FEATURE
(From left) Co-writers and co-stars Alice Lowe, Steve Oram with director Ben Wheatley
The killing fi elds
Ben Wheatley follows the acclaimed Kill List with a ‘lighter’ story about serial killers on a caravan holiday. Ian Sandwell visited the set of Sightseers
you try not to think about it. “There was a bit of pressure after [debut feature]
H
Down Terrace. I thought that would be the high- water mark and then we’d get slaughtered on the second fi lm. Then we didn’t expect anything from Kill List at all. We thought, ‘Well this could go either way, people could really like it or they could just hate it,’” says Wheatley. “You just have to push it right to the edge and
make the best fi lm you can that you’re doing at the moment. But if you start thinking in terms of what critics think, you’re fucked basically.” Wheatley maintains that mindset on his third
feature Sightseers, which receives its world premiere here on May 23 as a special screening in Directors’ Fortnight. Like his previous fi lms, it defi es categori- sation: there are eye-catching stills of a chicken sac- rifi ce and a blood-spattered wheel, but there is also an adorable dog who could give The Artist’s Uggie a run for his money. Sightseers is a palette cleanser for Wheatley, as he
jokes Kill List was “just so heavy and evil and we felt really bad after we’d made it”. Rook Films’ Andy Starke and Claire Jones, who
produced Kill List and are producing Sightseers, describe it as “not as horrible” and “lighter”. Not all
■ 50 Screen International at Cannes May 16, 2012
ow do you follow a fi lm like Kill List, the low- budget hit that was one of the best reviewed UK fi lms of 2011? If you are Ben Wheatley,
lightness, of course. The story is about a couple, Chris and Tina, on a caravanning holiday around the Lake District in the north of England. Chris is a serial killer, a hobby that also attracts Tina. Co-writers and co-stars Alice Lowe and Steve
‘You just have to push it right to the edge and make the best
film you can’ Ben Wheatley
Oram, who developed the feature from an original short they produced, conducted research into the world of serial killers. Wheatley’s wife and frequent collaborator Amy Jump provided additional mate- rial for the script. “[We] tried to work out the psychology of people
who kill together… you see the creation of them as a partnership,” says Lowe. While Kill List was not on Wheatley’s mind when it came to Sightseers, it had a positive impact on the project from both a sales and a production view- point. Big Talk’s Nira Park, who produces the fi lm alongside Starke and Jones, notes: “We attached Ben after Down Terrace and at one point we were thinking about it being his second film, then Kill List happened. So Ben’s been on board for a year and a half, two years, but yes, if we’d tried to get it off the ground before Kill List, it would have been harder to get the money we’ve been able to get.” The low-budget fi lm is financed by StudioCanal, Film4 and the BFI Film Fund.
Kill List Protagonist Pictures has pre-sold to France
(Wild Side, which will open via Le Pacte) and the Middle East (Front Row), while StudioCanal will release in the UK in the autumn.
Steeped in the story
The day Screen visited the Sightseers set in October 2011 in Cumbria, north-west England, there was a dinner scene playing out, with Chris and Tina’s mealtime interrupted by a raucous hen party. In keeping with the distinctive style of both Down Ter- race and Kill List, the scene shows off the improvi- sational approach to Sightseers; Wheatley even describes the fi lm as his most “improv-y” yet with a strong mix of on- and off-script elements.
“What improv gives you is very realistic per- formances but you lose the pointedness of the script, the detail basically. You use the best bits of the improv, but when you need a line that has to be said precisely then you go back to the original script version,” he explains.
The naturalistic approach is also part of the reason Oram and Lowe play the main characters in the fi lm — Wheatley believes their extensive knowledge of the characters helps immensely.
“It is hard to do improvisation »
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76