Julia Leigh is unequivocal about the “no penetration” rule of Sleeping Beauty, her debut film that seeks drama in weird bedroom behaviour.
“Why did I make that the rule of the chamber? I think it therefore becomes a better space for the men to explore things,” she says in an interview during TIFF.“It opens up other things.”
The 31-year-old Australian is best known in her native land as a bestselling author, but she’s fast gaining attention as a filmmaker.
The screen version of her novel The Hunter, starring Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill and Frances O’Connor, screened at TIFF in September.
So did Sleeping Beauty, her erotically themed drama that she both wrote and directed. The movie earlier premiered in competition at Cannes, a rare honour for a first-time filmmaker.
Opening Friday, it’s the non-bedtime story of a university student, played by fellow Aussie Emily Browning, who submits her sleeping naked body for male amusement and cash payment. Leigh submits her thoughts on it:Q. Have you been following the reactions to Sleeping Beauty since Cannes?
A. Yes. I hear reports of some extremes of reactions, which I’m happy about. I guess that I’m happy that people are talking about the film. I, myself, don’t like to see a film on Friday night and then forget it by the next day. So I know this is a film that stays with people. I don’t think it’s something that many people have seen before and I’m not sure that, because of that, people really quite know how to respond to it.
Q. This is a very deliberate film, a carefully composed one with a slowly developing sense of dread.
A. When I wrote the film, I envisaged it. I did see it unfolding in my mind’s eye with the sort of longer takes with the camera as a tender, steady witness. And that means I did think a lot about the visual transitions and the images at the head and foot of each scene and I worked very hard on that — on the mise-en-scène — and did a lot of preparation. We weren’t really doing a lot of improvisation on the day. That said, a couple of lines did end up onscreen and a few little things ended up onscreen; that did come about, so it wasn’t entirely 10,000 per cent strict. But it was quite a controlled process, I think, and I know other people are completely different. There are so many ways to make a film.
Q. You’ve taken a very workmanlike approach to a subject that could have been taken to extremes.
A. Yes. And when you said “with a sense of dread”: I like that idea, that feeling of “what is going to happen next?” I really like that and I did want to try to shift people. I wanted to make them very aware of the act of watching and, also, I wanted their sense of hearing to become acute: a bit like you almost could have heard a pin drop. I did want to create an atmosphere: a strange atmosphere, haunted. This kind of stuff is very hard to pinpoint, very hard to talk about. It’s quite ephemeral, the mood or tone of the film. And a book, by the way: same thing — tone. It’s very important.
Q. As the father of a 19-year-old daughter, I was angry at what those creepy old guys were doing to Emily Browning.
A. The older men, I don’t call them “creepy guys”! I hope they’re full characters in their way. I think the older man who does the monologue, he has a dignity even if it’s a broken dignity. Even in that confronting second scene, there’s a moment of futility in it.
Q. You don’t seem to take a position on prostitution. Do you think you should have? You seem disengaged from gender politics.
A. Well, look, I am very well aware of all the sort of gender power issues. I’m very well aware of them. And I made thousands of decisions about that stuff in making this film. So when you say “disengaged,” actually, I’m not disengaged because it permeates the whole piece.
Q. What I mean is that I don’t get the feeling you’re trying to hammer a message here.
A. I don’t think good films have messages.
Q. What made you choose Emily Browning? Did you see her in Sucker Punch?
A. Well, what I found with this role was that it did separate out the actors. Some people did not want to do it. Some people did want to do it, but their management didn’t want them to do it. And some people, like Emily, really wanted to do it. So I saw quite a few people — having separated them out like that, I still saw quite a few people — and, you know, Emily did a test. I find her incredibly watchable. I think she has a strange beauty, not a cookie-cutter beauty. I like the sort of tip-of-the-iceberg feeling you can get with her. She’s brave, and I did not see Sucker Punch.
Q. Do you think men and women have different ways of perceiving things?
A. I’ll leave that to the critics to think about. I think every single person perceives things differently. We are all singular.
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