Although it’s been decades since her child-actor career has been behind her, Dana Rogoz still seems to be fighting off the image of the little girl who grew up on the television screens of an entire country – and Mo, her first leading role in a feature film, seems to be her artistic coming of age. Together with her partner, Radu Dragomir, who is here directing his feature film debut, they discuss an extremely contentious topic: sexual abuse and rape. 

Inspired by a real case – that of a Romanian professor who tried to sexually coerce a female student, in exchange for a passing grade on an exam – Mo is a slow-burning and painful exploration of the various psychological and power dynamics that set the context for abuse, a film that is, at times, as hard to watch as it is necessary, in its role as a catalyst for larger social discussion in Romania. Both in the film and in our discussion, Dana and Radu (who oftentimes takes a step back, aware of the need of letting a woman express herself on the topic) prefer to discuss less about the film itself, rather than about the various problems surrounding these issues and the reaction of the audience members, trying to demystify a variety of stereotypes regarding sexual abuse and the social attitude that is surrounding it.

I would like to start out by asking you about the script – as far as I understand, a first draft already existed in 2014, predating the #MeToo movement in spite of sharing some of its main issues. Since the script differs from the news story that inspired it, how did you work on adapting it? And what other kinds of documentation did you use in this process?

RD: We initially started out from a piece of news, yes. In the end, we only used a single line of dialogue from the video that started the scandal, which is – „You really don’t know why you are here?”. (From that point onwards, the script went in a different direction). It’s a phrase that makes the victim think that she has given some sort of “wrong signals”, making her believe that she is also guilty for the abuse, that the predator was entitled to being aggressive. I realized this when I saw a study that was conducted in 2016 at an European level, which confronted people with the following question: “Is rape justified in certain situations?”, such as, when the victim drinks alcohol, if she willingly goes to his apartment, if she dresses in a “provocative” manner and so on. Well, according to that study, Romania is the top-ranking country, with 55% of respondents answering “yes”, compared to the European average, which was less than 30%. This made me realize that this phrase which blames the victim can be directly correlated to the results of this study, which makes us aware of the fact that more than half of the population might think that you are guilty of being abused, and so, what’s happening to you is perfectly justified.

DR: I mean, according to this argument, you’re also to blame, and so, this way you can find excuses for the rapist or the aggressor. This was a source of frustration, of outrage that really made us want to discuss this subject. Somehow, we both felt that – and even more so now, after countless Q&A discussions – that there is a difference between reading some news on the internet (as was the case with the articles that inspired the script) and watching a film about it. And I think we’ve gotten used to seeing all sorts of horrific things on television and that makes us see these problems with a sort of detachment. So, you don’t get to truly empathize or to relate to the situation.

And our film offers this chance – it gives you time, it gives you all the details, the entire story, so it’s an occasion to see how this sort of encounter evolves, what its underlying mechanics are like.

For example, we wanted to work against this stereotypical image of the abusive professor, who is nothing more than a very strict, authoritarian man who must be avoided at all costs. Even though the man in the real case was such a person, we wanted to show a more complex situation so we turned the character into a very charming man that is well-cultured, who uses these resources to dominate and seduce his victims. And the girl, Mo, is not the kind of young woman that would say yes to an offer like “if you sleep with me you will pass the exam”, she would probably react by saying “get the fuck out of here”. She’s a rebellious girl that has a lot of attitude and comebacks.

RD: And since the story takes place in a university, we had to do some research in regards to that. Since the script has the two main female characters fail an exam because they were caught cheating, we investigated different methods through which students cheat on their exams nowadays – and it’s a widespread phenomenon in Romania. That’s one of the reasons why we had the best guy in the entire class be a cheater.

His character, too, has a moment where he “tries his luck” and tries to sexually proposition the main characters.

RD: Someone asked me if that guy is the future professor Ursu – and he might well be. He seems set to become a teaching assistant and then a teacher. Maybe in 30 years, he would be a different man, but still, you never know.

DR: Even if he is inoffensive now and not very cunning. He tries this sort of flirt. We played along with all sorts of limits while we made the film – and we had many men come to us after the screenings and admit that they had identified with the male characters, to a certain degree. And that’s exactly because they didn’t realize that, in many situations, what for them was a simply flirt or an attempt at seduction, it was in fact abuse, simply because they were not aware of the limits.

How did you construct the character of Mo? Where does her existential confusion come from? She strikes me as a character that is tempestuous, impulsive and somewhat hedonistic.

RD: Mo is a very lost girl – she reminds me of myself when I was a student, at the end of the eighties, studying electronics. I had no idea what I was doing there and I deeply needed someone to give me some good advice. A former classmate of mine remembered something I had said one morning (I don’t remember it): I was dressed in this Peruvian poncho and wasn’t taking any notes in class when I suddenly turned to him and asked, “What the fuck am I doing here?”. I didn’t put this into the film because it would have felt forced, but it guided me. I was lucky enough to find my own path in the Bucharest theater scene, but not everyone is as lucky. Sometimes you need someone to guide you, like a teacher that can become a mentor – but here we have the opposite case: first, he manipulates you, and then he turns you into a victim.

