Over the past nine years, writer/director Sebastián Silva has completed his checklist, by premiering a film in all five categories of the Sundance narrative feature program. The winsome The Maid. The surehanded Crystal Fairy and The Magical Cactus (read review). The disturbing Magic Magic (read review). The polarizing Nasty Baby. Each was more unpredictable than the last. On top of all that, this year’s TYREL is among his most mature and unique films to date. Ever the provocateur, Silva toys with our expectations, all while crafting an elegantly authentic portrait of toxic masculinity.
Tensions build and dissipate like tides while his camera glides through a mesmerizing weekend of debauchery. Like a medical check-list for a really sick patient, TYREL holds up a mirror to our cultural wounds, and accomplishes more with subtlety and simplicity than most issue-driven films. In this interview, we discuss the intentions, advantages and challenges that helped make TYREL such a powerful film. Plus his love life. Here’s my sit down with him during the fest.
Dylan Kai Dempsey is a New York-based writer/filmmaker. His reviews have been published in Vanity Fair, Variety, No Film School, Nonfiction.fr and IONCINEMA.com. He’s also developing a graphic novel as well as his own award-winning pilot script, #Likes4Lucas. He began as a development intern at Bonafide Productions in L.A. and Rainmark Productions in London.
