Ingvilda Strautmane: Why were you interested in trying to work in the western genre? I don’t know if this genre in itself is very appreciative.
Matiss Goat: The genre is extremely cinematic, because it offers to play with cinematic elements – with action, environments, composition, movement. It was also challenging, because Latvia is no longer such a “western” country in the sense that the environments we have are the same. Therefore, it was necessary to look for extraordinary locations, to find ways to adapt this genre in the local context. Of course, we also visited abroad to offer the sights we have come to see in classic westerns.
What, for example, are the classic western views?
We have a ‘Euro-Western’ or a ‘short-term’, whatever you want to call it. We do not have a desert, but we have mountains, expanses, rocky places, rivers, caves. We also have an excuse that at the time of the film, the ancient valley of the Daugava looked very different than it is now – we know what happened to Staburags. Thereby,
by visually blending the views of Latvia, Italy and Sweden, we create a fabulous vision of how it could have been.
And how did the story come about? It’s about a Baltic German mansion, about a young lady, and then you still involve Hungary there?
First of all, there was a desire to create a western and just a western in Latvia. Then, together with the other screenwriter Ilze Akmentiņš, we thought about what it might look like and where it could take place. Ilze Akmentiņa suggested that it could be the manor of a Baltic German baron and that it could be a story that will take place in a very short period of time (these are the three days in which the main story will take place). She is also a historian, and so it helped me not to get into too big oats purely on historical details and images – what they might be. Of course, the western is an adventure movie and in essence it is a fairy tale after all [Vladimira] Propa schemes, but some historical plausibility already in the western need to be provided.
It seems to me that such classic westerns are quite far from self-irony and humor, but self-irony is very present in your film.
It’s something that I think is common to almost all of my films – it’s an element of self-irony. [Par klasiskajiem vesterniem] – I think that is not entirely true, because Sergio Leone’s westerns and other Italian spaghetti westerns still have the irony of a genre and of the masculinity associated with that genre, and of all those archetypal types.
Given that the setting
offer – Latvia ‘s first western – is already something extremely strange for the average viewer, now, of course, there self – irony, irony and playing with elements of the genre is in the right place.
The brightest characters – who do you think they are?
It seems to me that the brightest character in this film will seem to the viewer Russian investigator Orlovsky, played by Vilis Dodiņš. [Šim tēlam] there is such a manic tendency to question your interrogators quite angrily. The peculiar count of Vienna, Ivars Krasts, will definitely remember, also the main characters – Žanete Zvīgule, who plays Eva, and the new Daile Theater actor Toms Veličko, who plays Mika. Well, then, of course, Egon Dombrovskis, a Hungarian cowboy who doesn’t say a word in the film. No, one end, however, tells.
Andris Keišs, Egons Dombrovskis, Vilis daugiņš, Kaspars Znotins – it is quite clear how to work with them (taking into account previous experience), but what about the brand new actors – Žaneti Zvīgulis and Tomas Veličko? Žanete Zvīgule is not a professional actress.
There is a slightly different approach. Tom, of course, had to work as with any professional actor because he is extremely talented and has mastered the skills. [..]. Jeanne needed a little different, because she was still sixteen at the time and had no previous film experience. So a lot of it involved learning cinema from the actor’s perspective – how you walk through the light properly, how often you can blink your eyes during a frame (it’s not too desirable to do that too often, for example). Emotionally, we seem to have achieved quite a lot from her, but purely technically – there was something to work on, yes. We were helped by the fact that there was quite a long stage of rehearsals and for them the rehearsals were quite different – acting rehearsals with me and rehearsals for horses.
It is the added value of such work that not only did I have to learn the specifics of some western, but I also had to learn what to do with those movers in the frame.
Luckily, I had a lot of helpers there.
Horses, of course, are an integral part of westerns, as are costumes and battle episodes. It seems to me that you also filmed the episodes of the fight and the death very cleverly.
We approach it all quite ironically here and also refer to the theatricality characteristic of the western genre, namely, all the scenes of battle and death, and the dissolution of blood, all of which are almost or as in the final of the opera, presented with such grandeur.
In Latvian, the film starts with the title “Wild East. Where will the road lead”. Does this mean that there will be other names outside Latvia?
Outside Latvia there will simply be “Wild East”. In Latvia, we have two such names and it was largely our and distributors’ decision that we need to get that “western” feeling in the name.
Have you already been interested in showing the film outside Latvia?
We have a so-called sales agent for the film. At present, its interest, surprisingly, comes from the Slavic territories. Since cinemas are still in a rather difficult stage at the moment, when they are partly working, partly not working, and we can’t really predict what will happen in the coming months, they are mostly streaming platforms that are interested in this film. Also in the Baltics.
Do you allow the movie to end up on streaming platforms?
Of course she will get there. The path of any Latvian film coming this year will be like this. This is now the global standard path [..]that the film is immediately in streaming and in cinemas or that this “window” is relatively small. The viewer has somehow found out watching movies on the big screens, which is not good for such a movie, because it is really a big screen movie in every sense.
The soundtrack of the orchestra’s music, as well as the visual effects and the way its film is filmed, require viewing on the big screen.
