The Lives of Others: An interview with Kim Longinotto
- Posted: 25th Mar 2010
- Category: Articles
- Tags: kim longinotto, documentary, director, directing
by Olivia Humphreys
To coincide with the DVD release of two of her earlier films, Olivia Humphreys met up with acclaimed director Kim Longinotto to look back over a body of work that has been consistently challenging, engaging and, above all, compelling.
The two films, Shinjuku Boys (1995) and Gaea Girls (2000), focus on two very different groups of women in contemporary Japan. Shinjuku Boys visits the New Marilyn club in Tokyo, where the hosts are women cross-dressing as men, to reveal a complex picture of female sexuality in Japan, while Gaea Girls centres on a group of women wrestlers, following their gruelling training regime with an impassive eye that strengthens the film's impact on the viewer.
The two films on the new DVD, Shinjuku Boys and Gaea Girls, were made quite a while ago (in 1995 and 2000 respectively). How do you look back on those films?
It’s funny because both films were very intense experiences, so mainly I just remember what it was like being there and being with those people. That's the most powerful thing when I look back. Yo u get very close to people, I really got fond of Gaish [in Shinjuku Boys] in particular, but you know when you leave it's never going to be the same. They move on, their lives change, you were there for a very particular phase in their lives.
And you’ve managed to preserve and record that particular phase in their lives. How does that feel?
It feels absolutely lovely, I suppose I feel like what I’m alive for really and I love doing that. I feel very lucky to be able to do that.
Is there any other job that could have given you what documentary filmmaking does?
I think telling stories is what I like doing, so I'd love to be able to write novels. But then you could never imagine people like the people I've met, and also it is a voyage of discovery when you make a documentary: you go in very open and flexible and you discover all sorts of things. I think that's why all of us get so obsessed with documentary filmmaking, because you’re meeting extraordinary people you wouldn’t otherwise have met and you’re also going on these very strong emotional journeys – I don't mean a physical journey, when I went into the school in Oxford [in Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go], that was almost an even more powerful journey back into childhood and thinking about what children want and how they feel. You have to be quite passive. It's funny, it's not saying you just film everything: you’re very clear about what you want to do but at the same time you're very open and you're following the journey.
It sounds like you’ve become more humble frommaking films which must be quite unusual.
It’s not necessarily always a nice experience. At the school in Oxford there were some teachers that really were comfortable with the idea of the film and others that weren’t, so they used to tell me off all the time. It really was like going back to school, I’d be called into these meetings and told off. In normal life, now that I’ve grown up, I wouldn’t normally sit and take it, but because you’re making a film you have to go along with other people’s agendas in a way.
It’s always there implicitly, but would you ever put the journey you go through into the film?
No, because I feel very strongly that the people I’m filming are so much more interesting than we, the people making the film, are; the more I make films the more I become convinced of that. The boys in Shinjuku Boys or Takeuchi trying to be a wrestler in Gaea Girls and drawing on these extraordinary reserves of courage and endurance, desperately wanting to be a star and then finally at the end of the film discovering maybe she’s still the same Takeuchi she always was: that’s far more interesting than anything I go through. I’m just a window through which people can look into their lives. That’s why I loved that film, The Lives of Others, because by watching those people in that film his life was completely turned around and that’s what I feel happens to me: every single film I come back and I think ‘My God, I’ve learnt so much, I’m a changed person’ even though then I go back to being myself again. But I wouldn’t want to bother people with what I’m thinking.
It can be very moving when a filmmaker brings their own journey into the film.
I think we make the films we want to see. So on the whole even if sometimes I’m quite intrigued by knowing how the film was made, what I want when I go and see a film is to get lost in the story, and I want to go through an emotional experience. That’s why I tend to prefer fiction to documentary for myself to watch. And what I want the documentary experience to be is like a fiction experience, so that you’re not being told what to think. Occasionally you have to be told something but it’s just so you can navigate the film: most of the time you’re just going through an experience. I find a lot of documentary quite cluttered, with statistics, which as we all know can be very misleading. So that’s not really what I want – I think by really empathising with other people and really immersing yourself in their life, your life can be enriched and changed. Whether I ever manage that I don’t know, but that’s what I’m trying to do.
So is empathy the most important thing for you?
Empathy is how you get there: it’s about going through an experience that someone else is going through and maybe learning about the world through that. And also learning about yourself because I think that’s what we go to films for: when you watch a film, you’re always thinking about yourself in the background.
You’ve said in the past that you fall in love with your contributors and want the audience to feel the same. Would you ever make a film about a person or people you disliked?
If I could have got access and exposed what was happening in the run-up to the Iraq war, then I would have put up with all those people. That sort of thing is really worth doing. It’s about power really. If people have power and they’re doing things that you think are destructive then I think it’s fair game to try and make films about them, like Michael Moore does. But I’d probably think other people could do better than me. The people that I get drawn to and that I love are people that normally don’t get noticed and normally wouldn’t be thought of as heroes, but who are actually doing extraordinary things.
You’re more suited to celebrating people than criticising them?
Yes, that’s what I really love doing. And making films that are about change and hope, and some idea of women in particular being able to step out of their destiny and change it.
There’s often a language barrier between you and your contributors. Does that ever enrich the film in some way?
No – I love it when I can talk to people. I loved it in Sisters in Law that I could talk to Beatrice and Vera, and the same with Rough Aunties; for instance Mildred became a real friend, and that was because of the language. You can't really get that close to people unless you can speak their language.
How do you think you've changed as a filmmaker since you made Shinjuku Boys and Gaea Girls?
I think I’ve got better at filming scenes, I’ve learnt a lot from the editor I work with [acclaimed editor Ollie Huddlestone]. I've got better at making scenes seamless so he can cut them, so it looks like a fiction and you aren't aware of the camerawork when you watch them. I'm getting better at thinking about the beginning, middle and end of a scene. All that takes time.
You’ve always done the camerawork on your films. Do you ever feel that distances you from what’s happening in front of the camera?
I think sometimes it might stop me being too upset; there were moments in Gaea Girls where because I was concentrating on filming, it inured me a little bit to what was happening. But that only happens for moments, most of the time it’s all coming right at you. That’s why I really want to do camera, because there’s nothing between me and what’s happening. I’m really aware that I’m seeing what the audience is going to see, which is very exciting. You think, ‘That’s what it’s going to look like; people are going to be here where I am and see this. Something special’s happening and I’m capturing it’ – it’s a very nice feeling.
Gaea Girls / Shinjuku Boys: Two films by Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams is available now on DVD from Second Run DVD. Second Run have also released a special DVD of Kim Longinotto's Iranian films Divorce Iranian Style and Runaway. For more details see the Second Run website.