DR: Exactly, he profits from the vulnerability that one has at that specific age. I think all of us have been at that specific moment in our lives, especially during our first years of college: you’re still a kid and you don’t know what kind of adult you would like to be.

And Mo’s right in the middle of this phase. She is looking for some answers to questions like “Who am I? What do I truly want? What is it that life can offer me?”

And Ursu knows this and uses it to abuse her. We also tried to build an area of her character that is very punk, which doesn’t relate to just the music that she listens to – she is really out there and it’s intrinsic, it makes her express herself using means that are more aggressive, more masculine. There’s a lot of things that also come from her relationship with her father – she loses him when she is 14, and this trauma reawakens when she leaves home for her studies, beginning her new adult life and realizing she’s all on her own. Her relationship with her mother isn’t particularly good, either, they don’t seem to be truly communicating with each other. So, Mo is this character who constantly feels the need to defend herself, to create these aggressive masks.

RD: And I think that what also matters in her construction is that, in spite of all these barriers, she is in fact extremely vulnerable. When she is in his bedroom, you can see that all her power just fades away – she pleads with him and regresses to a child. And that is where I wanted to arrive, to the moments where her guard fails.

DR: I believe that happens earlier, in fact – when she has that duet with her teacher and you can see that she is listening to him in good faith. Some cynical adults would call this naivete, but I see it as some sort of innocence that I regret having lost. It’s a sort of hope that you can live some of your dreams, and she is feeling this, she is open to experiences and she truly believes the professor when he tells her that she can do anything she wants to, she actually believes that she is in the middle of having that encounter. But the professor takes off his mask in the following sequence.

RD: And that is where everything falls apart. Nothing remains of his mask.

I assume that it was difficult to shoot the rape scene, especially since it’s a single take shot. How did you work with it, during the shooting?

DR: The shooting of the script took place in chronological order, in regards to the apartment scenes – and this helped all of us. We did one month of rehearsals with the script, but we didn’t work on a predetermined framing of the shots, but rather, we let the space and its atmosphere organically define our movements. And regarding that scene, of course, we knew what had to be shot, but we had to work on the formal aspects of the scene. After we managed that, we could work on emotionally charging the scene, and I was aware of the fact that it would be an extremely difficult task. We took six rounds of shots for the scene, and throughout the process, I trusted Radu, together with Răzvan [Vasilescu], but the two of us also trusted each-other. I felt at ease with him, and that was very important and helpful. I didn’t really have a lot of experience in regards to scenes with nudity, but in those moments I simply saw my own body as an instrument and so I avoided being prudish about it.

And, well, one of the things that also relates to this scene is that fact that many people imagine themselves the phenomenon of rape as being something that is necessarily violent – even I used to think, until a couple of years ago, that a rape can only be proven if the victim has bruises, if there is evidence that you were held against your own will, that you were threatened with a knife… But in over 60% of the cases, according to certain psychologists, rape is not violent. And so, it’s extremely hard for victims to prove that they have been raped – and not just to others, but sometimes also to themselves.

RD: I also had a parasitic thought at one point concerning this scene: meaning, I was wondering if it would be possible for me to cut it out of the film. And if this would have been possible, then it would have all been for naught. Obviously, the answer is no – this scene simply has to be in the film for it to work. Before our world premiere in Sarajevo, we had been invited by a film festival from China, but they told us that, to be able to screen the film there, they would have to cut out that scene, or to blur it or cover it up, which I found funny –

DR: We imagined that they would superimpose an emoji over the, you know… (laughs)

RD: – but we told them that it’s simply not possible. Of course, we would have enjoyed being there, it was an A-list festival, but the film simply didn’t make any sense without that scene, you couldn’t understand the narrative without it.

Regarding the relationship between Mo and Vera, which reminds of Otilia and Găbița from 4, 3, 2, I think the film also brings into discussion the topic of female solidarity, of alternative means of support that women create among themselves in the absence of other structures.

DR: It depends whom you’re asking – some audience members thought that there isn’t enough solidarity: for example, the woman whom the professor is dating in the beginning simply leaves the girls there without warning them beforehand, her attitude says “deal with it”. Others accuse Vera of not reacting fast enough to prevent what happened. But I think that there is a very strong friendship between the two girls – the kind of friendship that is innate to that specific age, and she is also there for Mo until the very end.

RD: And she also physically stops the professor during the assault, by holding him back. Otherwise, he would have never stopped.

