Exclusive: Finn Callan Talks The Garden
David Gelmini
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I recently attended a screening of Finn Callan’s magnificent 54 minute experimental film The Garden at London’s Horse Hospital arts venue, and I can honestly say that it was one of the strangest and most memorable films I think I’ll ever see.
With The Garden now streaming on Amazon Prime, I decided to interview 19-year-old director Finn Callan, who I met at the screening, to find out just what was going through his mind when he made his incredibly strange contribution to cinema.
The Garden Official Synopsis
Horror, euphoria, and madness ensue when Mask encounters a blind stranger with a television fixed to his arm. Dark, esoteric and unforgiving, The Garden subverts traditional narrative and challenges the viewer with intense audiovisual stimulation. Warning, this video may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.
Amazon UK Link: http://amzn.to/2z8NyFw
Amazon US Link: http://amzn.to/2zsvkl2
Dread Central: I remember you saying that The Garden was inspired by your dreams?
Finn Callan: Yes, it was. For a while, around when I was fifteen, I wrote down what I dreamed about the previous night on my phone. It was a mix of nightmares and dreams, though more nightmares made it into the movie. I mean, none of it made sense in my head so I put it into a format that I could understand, but when I finished the screenplay that I had spent 3 months writing it made even less sense. It was frustrating and vague for me which is kind of the same experience I and other people get watching the film to be honest. It was twenty pages of this faceless thing wandering around a vast landscape, interacting with a vast assortment of landmarks and surreal, disturbing characters. But only two made it in; the Mask and the TV Man. There wasn’t enough room for the rest.
DC: Making a film with no dialogue and without a straightforward narrative must have been quite a struggle. Can you talk about how you approached this and whether you feel that there is an audience for this kind of film?
FC: Actually it was rather easy. I knew the feeling that I wanted the film to create, I knew exactly what it was; the most unpleasant feelings of frustration and horror and confusion from the lack of anything to latch onto. That’s what people look for in films; things to follow and characters to empathize with. By depriving them of all that; a structure and what not, we were able to create that alienated feeling. Some people ask me if my film is intentionally hard to watch and I can only say yes, I mean it can’t function any other way. That was the plan all along, a kind of BDSM like relationship between viewer and film. When we were shooting back in 2015, the goal wasn’t to shoot all the scenes in the script like in most film productions, it was figuring out how we could create the overall feeling for the film. I believe there are people out there who enjoy that feeling of almost being tortured or punished by watching a movie or any kind of art for that matter, there is that intrinsic sense of reward. I mean, if a band like Death Grips and a film like Funny Games found an audience in this world then I have no doubt that mine will somewhere too.
DC: Although there’s no dialogue, The Garden still contains a lot of noise, and some of it is very hard on the ears. Care to elaborate?
FC: At first we recorded audio live on set but it sounded horrible, so we didn’t use any of it and ended up doing a lot of ADR in the editing. I believe almost all of the sound design in the movie is artificial. I also started dialling up the mixing to hide some of the peaking and clipping, until it eventually all congealed into this massive wall of sound. I thought to myself “this is unpleasant as fuck to listen to,” so I added harsh noise, synthetic buzzing, human screaming and guitar feedback into the mix which made it even more unbearable. Then I scoured the internet for the harshest noises I could find; coming across forks scraping on plates, crackly interview audio from the 50s and a video of the Bee Movie that was sped up to be one minute long. All of that stuff made it into the movie and a lot more in jokes. I believe somebody once called it the loudest silent movie they’ve ever seen, which made me smile.
DC: And the black and white visual style certainly adds to the overall bleak tone. I remember you saying that you had originally planned to shoot in color, so can you explain why you switched to B&W?
FC: Well, originally the plan was to have the film in color but heavily desaturated, as if the color had been sucked out of the world. But there were a few issues with this; the world looked absolutely beautiful and intoxicating on camera, which I didn’t want, and the mask was painted royal blue, which didn’t look right at all on camera. Making the film black and white solved both problems because it made the mask seem more in tune with the surroundings, and it removed any vibrancy and emotive tones that could have been taken away if color was there.
DC: And feel free not to answer this if it’s supposed to be ambiguous, but just who or what was that mysterious figure in the gas mask?
FC: I’m guessing it was someone who was lost and stumbled into the wrong movie. Then again, that’s just what I get from the film.
DC: What do you hope audiences ultimately take away from The Garden, and what else do you have planned for the future?
FC: I’m just hoping they get a strong reaction from it, that expectation has been met quite a lot so far. At all the screenings thus far, there have been walk outs and people taking two minute breathers because they were so overwhelmed. I mean it’s not surprising; my film is deliberately esoteric and incomprehensible. It’s not the kind of film that elicits a mild reaction and I’m just glad that film in general has that kind of power.
And at the moment I’m writing a few things, some more straightforward narratives I plan to make very soon. They are no less dark though, they still carry a grim pain about themselves. One of them is about a man and a girl; I won’t say much other than the girl is far too young. Another is a feature adaptation of Gravity’s Rainbow that I write just for fun.
https://vimeo.com/242469669
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