With the 61st Chicago International Film Festival nearly in the rearview mirror, there are so many memories from the past several days that I know I will be cherishing for years to come. Yet the one that stands above them all is the half-hour I got to spend last weekend speaking with one of the women who sparked my love of cinema, the great Polish director Agnieszka Holland. When her still-unmatched screen adaptation of “The Secret Garden” was released in 1993, film critic Roger Ebert wrote, “This summer will be remembered as the time when every child in the world wanted to see ‘Jurassic Park.’ The lucky ones will see this one, too.” Luckily, I was one of those kids. Holland’s masterwork was one of the first movies I recall seeing at a young age that respected my intelligence and wasn’t afraid to be scary, painful and challenging at times. It also remains one of the most extraordinarily beautiful films I’ve seen, and will forever be named among by all-time favorites.
Holland traveled to this year’s festival for the Chicago premiere of her fascinating new film, “Franz,” which blends vignettes from Jewish Czech author Franz Kafka’s life with recreations of his literary works in ways that are engrossing, at times appropriately bewildering, and immensely provocative. In the conversation that follows, I spoke with Holland about the importance of Kafka—as well as Czech cinema—in her life, her friendship with Krzysztof Kieślowski, her experience making “The Secret Garden” (obviously), and her belief in the vital role cinema can play when authoritarianism is on the rise. I usually don’t ask to pose for a picture with the people I interview, but the spirit of Holland—and the festival in general—was so warm and nourishing, I couldn’t resist.
“The Secret Garden” is among the handful of films I can’t watch without crying by the end. The film marked your first time working with a big American studio. Was that a good experience?
No, the experience was terrible. I’m proud of the film, but the process was very painful. It was a lot of pressure. The film wasn’t what the studio had expected. They imagined it to be some kind of Disney movie, but it was much darker and different, so it was difficult. The experience also triggered some allergies in me. I got a terrible allergy from seafood I ate during the shoot, which stayed with me for 15 years. And I think, in reality, it was my allergy for big American studios.
I had to fight for my vision of the film in different ways than I was used to. I didn’t want the film to be sugar-coated. It should be real, and dark when it needs to be. The emotions should be sincere and not manipulated by pushing too hard, which happens quite often. But I cannot complain. I watched the film a few years ago on a plane because somebody was watching it and I thought, ‘Wow, if it is in the library, I will check on it.’ So I started to watch it and I couldn’t stop. By the end, I was crying. I became the ordinary viewer.
Part of the film’s emotional impact is due to its spellbinding score by Zbigniew Preisner, a frequent collaborator of Krzysztof Kieślowski.
That was also a difficult process because the big studios are always very touchy about the music. They wanted him to change the key from minor to major and to make it sweeter. So Zbiegniew felt similarly under pressure, but in the end, it came out fine. I became friends with Maggie Smith during the shoot, and we worked together again on the film “Washington Square.” There was no struggle with her.
With actors, it was always good. I direct children like the adult actors. I give them the respectful space to develop their own sensibility and expression. I try to help them when they are struggling, but without blocking their own instincts. The problems you sometimes have are with the financiers and the producers. I had to learn how to play that game on “The Secret Garden,” which was different from when I was shooting in communist Poland. Well, maybe not so different.
I was telling people before last night’s screening of “Franz” that you are among the credited writers of Kieślowski’s “Three Colors Trilogy.”
I was very close with Krzysztof, and we helped each other on the consecutive movies of ours. For example, after the first screenings of “Europa, Europa,” I decided that it needed to be recut somehow. I asked him to come from Switzerland, where he was teaching, to my editing room in Paris, and we worked on that for a few days together. I did the same thing for him, and he wanted to legalize it on “Three Colors.” He asked me and two other friends, including the cinematographer, to bring our ideas on every stage of the writing, which were three or four. It was kind of more like consulting than co-writing, but we came with some ideas, though I don’t remember exactly which ones. It’s a different kind of intimacy when you are working with someone who is your best friend.
It wasn’t until I saw “Red” and “The Double Life of Véronique” many years later that I realized how the star of both films, Irène Jacob, played a double role in “The Secret Garden.”
I met her when Kieślowski did “The Double Life of Véronique,” and he was very much in love with her. She was so young and beautiful and soulful, and she still is very beautiful and soulful.
During last night’s Q&A, Mimi Plauché described “Franz” as a mosaic, which is reflected in its poster image of Kafka’s face in revolving fragments, just like his “rotating head” sculpture in Prague.
It’s always deconstructing and reconstructing. On this film, I felt that I was working with producers who I could trust, who trusted me and who wanted to support my vision, even though it wasn’t conventional. My natural instinct is often to tell a story in a quiet, classical way. I always praise the cinema of the middle, which is accessible and attractive to the audience, while at the same time, dealing with complex or personal subjects.
“Franz” is like that, but it’s trickier. It requires a little more effort from the viewer than regular classical storytelling. But you know, I’ve become more and more bored with seeing classical storytelling used in biographical films, especially when you are exploring the life of an artist and human being as complex and difficult to grasp as Kafka was. I knew that if we tried to tell his story in a conventional way, it would be totally inadequate and irrelevant, both to his life and his legacy as well.
What is the importance of Kafka to you?
I first read his work when I was 14, starting with The Trial. I later directed an adaptation of it for Polish television in 1980, and watched it with my collaborators before we started making “Franz.” I was nicely surprised by how solid it was and fresh somehow. I always dislike how Kafka’s work has been portrayed onscreen as foggy, dark and nightmarish. There are elements of that in his writing, but there’s also a lot of dark humor. To me, his work is a mix of Monty Python and Edgar Allen Poe. At the same time, it’s vivid. It tries to cut through the reality we know and see another side of it, which demands a lot of energy for the reader or the viewer as well as the artist who created it.
