TIFF 2020. Tudor Platon discusses “House of Dolls”
House of Dolls is Tudor Platon‘s debut feature – who, at 28, is one of the most prolific directors of photography in contemporary Romanian cinema. Nominated for the Gopo Awar for Young Hope in 2016, for his contribution for All Rivers Run to the Sea (dir. Alexandru Badea), Tudor was the cinematographer of Bogdan Mureșanu‘s multi-award-winning short film, The Christmas Gift (2018), and has worked, amongst others, with young directors such as Ana-Maria Comănescu and Octav Chelaru.
For his debut feature film, which had its world premiere yesterday evening at the 19th edition of TIFF, Tudor used a series of recordings that he shot on a trip to a mountain cabin with his grandmother, Cica, and her group of friends (which also included his godmother, Nana). Over the span of a couple of days, the ladies spend their time relaxing and musing about their lives, which vary from supremely funny to melancholy – all while Tudor camera records them lovingly, in long uninterrupted shots. A few days ago, we caught up with Tudor to discuss about the story behind the film and his methods of working on it, about the difference between shooting fiction and documentary, about independent filmmaking and how this trip ended up changing his perspectives.
When did you get the idea for this film? Actually, did you plan on shooting a film from the very beginning? Was it something that you initially recorded as a home movie of sorts, and further down the road you realized that you could make a film out of it, or did you have your camera ready from the get-go?
I record a lot of things. I don’t know why, but I’ve been doing this for a long time, ever since I was in high school. Sometimes I take pictures, sometimes I make sound recordings, sometimes I shoot. This time I decided to film – I didn’t think that I would make a film out of it or something like that…
… At the same time, yeah, things were already going in a certain direction all by themselves. Because everything happened in a pretty short time span – the trip lasted between a week and ten days, I’m not even sure anymore. I didn’t change that much during this time span. Me, nor the things that kept me awake at night, that I brought along with me to that place. And things just came together on their own.
To give you a very concrete answer, no, I didn’t set out to make a film – or, well, anyway, I shot what was happening, and then I came back to my regular projects, the films that I was shooting and other personal projects. And I came back to the material after more than a year.
When you were at the cabin, was there a conscious thought that made you want to start recording a given moment, or was it something candid, which depended on what was going on at that moment?
There are certain triggers, if I may say so, which prompt you to start recording. It’s not the same as with photography, where you wait around and the moment something happens, you press the button. No. You should have already pressed the button one minute ago! It’s something like an intuition most of the time, which says “yo, I think I should film this”. And then something actually happens. Or maybe not. There’s one moment in the film when I started recording things when they were already in full swing, and so, when we were editing, the shot entered the film exactly from the moment that I pressed REC. But it’s the only shot like this in the film. The rest of the time, the camera was there and it was rolling. It’s something which depends on intuition but also on chance – the chance that something happens. You don’t always know if something will happen or not. And in the case of this film, I wasn’t pushing things, I wasn’t taking things in a certain direction in order to make certain things happen. They happened by themselves.
But there’s a thing here – how do you place the camera? How do you place it when you don’t know what’s going to happen? That’s what I found very interesting. How do you approach something that you don’t know yet? So, the only thing that remains is curiosity. I think that’s it. I was curious. I obviously had a lot of thoughts and intentions, but that was only for the first couple of days. After that, I realized that it’s pointless. So what if I have intentions – they (the characters) are way above them and myself, so they’re going in whatever directions they please. From that point, I just started simply recording them without any thoughts in my mind, just to capture what was happening spontaneously. On top of that, I was also accumulating this sort of vibe, because I was also in that closed space. We were starting to be different, somehow, in this place that’s far from our regular spots. And this sort of accumulates. From one day to another certain friendships are shaping up, or certain emotions, or there are small conflicts, the feeling of wanting to keep someone at a distance… And I’d also be entering these dynamics.
And there’s also this vacation element to it – when you’re far away from home it’s somehow much easier to think about all of these things.
