17/10/2023 - The Swedish director discusses his latest film, centred on a former crook seeking forgiveness

(© John Phillips/Getty Images for BFI)

After premiering in Toronto, Shame on Dry Land [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Axel Petersén
film profile], the fourth feature from Swedish director Axel Petersén, played at the BFI London Film Festival. Centred on an extremely anxious former crook seeking forgiveness from his friend and one-time business partner, this sun-soaked Malta-set film is a tense and frequently funny thriller that harks back to the profound humanity and dark, absurdist humour of American neo-noir films from the 1970s.

Cineuropa: What were the origins of this project?
Axel Petersén: It’s a collage of the stories of friends of mine who left Sweden a long time ago and are now living in expat communities far away, whether it's in Namibia, Hong Kong, or Malta. There was always this exiled hero wanting to come home. Then, after my first trip to Malta, all these small ideas came together very naturally. And I guess it's pretty close to home. I know these people, and the same was true for my previous films. They have similar themes — homecoming, escapism — but they were about my parents’ generation. Here, I wanted to do something about my generation. 

The film’s tone is fascinating. There are moments when it feels like a thriller, and others where it's really funny.
All this has to do with the noir thriller form — the core of the film is a redemption drama, but it's stuck inside this desperate noir. I personally love a straight thriller, but I don't think I could ever make one, even if I tried! The hero is super awkward, and he's not a great detective either. But I guess the noir form lends itself to the story, and navigating this form with him can sometimes be funny, because he's not great at what he does. For instance, when the film starts, you might think, “this is like Jason Bourne coming ashore, he's here to kill someone, he's a mean machine.” But then, when he arrives and steps out of the shadows with the cap in his hand and says, “I'm sorry,” he's just very vulnerable. Not at all an action hero. But then again, I think it was interesting to see that he could actually become that. And as the film progresses, He gets the hang of it eventually. 

I really wanted the film to be fun, because he’s quite a heavy character. I didn’t want to watch him for 90 minutes feeling sorry for himself. It's a ride, it's fun — maybe thought provoking here and there, but it is escapism. It's a movie. Actually, when it was done, I was like, “is this a movie?” Because to me it was almost like a flick, something found under the sofa, a B-movie. That wasn’t intentional, but when it was finally done, it was like, “yeah, that's what it is!” 

The character himself is very entertaining. We don't know much about what's happened to him, but he is so anxious that we can’t help but try to imagine. Watching Joel Spira’s performance, it feels like he knows more about what has happened to this character than we do. How did you work with him?
We shot a scene for this film in 2018, so we’d been talking about it for years. He knew the character very well, its backstory and stuff that isn’t in the film. But I think he's just a great actor. He has a unique expression, but he also feels familiar. He's played a lot of supporting roles, and it always feels like, “here’s a real person.” He’s a great character actor, and I think he has the qualities of a world class, top actor. 

Because the film is a story of crime that’s really an almost spiritual journey — about this man’s relationship to himself and the world — it reminds me a lot of American films from the 1970s, like Night Moves.
Great movie. Also Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, and The Long Goodbye. I watched The Friends of Eddie Coyle the other day, it's perfect! The 1970s were  the golden age of American cinema for me. But I also like Jean-Pierre Melville and Takeshi Kitano.

Did you start from this world of capitalism, or from this man and his dilemma? This character could represent most of us, who are also relatively rich people who go on holiday in poorer countries. 
In the beginning, when we were trying to finance the film, a commissioner asked what the film was about, and we said, “it’s about him wanting to be forgiven.” He replied, “But we've seen that a million times.” But that's the point! His dilemma is supposed to be very relatable, very human, to a point where it's almost banal. Because then the contrast between what happens and what's at stake is even bigger, which creates humour or confusion. It started with him, then this world came along. But it's the same backwaters as my previous films, a grey zone where the upper middle class want to be something else but aren’t really able to, and they try to cut corners. Sure, they make money, but they're not super fancy, and I guess that's also relatable.