DR: Of course! Many people, from the comfort of their seats in the cinema, say that “Oh, but I would have gone into the room much faster, I would have grabbed something and hit him across the head with it!”. Hello, this is not a superhero movie!

RD: It’s the same as football: people watching the match on television, sitting in their armchairs and thinking “Oh boy, I would have certainly scored that goal, how did that idiot miss it?”. But, when you are actually there, facing the situation… in the end, it’s a good thing that Vera managed to intervene.

DR: And, of course, Vera warns Mo about what could happen – of course she is also aware of the fact that Mo is an adult and that if she truly wants something, she won’t be the one to oppose it, but only if it’s a conscious choice. Her intervention is a very powerful act. And, in the end, Vera has another very beautiful gesture, which many female spectators have noticed: she goes to get Mo out of there and simply gives her a hug, without saying anything to her, she is not chastising her. Oftentimes we hurt people even though we have the best intentions in mind, we unconsciously blame them – some women who came to us after the screenings said that they didn’t say anything to their parents after their own experiences with assault because they were afraid of questions like “But why were you there?”. In moments like these, you don’t need someone to blame you for what has happened: Vera simply takes Mo into her arms and shows her that she is there for her.

Talking about Răzvan Vasilescu, how did you work together with him? You have very good chemistry on screen.

DR: He was one of my teachers in acting school, at ATF, and that’s how we first met.

He didn’t know who I was because he doesn’t own a television set and he isn’t interested in shows, and for me that was marvelous – he was the only person in that school who could see me for who I was.

And for me, meeting him was the most valuable experience that I had during my studies, and he remembered me after I graduated. And so, when Radu offered him the role alongside me, he was very happy about the opportunity. It wasn’t difficult to work with him, on the contrary, he was very supportive of me on set and he helped me with a lot of advice – and for me, he was like a safety net. He is a very experienced actor and a very talented one, and this allows him to be somewhat relaxed. He also felt that there was something large at stake – that it’s my first leading role, that it’s Radu’s debut feature, that it’s a very personal film – and he tried to relieve some of the tension that would build upon the set. “It’s all going to be fine, you shouldn’t care!” He believed in us and that helped us a lot in constructing a film that is morally honest and sincere. And he also likes the final product a lot – he says that it’s a very rare kind of film.

RD: And on set, he used to say to me, “Don’t think that you’re creating this masterpiece – you’re making a decent film.” (laughs) “As long as we don’t make fools of ourselves, we’re making an okay film.”

Finally, what kind of reactions did the film elicit, especially from the audience?

DR: It’s a very large and complicated discussion. Onset, we did things instinctively, using things that we were aware of, but not in a way that was very definitive or clear-cut. The conceptual part of the film became clear to us only after we had finished shooting, in 2017, when the #MeToo movement broke into the mainstream. There were some replicas in Romania too, some of them relating to academia, and that’s when we realized that hey, look how many people actually want to talk about this! And until the film had its premiere, we unfortunately also witnessed the disappointing fact that the #MeToo wave didn’t have an impact in Romanian society, at least not a real one. It went by pretty quickly and only in small circles. It was only after we launched the film did we realize how big the problem was, in fact: after every single screening we had at least one woman coming forward to say that she had experienced something similar.

RD: And some of them even dared to say it in the audience.

DR: They took the microphone and said it in front of everyone! And some of them had never even talked about it, ever! And they were saying that the film had made them want to discuss it. So yes, in this context, this might seem to be a dogmatic film, that capitalizes upon a certain moment in society to discuss these issues, but we started working on this a long time before, from an almost personal imperative – meaning, to understand this topic, to see what its nuances are, to avoid any kinds of stereotypes. On the topic of consent and the rape scene, the reactions in the audience were polarized – while for me it is very clear that this is rape, for another spectator, it’s clearly not rape. It’s shocking! We’ve even had women with an upper education tell us that what happens in the scene isn’t rape, because Mo says “no” much too late.

That’s why we left the entire scene unfold from the beginning to the end: although for us no means no, there are certain preconceived notions in society. Like, for example, that from a certain point onward, a man “deserves” sex, or that women no longer have the right to say no. That’s why Mo apologizes to the teacher in the scene because she’s been socialized to believe that she shouldn’t go to a man’s house because, “what was she expecting to happen?”. And she clearly indicated that she isn’t consenting to it.

But the film doesn’t offer any verdicts or solutions, it’s rather more an open invitation to talk about it.

And that’s a reason why we appreciated all the reactions that we had at the Q&As, even the ones which were accusing the female protagonists. Later on, we were told, some audience members kept on talking about the film after they left the cinema and fought about it, or we found out about mothers who had taken their daughters to watch the film together. I believe that we have been ashamed of talking about certain topics for too long, and that’s the reason why we are here: feeling ashamed about sex-related topics made us arrive in this situation.

Flavia Dima

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.