I think the vacation thing is that… you don’t really care about what’s going on at home anymore! Somehow, I think this was also a reason why I went up there to shoot. I wanted to forget what was going on at home. That was my deal, in a way, because I had no idea what I’d be finding over there. I didn’t. I’d never been with them on this trip. But I went, and I took my camera with me.
And how did you arrive there? I assume your grandma told you something like “hey, we’re going on this trip and having sauna treatments for a week, wanna tag along?”. Or was there some other story?
It’s something that has to do with actually being close to people. I felt a need, at one point, to come closer to my grandmother, Cica – and that’s something that came naturally. The fact that my other grandmother had died, and I had been very close to her, made me want to get closer to Cica, as well. I don’t know why, or how, but this is what I felt, so whenever I was going home, I was starting to spend more and more time with her. And at one point, we’re talking and she says “look, this is what we do during the summertime”. And I say “Oh, cool. I’m coming with you. Can I?” Meaning, I’m the one that poked his head in, not the other way around. And I asked if I also may record – I thought it would be interesting.
That’s about it. Further on, when they actually organized themselves to go on the trip that year, they called up and said: “Look, we’re going. You coming or not?”. It was on fast-forward.
Earlier, you were talking about this particular feeling of not knowing what you’re about to shoot. As a director of photography who has mostly worked in fiction, how does your preparation depend on whether you’re working in fiction or in a documentary?
They’re not related. I mean, the only thing I do before going somewhere and filming things is to check my gear. I also do this for fiction, but in those cases, I prepare myself a lot and I’m aware of many elements in the script that have to do with intention. In documentary, I base myself on what I was saying earlier, and on the fact that, if you put a camera in my hand I’ll be able to handle it because that’s what I’ve been taught to do, but I don’t think about it consciously. It’s intuitive, just like driving. Maybe I do this in fiction films sometimes as well, but I show up much more prepared because I know that a day of shooting is very expensive and involves a lot of people. And that can work against you sometimes.
For me, this film is much closer to photography in a way, to the photo projects that I would do when I was in high school and college. I’d do the same thing and visit all sorts of different places, trying to see what was going on around there, but it was all driven by curiosity. It’s true that my state of mind also influences the things that are going on around me. But I’m trying to see what is actually there, not just this first impression. And I think that through the camera – the photo camera, the film camera, the sound recorder – you can capture something that you’re not aware of while you’re present in that place. The camera isn’t filled with emotions like you are. Of course, you influence it – How do you place it? How do you set it? How… There are important questions, even though sometimes you can just sit and see what really goes on in a place. Obviously, when you arrive at the editing table, and, like in the case of this film, you start working on achieving some kind of coherence, and that’s normal. And that itself is the way in which you see things then, at the point where you’re editing.
I was just about to ask you about editing. What I find interesting about the film is your insistence on Nana’s character, that lady who has a pretty sad life story, with whom you take several trips to the village. Regarding Nana, specifically – did you choose to “bring her to the front” during editing, or were you already aware of the fact that she will be a prominent character while you were there, at the cabin?
It’s something that happened there. She wasn’t taking part in any of the group discussions, for the most part. She was rather more of a lone wolf. And that made her seem different from everyone else, who was, I dunno, more “worldly”.
Jovial.
Yes. In a way that was very pleasant and special. And Nana’s my godmother, and we didn’t have such a close relationship before I got to film her. This film was truly a life experience for me because it got me closer to these ladies. Some of them being relatives, others not. But, to go back to Nana – things happened naturally. She was the one approaching me. She had this line, “I want to understand how young people think through you”. And she was asking me many questions and I was trying to overturn them, to get her to talk. And she would talk, because she felt the need to do so, as a rather lonelier person. There actually was a connection that was born there, which we still keep to this day.
Coming back to the editing – how did you structure the film? I could sense a couple of things – for example, regarding Nana, the way that she is singularized, but also the scenes in which the ladies enter the sauna, which are spaced out at relatively equal intervals of time in the film. (And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you’re the last one to enter it.) How much did the chronology of the events matter?
