In the twisted universe of Straight Circle [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Oscar Hudson
scheda film], which has just won the Grand Prize in Venice’s International Film Critics’ Week (see the news), two enemy soldiers find themselves stationed on a remote border surrounded by nothing but an endless desert. Completely isolated, they start forgetting what they are even supposed to be doing there – and who they are. We spoke to British director Oscar Hudson about his movie.

Cineuropa: Your film feels timely and you are hinting at some serious issues, but there’s also this crazy, punk energy. Where did it come from?
Oscar Hudson: In the early parts of the film, when we are establishing these two different nations and their different routines, there’s an extent to which I wanted to paint the absurdity of these rituals and the silliness of it all. I wanted to find humour in a nationalistic ritual. Perhaps some of that madness stems from there.

Is it even possible to talk about war without mentioning madness? These “enemies” are so close to each other – it made me think of No Man’s Land [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], for example. Were you referencing any particular conflicts?
I think this movie is about nowhere and also about everywhere. It was an intentional decision to detach it from reality and place it in a sort of void-like space. In doing so, you’re perhaps able to get around all of the pre-existing prejudices and preconceptions that people would take into a film about a specific conflict. Having said that, I think it absolutely speaks to the present moment. It speaks to many of the conflicts we have right now and the rise of ethnonationalism we’re seeing all across Europe and in the USA.

It’s funny that these men start out looking completely different and end up resembling each other more and more, like in a sci-fi movie.
The journey of these border guards and the progression of their characters through the film is at the heart of the story. And as much as the film is about these broader issues of nationalism and conflict, and difference and comparison, it’s also about how those things are expressed in the individual identity as well.

Casting identical twins in the lead roles was a really important part of the film. At first, they’re covered in prosthetics, and then we strip back all those layers, revealing something else: some truer sense of fraternity which, in my mind, is a parallel for what the film is trying to say about nationalism.

It's a modest film. Was it mostly because of the budget, or were you thinking about something as austere as Dogville [+leggi anche:
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It’s a funny one because there’s a filmmaking cliché about debuts. They say you should set an entire film in one room, which, on one hand, is what this film is. On the other, it’s a room we had to travel very far to, to a very remote part of the South African desert, and live in a tented camp for seven weeks. Any production advantages you might get from having a few characters in one location you lose by going somewhere as ridiculous as where we went to. But for me, that kind of massive, flat, never-ending desert, and going there for real, was super important. I feel that the landscape brings so much in terms of character.

For a while, no one wanted to do political satire. Now, they are bouncing back. Were you afraid that people would struggle with you talking about serious things and making them amusing?
I wasn’t thinking about whether or not the idea was fashionable, but everything I do has a sense of comedy in it. You know, I’m English – English people are unable to take serious things seriously. Everything gets turned into a joke. When you feel awkward, you make a joke. This is how it goes. Difficult subjects are perfect for making fun of. Then again, the reason I chose to focus on this movie was because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That was the catalyst. So yes, it’s a reflection of the moment. I think politics is changing, and other artistic responses to that will follow.

You show politicians delivering their pompous speeches, and soon after, chaos erupts. Do you think it’s important to keep repeating that politics can be silly?
Satire is a very important tool of protest. There’s this expression that the sound any regime fears the most is laughter. I don’t wish to position our film as some kind of grand rebuke to regimes around the world, but it obviously does tackle relevant issues in a light way.

It also changes tone rather abruptly. Comedy turns into something tragic so quickly.
One of the things I like as a filmmaker is using contrast as a tool. Maybe it sounds like a stupid reference, but I grew up listening to the Pixies. They’re famous for loud, quiet, loud, quiet – these massive shifts in gear. I remember thinking about that when I was learning to edit and tell stories.