reading the whole movie is a Lovecraft book. An aspect of the film is also what really is and not, and the literary language helps to enhance it.