Divided We Fall is a black comedy, full of unexpected plot twists. It's essentially about the ambiguous nature of loyalty and survival during the Second World War. The film was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars and marks the director's first major release in the UK. Kamera.co.uk's Nicci Tucker interviewed the director Jan Hrebejk during a recent visit to London.
NT: The film's title in Czech is 'We Must Help Each Other', which has been changed to Divided We Fall in English. What implications does this change have for the audience's perception?
JH: Yes, the title is rather different, but I feel it's even slightly better than the Czech one. The Czech title, 'We Must Help Each Other', is quite an ironic title... Though Divided We Fall is in the American Constitution ( "United We Stand, Divided We Fall") - so perhaps the pathos and irony is actually even bigger in this one. Therefore I like this English title very much.
NT: Do you think it will draw an English-speaking audience to the film?
JH: I'm not able to judge exactly to what extent a film's title plays a role for an audience. In the Czech Republic, the worst titles were the best films. For example, the films of Milos Forman. On the other hand, there were quite a lot of ideologically motivated films that were really bad, but had really nice, poetic titles such as A Bitter Autumn With A Scent Of Mango. So my perception is that the title doesn't really make much difference. This title does actually contain a double meaning. It's mentioned throughout the film twice: once as a cry for help and the next time as blackmail. And I wanted that ironic feeling to be kept in the title.
NT: How do you feel about Divided We Fall being pigeon-holed as a 'Holocaust movie' because of its subject matter?
JH: I don't really like it. I try to keep myself detached from that. One of the reasons for that might be because David [a Jewish character who is hiding in the home of his friends Josef and Marie Cizek] is a passive character in the story. Basically, he ends up as a person in the cupboard. But I am trying to tell the story of the people outside of that. The other characters, apart from David, are developing characters, they develop a lot throughout the story.
NT: The film has drawn inevitable comparisons to Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful (1997) because of its tragi-comic aspect. Do you mind your work being compared to that of other directors'?
JH: While we were shooting, there was a special screening of Life Is Beautiful and I told myself I should go to see it to find out if by any chance we were shooting the same thing. All of us that went are really good friends as this is the third movie we've worked on together, but after the screening, there was a big range of opinions. But to answer the question - I like that film! And if somebody is comparing my work with such a famous film then I'm flattered. In one American review, my film was compared with the films of Billy Wilder - I was jumping with happiness.
NT: I've read reviews where you've been compared to Emir Kusturica.
JH: If I read that - I'd be jumping even higher! I really love his music writer Goran Bregovic. When my writer was working on this film, I tried to force him to listen to him constantly, so there might be that influence in the movie. But in the end, you find your own way.
NT: How easy was it to direct the comedy scenes?
JH: My way of working is taking long shots. I do not tend to repeat them. So we always have to prepare the scene carefully. In the morning, I set up with the cameraman. For 3-4 hours we rehearse everything we are going to do. We start shooting at maybe three o'clock in the afternoon. At six o'clock we're finished. Some of the takes are not even repeated. Or maybe only once. In addition to that, we shot the whole movie with hand-held cameras to make it lightweight. This lets the actor work freely. And with no marks on the floor. If it's a tragic scene, I try to shoot it as if it were a comic scene, and the other way round. This creates a strange tension. The best tellers of jokes are the ones who tell them with a straight face. On the other hand, when you are telling of something, serious, like a car crash, needing description, you can laugh at it. We are trying to tell this story in a similar way because we have a distance from the time.
NT: Your previous film, Cosy Dens was a phenomenal box office success in the Czech Republic. How difficult was it to follow this success?
JH: It was great for us because a month after the premiere of Cosy Dens we started shooting. Both films were prepared a long time ahead. We had already written Divided We Fall in 1995. I already had the film crew. So when we started shooting, the figures [for 'Cosy Dens'] were coming in. As we were shooting outside of Prague, they were sent by fax. All the time we were hearing of people who couldn't make it to the cinema because it was sold out. In that kind of atmosphere, the working environment is great.
After finishing the film, we were thinking about how to promote it with only one well-known actor [Boleslav Polivka who plays Josef has his own TV show in the Czech Republic]... Compared with Cosy Dens, there's not so much obvious fun you can use for the trailer. But a lot of people came to see Divided We Fall on the basis of Cosy Dens. They'll see a film by the same director.
NT: How does working with the same film crew on more than one project benefit a film?
JH: We understand each other more. As long as we are inspiring each other, then it's good... the best you can have. It affects actors greatly if they find out the atmosphere in the crew is very friendly.
NT: The film creates a unique sense of tension using hand-held cameras and slo-mo effects. What was your stylistic intention?
JH: Already in the script there was a lot of scenes to be shot at night-time. During the war, lights were not allowed, so we were looking at the problem of having some sort of lamp shining, dividing up what could be seen. Which you can get away with in black-and-white movies, but in other movies, it doesn't really work. And I was irritated by that. There's also a terrifying atmosphere in the house in a blackout, so we wanted to show the darkness... We used 12 frames per second and copied it twice, and combined black-and-white film with coloured film. Most of the scenes were filmed at night-time and we realised that this technique created tension, and therefore I used the same aspects for the other scenes where there's tension, or where the situation's not real, for example, David's dream.
The procedure when you go from 12 frames to 24 is complicated, so we had to do plenty of rehearsals. We couldn't afford post-production using computers, so this was an experiment. Sometimes the effect is so great it can be disturbing or unpleasant. For example, the liberation scene. Despite me liking it, a digital camera would have enabled me to control it and I would have arranged it differently.
NT: Your film was co- financed by the Czech State Fund For Support And Development Of Czech Cinematography and Czech TV. How have conditions improved in the last decade for Czech filmmakers?
JH: The main change was ten or eleven years ago, because before then all production and distribution was owned by the state. Then films started to be created really haphazardly to bring in the money. There was a few years of, let's call it, 'wild capitalism'. Now there's the main distribution companies [the American ones] and they make a connection with small Czech distribution firms and create a sub-section for distribution of Czech movies. If we look at the most popular films in the Czech Republic last year, the top five at the box office, the most attended, were Czech. The fund you have mentioned is funded by the people who go to the cinema, a part of the admission fee goes towards it. One third of our budget was from television. The rest was found from independent producers. Nowadays, there is a network of certain producers who fund everything.
NT: What was more important to you - your Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film or your nomination at the European Film Awards?
JH: We have to agree the Oscar is the most prestigious because it is the most popular, and so has the highest promotional value. Wherever I go, the most important part is the film's promotion. If you go to festivals and mention the Oscar nomination, it opens doors. Whereas before they were completely stuck, now they are slightly open.
NT: Finally, is there such a thing as a European cinema?
JH: No, there isn't a European cinema, but there are fantastic European filmmakers. Like Kusturica... Europe has got a fantastic film tradition - French New Wave, Italian Neo-Realism - but I don't think there's something similar now. I think that something like what Lars Von Trier created is a fantastic promotional trick. If we could invent something like Dogme in the Czech Republic, that would be fantastic.
