In Finsterworld, director Frauke Finsterwalder and co-screenwriter Christian Kracht take us to a place of bright colors populated with strange characters that hold a mirror to our faces and dare us not to find ourselves identified with them. For all their misery, pain and tragedy of its characters, the film never really brings the audience down, instead its macabre tone invites us to appreciate life even more when we leave the theater. We sat down with director Finsterwalder and co-writer Kracht who provided us with insight into their creative process.
How did you come up with all these strange stories?
Frauke: The starting point was that I went to get a pedicure in Munich and I went to a professional pedicurist cause I was pregnant and didn’t want to go to a regular beauty parlor. So I entered the office and there was this man who looked like Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and he said “I don’t have time now, I need to go to the retirement home to do the old people’s feet, so please come back tomorrow:. He freaked me out so much that we left and I said to Christian “I’m never coming back here! That guy’s probably baking cookies with the old people’s skin”. That’s how Claude was born and how the movie started. The characters kept being added, all of them based on people we knew. The issue with Germany arose because we hadn’t been living there and when we came back there were many things we hadn’t realized we were.
This disconnection between what we think of Germany and the dissatisfaction of people living there is a pervading theme in all of the movies in this festival. These films have been very critical about the political situation in Germany and have even started moving away from Holocaust guilt. Can you elaborate on that?
Frauke: I think it has been like this for a while. This is what Germans are like, they love to torture themselves and criticize themselves day and night. Many people have told me my film doesn’t look German because it has bright colors and nice images, as opposed to being grey, but in a way it’s very German to have all these thought about yourself. It has to do with our history, from childhood we learn to feel guilty, so it’s different from places were people are happy about who they are. It’s very cute, in a way, this masochist thing.
Christian: It’s not cute at all. It’s really annoying.
Frauke: He’s Swiss (laughs)
The film is very dark but it’s shot like a fairy tale. Can you talk about this dichotomy?
Frauke: The film starts off as a comedy even in the screenplay. But if the film was dark from the beginning, like in a lot of German movies where it rains all the time and people wear ugly clothes, I don’t think that’s good because when I go to the movies I want to be entertained, or see something beautiful, that I don’t see every day. We decided not to show ugly things in an ugly way, but to shoot them beautifully. The DP is very much into genre films, like end of the world movies, so when he read our script he wasn’t sure how to shoot it, so I told him this was a horror film so we decided to have images that would go against what was expected. Finsterworld is a place that has nothing to do with reality.
Can you discuss the tributes you pay to Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World? From the film’s title, to the sense of humor, to the fact that some of the characters read the novel at some point. Were you a big fan of Clowes?
Frauke: In Germany we are taught not to listen to adults because of what happened in our history and that tone was in Ghost World. I take it as a compliment that you saw similarities in both works. I love Ghost World. But I also love high school comedies, everything from Revenge of the Nerds and everything that came out later. Like that cheerleader film with Kirsten Dunst. I like these stereotypes they use in these films because there’s something very realistic about them, they deal with daily fascism, all the popular kids torturing the nerds.
In your film the young characters end up being punished, while grown ups get away with almost anything. How have audiences reacted to this?
Frauke: We are so used in films to see that the good guys win and the bad guys lose, that we decided to turn that upside down because we didn’t want the audience to be too pleased when they left. I think in the real world bad guys get away, so it’s kinda realistic, but we try to put the audience in a position where they can be shaken by things not turning out like they want them to. A lot of people have liked the film, but others have been very irritated (laughs)
Can you talk about the furries? I had no idea that even existed and you have a whole subplot dedicated to it…
Frauke: It’s very big in America!
What kind of research did that involve?
Christian: I’ve had a furry obsession for years. I’ve wanted to include them in a project for more than twenty years. I wanted to portray these people who feel the need to use these antropomorphic outfits that reduce them to being cute. Let’s say you have a number of psychological problems and you’re unhappy, you can erase them by getting into a fox suit and erase them. This is fascinating. In our screenplay, the policeman Tom, wants to cuddle, he wants his girlfriend to acknowledge his needs but she’s disgusted.
Frauke: We were thinking about problems people have in modern societies where people just want to be touched. We have the old woman who is only getting touched by the pedicurist’s machine.
Christian: They are surrogates. These people need fetishes.
Frauke: The furry thing is big in America and Germany which are both countries where people aren’t comfortable with touching. I guess human beings are meant to live together and have physical contact, so the furry thing gives you a chance to be that without being yourself. You become your own avatar. It’s the same with massages, nails…there’s a nail salon every two doors here. You’re being touched.
Christian: People get manicures to be touched?
Woman: Yes. I think they do.
Christian: That sounds scary.