I can’t say how much chronology guided me, because from one point onward I was unable to distinguish the precise moment when things were happening. At first, I did use it, but afterward, I gave up on a chronological structure. Something else was guiding me.
You see, storytelling is very delicate. You can be inspired by a lot of things that are not necessarily related to the film. And, for me, my experience in photography was quite a big influence – when I was playing around with the sequences, it was like I was playing around with photos, which are imbued with a certain vibe. That’s what I did in the beginning. Obviously, behind all of this, I knew how I was supposed to introduce characters, where to lead them, all of these classical storytelling elements. I know them, but they weren’t the guide itself. In the end, I realized that I had achieved a puzzle-structure – things don’t come one after the other, catching a better shape, and then rising to a crescendo. No – there’s one, and then there’s the other. And things suddenly start working together from a certain point onwards. It wasn’t a mathematical structure. What I had in mind was this interplay between two very strong characters, knowing that I want to pass from one to the other and that they, Cica and Nana, would be the ones to shoulder the film. I was playing around their moods – it’s an edit that passes from one thing to the other depending on mood. And on some themes that I was trying to group together.
At one point I came back to the edit after a couple of months in which I had been doing something else, so, after quite some time, and I tried to structure the film differently, in a way that was much more analytical. After working on this for a couple of weeks I did a screening with some people who are close to me, to see how they felt with this new shape, these being people that I really trust – and I realized that what came out was a much weaker film, because it was a discourse that I had made, through the characters who were no longer themselves. So, it wasn’t good anymore, from this point of view. And so I came back to the older version, which is much more alive.
I couldn’t help but notice that they discuss a lot of feminine experiences throughout the film. And I found your position quite interesting – that of a young man that is listening to elderly women who have lived their lives at a certain moment and place in history and culture, and who now are looking backward at their lives. Either playfully or contemplatively. How was it like to listen to these female experiences?
That week really made me grow up a lot. There are things that I can still remember to date, certain phrases. It was a closed universe – it’s something that they do every year, in a cycle. But the fact that this time I was also existing in that place made things much more dynamic in a way, just like that. Sometimes they act like I’m not there, some other times they don’t. Some things are directly addressed to me. It’s a back-and-forth – there are some things there about how they relate to me, but also some of my own interests, that belonged to whom I was at the time and the questions that I was asking myself. For example, how does one keep a relationship afloat? I’d had all sorts of experiences and I was pretty young. Many of the questions in the film were my own, real curiosities, which were answered by these ladies who had already been through that, in a way or another. But it was interesting to see how they related to a kid and his interests. So, I don’t really know what is mine and what is theirs – but it was often coming in from both sides.
They also have this sort of perspective that is at peace with itself, that says „okay, so this is how things happened and I can summarize them, even joke about them”. And oftentimes they have these observations like „my life was easier, yours wasn’t, she had a bad husband, I didn’t” or vice-versa. There are all these ways of being that are fascinating.
That was all theirs – I wasn’t necessarily interested in the relation between women and men. I was interested in other things that are rather more visible in the second half of the film, which are mainly things surrounding Nana. For the rest of it, it’s their inner dynamics. There comes a time when you remember certain moments in life, that’s for sure. The way you relate to them – now that depends on your education and the way you see life. They have different ways of relating, but they make things seem somehow easy. And, just as you said, behind all of those jokes – you laugh at it, but… there are some very true things behind all of it.
I also think that you were in a really good position because you didn’t have to do all of the accommodation work that a director or cameraman working on a documentary film has to do with their subjects, in order to gain a sense of intimacy. You already had it with these ladies who know you ever since you were a kid. For example – the moment when they make these dirty jokes. It’s usually very hard to access such moments.
I certainly had access to an intimate setting, to a sort of extended family. That’s why it’s so delicate afterwards when you’re editing and choosing what to do and how much to expose. Because, in that intimate space, you afford to do a lot of things that you wish are going to stay in an intimate space. That was the thing that kept me awake at night.