I understand that this is a global question right now – will a person accustomed to the couch return to the cinema. Do you have a version?
What we can hope for in the Latvian context is the so-called “cinema as an event”. In order to attract the viewer, in principle, cinema must become an event. In Latvia, compared to other Baltic countries, the viewer is a bit slower going to the cinema, purely statistically. And even now, after kovida, we see that the data is quite depressing – attendance at cinemas has fallen very, very sharply.
For us as producers and distributors, first of all, it is a question of marketing: how will we present this return to cinemas; secondly, there must be films – events.
Indeed, a very strong cinema must appear that can encourage the viewer to get off the couch. Cinema also has to have some added value, why the viewer will be ready to go to the cinema – whether they are screenings from 35mm film or screenings with creative groups, with actors, with some discussions, or they are some “special events” with parties that is always good. In other words, we have to think about how to make this cinema an event, because we are not French spectators who, as cinemas opened, went there in quite large crowds, and we are not American spectators either. Although there is a difference in their statistics in these countries as well. It should also be borne in mind that most cinemas around the world have a seating problem – Covid due to restrictions, only half-grass can be filled.
Will your creative team also meet with viewers?
Of course! We will have a variety of interesting promotions that will gradually start from the beginning of October.
Now for your other projects. “Neon Spring” – is it a movie-party?
In fact, there will be quite a lot of parties, specifically – rave parties, but the movie is not about that. The film is about young people’s relationships with both their peers and their families, about how, in fact, although we seem to be close to each other, we do not fully understand each other – there are some communication mistakes, something remains unsaid. It will be a very emotional film. It is now complete and
of my upcoming films “Neon Spring” is the one to which we put the so-called hopes of the festival. It is more suitable for festival audiences in art cinema.
And you filmed brand new people again?
We filmed the young actors. And we filmed such a very … it could be called hyperrealism. Both the way the camera behaves and the way the actors behave in the frame are all very close to reality. Dialogues were improvised, scenes were filmed in continuous, long shots to have this sense of presence.
Long shots – it is already becoming a business card of Matīsa Kaža. Another long shot in the film project “Taste of Water”. How would you describe where the differences between “Cinema and We” and “Taste of Water” are?
In “Taste of Water” we have six actors – so twice as many. We have, if I am not mistaken, twenty-three decorations in two pavilions, with a passage in the middle. The maze that the operator and the actors go through is something very, very special. In fact, we almost didn’t do it because the film hadn’t been filmed the penultimate day. In the first frame, the vehicle was running through a tire and in the second frame, literally ten minutes before the end of the film, the operator stumbled over the sound director and fell with the camera. On the last day we filmed, there were two valid doubles.
Unlike “Cinema and We”, where they were separate sketches with the added value of the actors’ personalities, here it is a specific story, but also using various alienation techniques, where we show how it is filmed – the operator suddenly becomes one of the characters in the scene, the camera changes its perspective, [..], sometimes it is a video blog camera for some image, sometimes it is something else.
Well, very, very much we play with that cinema, as much as we could think of in the context of this work.
And also, of course, very thematically relevant work on the extent to which we make decisions freely and independently in our thinking and the extent to which we simply echo some streams of information, units that reach us through digital media and very strong charismatic personalities. .
But is it a feature film?
Yes.
As I listened, I tried to imagine that you were really following the actors with the whole camera and all the equipment.
Yes, we follow the actors. We had two locations – one in the Gertrudes Street Theater and the other in the pavilion of the National Film School – and each of these locations had over ten scenery, playgrounds. And then the camera goes through that maze. She sometimes returns to some playground; some have two, three scenes, some have only one. The actors are also changing – not everyone is in all the scenes. Some actors in other scenes are mass actors. For example, we have a scene in a cafe where there are only two characters talking, the others then change clothes and play cafe guests. Of course, there are such theatrical elements.
That’s the limit, the specifics of the film we started with “Cinema and We” – we play with elements of both of these art forms.
You will keep this genre designation “movie show” if?
Well see what the marketing people will say. But in principle it can be done, yes. Just like “Cinema and We” is a film, it can be enjoyed as a full-fledged film. It is simply made in such an experimental, specific manner.
Until viewers see both “Taste of Water” and “Neon Spring” there is still some time to wait, but until “Wild East. Where will the road lead” is a very short moment. Any other comment on the music? You have already mentioned the orchestra.
The film has a very, very special soundtrack. It has a lot of music, as is typical of the western genre. The charming thing was that the composer Imants Kalniņš gave our composers Miķelis Putniņš and Simon Gampers to arrange their works and “westernize” them. Thus, some of the compositions will be the best musical works of Imants Kalniņš dressed in new sounds. Then, of course, there are the original compositions – Miķelis Putniņš and Simonas Gamperas.
We deliberately created opposite poles – a Latvian composer and an Italian composer. There is both the grandiose sound of the orchestra “Sinfonietta Rīga”, which we recorded in the church (the room is also felt), and there is also, you could say, enthusiastic blice places. This sound will also be contrasting.
I think that the soundtrack in this film is already a value in itself, because there has been no similar Latvian cinema lately.
–