I admired Kafka and I felt a real intimacy with him. One of the reasons I went to study film in Prague was to be close to him, and my interest in him has never stopped. I was always rereading and rethinking his work. Over the past 10 or 15 years, I noticed how his image has become a commercial asset for the city. He had never really been recognized before, but is now considered to be a good sell in Prague, as seen in the short-lived Kafka burgers that I recreated for the film.
I got to attend the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival soon after Miloš Forman passed in 2018, and it opened with his 1965 comedy, “Loves of a Blonde.” The film’s self-deprecating humor was such a joy to experience with a Czech audience.
That is a wonderful film. Miloš was a genius. His Czech films are so incredible and impossible to compare with anything else. The Czech New Wave was brilliant, and Miloš was probably its biggest talent, though one also cannot forget Věra Chytilová’s “Daisies.” And for me, Jan Němec’s “Diamonds of the Night” might be the most successful film about the Holocaust.
I remember that film being among your Criterion Closet picks!
It was one of the best new waves, though that isn’t to say that the French New Wave wasn’t also great. I love Varda, of course, and there was a period when I was totally infatuated with Godard. Watching “Breathless” was magical. I probably saw it 20 times and was so excited for “Pierrot le Fou.” It was a very vivid and innovative time in cinema, which unfortunately became with time, much more bourgeois and predictable. Because the times are so fucking terrible today, I think this is a moment to kick out the conventions so we can try to understand this new reality in a new way.
I couldn’t agree more. It gave me hope to see such a great turnout for yesterday’s No Kings protest downtown.
I hope to God that there will continue to be protests, because it is so sad to watch democracy and human decency being killed in your great country. I always felt that I have multiple identities that are informed by what is important to me. I cannot focus on one aspect of movie making or one aspect of being a citizen. My citizenship cannot be separated from my humanity. In such difficult times, everything becomes political. At the same time, it is so easy to take sides, and that polarization is dangerous because it kills any chance for a real debate. Cinema at its most courageous and respectful provides one of the last spaces in which having a dialogue is possible.
That is certainly true of your previous film, “Green Border,” about Syrian refugees attempting to escape their entrapment in Belarus. It really does serve as a microcosm of the oppression we are currently seeing in America and throughout the world.
Yes. Just before coming here, I read about how the National Guard is aiding in the targeting of immigrants. It gives you the impression that we are now living in the dystopia that people had been writing about ten years ago.
Was it your intention with “Franz” to upend conventions in this pointed way, as Nazis are seen marching down the street toward the end of the film?
I think that is true, somehow, though it wasn’t an intellectual decision on my part. I just felt that I needed to tell the story of his life and capture his human presence in a different way, using different tools. Idan Weiss is so fantastic in the title role because he has the sort of shyness, quiet sincerity and spiritual curiosity that Kafka had. He’s a wonderful human being, and instinctively, a very good actor. He doesn’t know how to lie, you know? Everything that comes from his expressions or the way he speaks and reacts emotionally is right because it’s deeply sincere. I hope he’s not seen for the rest of his career as Franz Kafka, which would limit him just as Adrien Brody was to an extent after “The Pianist.” I wish him the opportunity to play many different people.
Before the screening began, you gave the audience permission to laugh, and there are indeed some very funny moments in the picture, as there are in many of your films, including “The Secret Garden.”
As I said, I don’t like the vision of Kafka as being some kind of heavy, dark, neurotic stranger. I met with the descendants of Kafka’s siblings who had survived the war. The daughters of his sister Ottla survived because they were half-Czech, but Ottla was sent to a concentration camp after her husband divorced her. I spoke with them about their mother’s memories of Franz, such as the fact that he was often very funny, and that he enjoyed playing with his nephews. The memories were not bleak and gloomy.
One of the biggest laughs occurs when Franz is asked by his irate father to identify the animal that is being cooked for their supper. The father suspects that it’s a rat, but Franz suggests that it could be a “cat-sheep hybrid.”
That line is actually inspired by his short story, “A Crossbreed.” The fact he said it to his father is something that we invented, based on how we imagined he was. At the same time, he was very polite and submissive with his father. He hoped to receive some acceptance from him, but never really got it. He always had a little rebellion in him.
You spoke last night as well about how you allowed Idan to decide whether or not he would be naked onscreen for his final scene, which takes the form of a joyful fantasy as Franz succumbs to tuberculosis offscreen. The fact he agreed to it makes the moment all the more liberating, after he has been uncomfortably faced with men who are unclothed at various earlier parts of the film.
Franz had insecurities similar to what many young men have today, regarding their body and sexuality. He was not sure if he would be able to perform. He had problems with his masculinity and how he would be viewed by the world. He also was very sensitive to noise, which was difficult for him to stand at times. His experience is a very contemporary one.
After #MeToo and the reports of abuse in the industry, you have an intimacy consultant onset for a nude scene like this. Sometimes it’s helpful, and sometimes it’s kind of disturbing, because they will occassionaly see a problem where there is none. As a director, you can push an actor to be more sincere and gain the courage to express themselves. But I believe that no director should push an actor past their level of comfort when it comes to scenes of sexual intimacy. You can’t force someone to show the parts of their body that they don’t want to show.
What have you enjoyed about your visits to Chicago over the years?
It’s one of the cities in America where I sense some kind of harmony. Of course, my knowledge is limited, but the combination of the greenery, the architecture and the fantastic lake is so cinematic. I love the subway trains and the great museums. You don’t feel the sort of desperate pressure here that you have in cities like Baltimore or Philadelphia. It is more peaceful here, somehow. At least that’s how I feel when I come here.
If there’s any justice, “Franz” will be receiving a U.S. release date before too long. And let’s hope “The Secret Garden” will one day receive the Criterion edition it deserves.
