San Diego Reader November 3, 2016 59
A poetry of corpses H
acksaw Ridge is director Mel Gibson’s first film since 2006’s Apocalypto, but the
years haven’t done much to change him. He still loves outliers isolated by their beliefs, in this case a real-life Seventh-Day Adventist named Des- mond Doss who wants to serve his country but won’t carry a gun. (The conviction turns out to be as much promise as principle, a fact Gibson would have done well to make clear sooner in the story.) He still knows how to deliver uplift after breaking the viewer down with sor- row and horror. (In this capacity, Hugo Weaving very nearly steals the film as a ruined veteran of the Great War.) And to paraphrase A Christmas Story, he still works in blood and guts the way other artists might work in oils or clay. When your protagonist is a World War II medic during the campaign to take Okinawa, you can make a poetry of corpses without swerving from the cause of realism. (The controlled chaos of battle, however, is another matter.) Star Andrew Garfield’s slight frame holds up remarkably well under the weight of scorn, abuse, misunderstand- ing, judgment, and oh yes, bodies. — Matthew Lickona
INTERVIEW WITH HACKSAW RIDGE CO-STAR TERESA PALMER Matthew Lickona: What would you say is your strongest quality as an actor? Teresa Palmer: Life experience, I guess. I had a very colorful childhood, with lots of left-of-center experiences. My emotional well is pretty deep, and over the years that I’ve been acting, I’ve figured out how to tap into that. ML: Did you bring that eclectic up- bringing to bear on your role as Doro- thy [the nurse who Desmond woos and eventually marries]? TP: Not really. I had a really interest- ing dynamic with my mother growing up, but it was her beautiful qualities I took for this character — very, very gentle and sweet. I also used my grand- mother — she’s a very strong woman, who definitely wore the pants in her relationship with my grandfather. He was a firefighter, and she used to tell me about the feeling her friends had, knowing that their husbands might not return. That was just part of life for them, and that’s a huge part of this story, because Dorothy must have had the expectation that her husband was not going to return from the war, giv- en his radical choice, the incredible
MOVIES
risk he was taking in standing by his convictions. It proves to me what an unconditional love they had. ML: Speaking of sweet, that moun- taintop kiss between Desmond and Dorothy had an old-fashioned sweet- ness about it, very unlike the sort of modern-day screen kiss that signals the unleashing of passion. How did you manage that? TP: Mel very much directed that screen kiss. He had the same observation in terms of what kisses look like to-
day compared to what it would look like for two people of great faith in the 1940s who are falling in love. He talked to us about the kiss: obviously, not opening our mouths, more of a tight-lipped kiss. But, really, it was just a love for each other. It wasn’t about the physicality, the bodies coming together. Where the kiss came out of was, like, “You are my husband, you are my home,” as opposed to, “I want to take your clothes off.” And Mel was right in there directing. He’s such a romantic — he really under- stands love. He talked so eloquently about what it feels like to fall in love for the first time. It was very endearing. ML: Last year, you appeared in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups. He and Gibson are both directors with strong personal styles. Could you compare your experi- ences working with each of them? TP: Vastly different. With Mel’s film, I auditioned by doing a couple of scenes from the movie, putting it on tape, and sending it to him. With Malick, the au- dition is talking about yourself in front of the camera — tell a sad story, tell a happy story. Then you get a piece of his writing, look at it for 20 minutes, hand it back to casting, and do an im- provised monologue based on what you remember of it. It’s a fantastic way of getting to know people’s spirits. I didn’t get the role I auditioned for, but I found out that Malick had to decided to write one scene for me to do. Then he just kept asking me to stay. I’d get a phone call, “Can you be in a scene tomorrow?” “Can you come to Vegas with us?” I was, like, “Sure!” And there was nothing to read, it was all improv. They kind of found the story in the edit. With Mel, it was much more specific. He knew this narrative back to front. But they’re both really gentle beings with big hearts. Terrence is a man of faith, and so is Mel. They both really lead with compassion, which may sound surprising. ML: Dorothy visits Desmond while he’s in prison for disobeying an order, and she asks him to meet the Army halfway. It’s a high-drama moment.
Hacksaw Ridge: Mel Gibson’s latest ode to flesh and mud — and faith
Could you break down your prepara- tion for that scene? TP: She’s been unwavering in her support, but in that moment, she gets bound by her fear. You see some real vulnerability. I read a lot about Doro- thy, and I listened to her audio tapes, to the way she was. And she some- times says things impulsively, without thinking. So in the scene, it just rolls out of her: “Don’t confuse your will with the Lord’s.” Mel really directed that scene. He wanted her to say it re- ally fast, like it’s verbal diarrhea. And then she stops herself. You can see the regret, because she knows the impact that’s going to have on Desmond. I read the scene over and over to get beneath her emotional turmoil, and I tapped into my own experience — I’ve been in a similar headspace. ML: You’ve been in a wide range of roles, including the lead in this year’s horror hit Lights Out. How do you go about choosing parts? TP: Now that I’m older and also a mother, I’m a lot more selective in terms of projects. I’m drawn to real. I just want real — characters that are steeped in a reality, strong women with a specific point of view. For Lights Out, I connected with the lead character, because I also have a mother who suffers from mental illness. It was a therapeutic experience for me. And I recently did Berlin Syndrome, which is from Cate Shortland, who did Lore. I play a woman who gets into a situation, and the movie explores Stockholm Syndrome. My character is completely flawed and vulnerable, and it’s such a dark, dark film, but I loved it because it was real. — Matthew Lickona
NEW DIRECTOR, SAME OLD QUALITY AT THIS YEAR’S ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL The Pacific Arts Movement’s San Diego Asian Film Festival breezes through town this week and for the first time in its 17-year history, festival founder Lee Ann Kim will not be in the driver’s seat. Kim stepped down as executive director last September, handing over the reins of power to a familiar face to festivalgoers. A strong voice in the Asian-Amer-
ican community, Kent Lee has been involved with PacArts since 2010, when he first started as a special events volunteer. Four years later, Lee joined the Board of Directors and in no time assumed the Sinatra seat as Chairman of the Board. Not unlike Kim, Lee’s mission is
to serve San Diegans by developing community engagement efforts. It’s up to festival programmer, Brian Hu, to supply the art. One look at this year’s lineup and it’s obvious that when it comes to quality, little has changed. Per usual, Hu forwarded a passel of
personally selected viewing choices my way. The first one to hit the screen was Hirokazu Koreeda’s After the Storm. Koreeda (After Life, Nobody Knows, Still Walking) has yet to let us down, with each subsequent film providing one emotionally enriching experience after another. The screening copy had more brands than a rustler’s herd. I quit after ten minutes. Koreeda deserves better. After the Storm screens twice at UltraStar Mission Valley — Friday, November 4 at 6:30 p.m. and Saturday November 5 at 6:05 p.m. Next up was Creepy, the latest thriller from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (The
Cure, Tokyo Sonata) and a perfect dou- ble-bill with Joe Dante’s The ’Burbs. The story starts out on an all-too- familiar path. A detective shot in the line of duty retires from the force, only to be pulled back into service to help tackle an unsolved missing-persons case that occurred six years earlier. It isn’t until we’re introduced to the cop’s new neighbor, Nishino (Teruyuki Kagawa), that the film begins to live up to its title. Kagawa moves like a mari- onette whose strings have been irre- vocably entangled, his contorted facial expressions delivering shudders with
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