But, regarding what you said – it’s something that I enjoy doing, going to people that are around me, to people with whom I have this type of relationship, family or friends, and to take pictures of them or record them. It’s not about access since I don’t look at it that way – but I am trying to see things differently once the camera is in my hand. You ask yourself other questions at that moment. And most people do – if you’re holding a camera, you start seeing things differently. Maybe in some structures with which you are used to. But that gives me a whole different perspective on the people that surround me and that I know. Or that I think I know. Since, after all, how much do I know them? Cause I meet them in a different way after I take my camera in hand. And then I edit the footage and again, I meet them in a different way. There are so many twists and moments that can change your view on some people. And can you act as you know them, in the end? No, I don’t think so.
For example, my grandmother isn’t the way that she appears in this film. No way! She’s in a million ways. A person is very complex, but the simple fact that you have the chance to see someone in a way in which you’re not used to, it’s something big. But that is owed to the moment in which you had the camera in your hand. Or that’s the way it is for me, at least. To get back on the subject of what makes me take the camera in my hand – I don’t know what it is, specifically, but it’s something instinctive. I have quite a lot of projects that I began that are in various shapes at the moment, some of them are ten years old. When will they materialize? I don’t know. This one did. Others will, too – and maybe this experience will give me the courage to do so. I was doing this in a naive way, in a sense, but without putting any pressure on the process, which is really cool.
A sort of 100% independent film.
As a starting point, yes, it’s certainly that. And I feel very comfortable with it. It’s very cool. Of course, at one point you do want to obtain a sort of financial security from what you’re doing, that also comes up at a point. But it’s not the basis of things. And I never really put it this way, that I would need money to do something personal. I don’t care, at that moment.
The film is going to have its premiere at TIFF, this week. How are you expecting this moment? Your prior experience probably makes things easier, but this is your debut film. What are your expectations?
I don’t know, it’s interesting – being a film that was shot within the family, I’ll be up there with my grandma and mom, and I think that makes me even more nervous than the fact that a film which I shot is being screened. It’s not the only film at TIFF that I’ve worked on, anyway. But there’s also other things, not just the screening itself, that gives me a sort of emotion. It’s a context in which grandma will go up on stage, and she asked us all to wear traditional Romanian blouses, which is like… okay. [laughs] I find it funny. See, there are already things that don’t have anything to do with the film, but it gives birth to other things, other ways of relating. I think that’s the experience of this film itself.
I’ve had one previous, work-in-progress screening at One World Romania and the film was a bit different, a bit longer, and the technical aspects were not that well-defined yet. But it was very bubbly! The ladies came to the screening, almost all of them, bringing along their friends. They got a big laugh out of it.
So they watched the film.
Yes, almost all of them. A work-in-progress, at least. I felt it was important to show it to them. Because, after all, once this is all over I’m going back home and that’s where they are! I couldn’t have done anything they wouldn’t have agreed with. They had fun. And I think it’s cool, too. Before I realized that this film might have its own trajectory, meaning going to some festivals or even being released in cinemas, when I saw that something was taking shape during the edit, I realized that it would be cool to have a screening where all of them would come and walk up on a red carpet, or, well, rug. It’s about having an experience that you never had the chance of living, in your seventy years of life. I found it beautiful that I could give them this gift. I know it sounds cheesy. But it really is going to be beautiful soon, when it will finally happen.
Film critic & journalist. Collaborates with local and international outlets, programs a short film festival - BIEFF, does occasional moderating gigs and is working on a PhD thesis about home movies. At Films in Frame, she writes the monthly editorial - The State of Cinema and is the magazine's main festival reporter.
Title
House of Dolls
Director/ Screenwriter
Tudor Platon
Actors
Ana-Maria Bondar, Aura Chindea, Ileana Craciun, Viorica Craciun, Elena Laslu, Tudor Platon
Country
Romania
Year
2020
Distributor
microFILM