Lisa Aschan Interview

Set in Sweden, She Monkeys is about the blurring of the lines between two equestrian vaulters struggling to outdo one another and the risks these young women take to be noticed. Medium Rare’s Megan Brown spoke with director/co-writer Lisa Aschan about her filmmaking style, and her first feature film, which screened at the 54th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival.

Medium Rare: You’re quoted in a previous interview as saying, “I would rather raise more questions than give answers”.

Lisa Aschan: Is this Wall Street Journal? Yes. I agree with myself. When I write the scripts, I develop this method that I use, so I never come up with the idea, the plot from the beginning. Most of my films start with a pile of things, and then from there I try to find out, is there a theme here? Can I construct a question from these things, in this pile? It could be pictures and books, and photos and things.

And then I write this question, and then start the big research work, to try to collect things, to try to analyze and get into this question that I want to research. And then from all that material, the script starts to expand, or is built on these things. So, I guess working like that, I don’t even know the answer while I am working, so I guess that’s why my films turn out to be more question marks than punctuation marks.

MR For She Monkeys, was there a certain image that you started with?

LA Yeah, there were three things. From the beginning, there was this ad of a little girl in a bikini, licking an ice cream, and then there was a photo of Shirley Temple, and a book called History of the Eye, by a French writer called Georges Bataille.

MR And did you have any history with equestrian vaulting. How did that come in?

LA No, I just like horses, and I grew up in the countryside in between two farms, so I’ve been surrounded with this.

MR Is there significance to the title, She Monkeys?

LA We just thought it was a good name for the film. In Swedish, it would be like Monkey Girls, but She Monkeys sounds better.

MR Before She Monkeys, you worked on a few short films. What other things did you do?

LA I went to the National Film School of Denmark, and then after that I have done short films, and a mini series for Danish television, and I also went to the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm and worked at the Royal Theater there, in Stockholm. So, I’m not only doing film. I tend to change, to move around.

MR How was it collaborating with another writer on your first feature length script?

LA I’ve been writing all my films together with other people, so I’m familiar with it. It’s normal for me. I like it. You know, we’re challenging one another in a good way.

MR Your core filmmaking team is mostly women. Is that a coincidence?

LA Well, there are two guys! I choose the best people to work with, and they are individuals with individual skills.  I’ve been working with my DOP, Linda Wassberg for 10 years. We started working together in film school, so we pretty much developed visual language together, and we also have a method that we use.

MR Can you elaborate on what that method is?

LA We like rules. I wanted to think about She Monkeys as a modern Western, and so we tried to create the frame for our work, and that frame usually is a genre, so for She Monkeys, the frame and genre pretty much influenced everything: the editing, the costume design, the photography of the film, and also the sound. This is the way we work. The light and the framing of the film are also influenced.

MR How long did it take to shoot the film and did you have any issues with the night scenes, since there is such limited darkness in the summer in Sweden?

LA It took about six weeks. We had to, because it’s quite expensive. We had to be quick during the night scenes. You have to work extra fast. If it’s a sunny day, there could only be three hours of night. We shot in July August.

MR What do you feel is the biggest challenge of filmmaking?

LA Being aware of consequences, I think. That’s why I use a lot of rules when I work, because I don’t want it to be a matter of my choices. You have to make so many choices during the process, from script to sound work, so that’s why I tend to create those rules, so my choices are never a matter of taste, so it’s more a matter of being consequent to the vision of the film. This also makes it easier for people I work with to understand what the vision of the film is. I try to eliminate freedom and stick to a set of rules and a frame to capture my creativity.

MR Do you have any particular directors that have influenced your style?

LA Gunnar Nilsson is a bit like my mentor. I think she used to teach at the university here. She’s Swedish but she was part of the Bay Area Poetic Cinema in the ‘60’s and 70’s. I like her very much.

MR What’s coming up next for you, in terms of filmmaking?

LA I’m taking notes. I’m very pre, pre-development, I would say.

 

 

 

Photos credit: Courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society