Interview: Julia Loktev (Day Night Day Night)

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, immigrating to the US with her family at age nine, Julia Loktev made her first feature, a graduate thesis film from NYU film school. Moment of Impact, a documentary which she shot and edited without a crew, won numerous awards, including The Directing Audience Award at Sundance, The Grand Prizes at Cinema du Reel and the Munich International Documentary Festival, as well as Best First Feature Nominee and Someone to Watch, the Independent Spirits Awards, Telluride Film Festival, 2006. Loktev also makes multiple-screen video installations in a museum/gallery context and has shown work at Tate Modern in London, P.S.1 in New York, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Bienal de Valencia, Mito Art Tower in Japan. She lives in New York. Day Night Day Night is her first narrative feature.  

Writer/director Julia Koktev’s experimental and controversial film is set in present day New York City, tells the story of She, a 19 year old female suicide bomber, and her mission to bomb Times Square. Koktev’s feature was inspired in part by a story in a Russian newspaper and by a history of Joan of Arc films specifically Robert Bresson’s Procès de Jeanne d’Arc,  Day Night Day Night faithfully follows the chronological order of events over the span of day to night as She prepares to execute her mission. She is a “tabla rosa” without make up and no discernable accent, ethnicity, or family history. She is extremely vulnerable, alone except for the men in masks who take her through the motions of preparation and “makeup” for her mission. Shot in “guerilla fashion” in Times Square, Koktev successfully executes an emotionally and visually explosive story. She manages to take our attention away from the political implications associated with suicide bombers and focuses us rather on the “human experience” of the story.  We helpless watch She, who thrown into a very dangerous situation, is figuratively stripped bare and left to the mercy of an unpredictable reality. 

As a documentary filmmaker and an aficionado of European cinema I was fascinated by the way Loktev executed her film. It has no music and a minimal, at times improvised script. Loktev used an extraordinary sound design track to build the tension, suspense and make the experience all too real. She used the main actresses sounds in part one of the film (the preparation) such as: brushing her teeth, scrubbing her hands and body with soap in the bathtub, and especially when she breathed and exaggerated them to heighten her experience and presence in the hotel room. Shot with a digital camera, hardly any lights but stunning looking, beautifully lit, composed, and art directed. Most of the shots in the interiors were close-ups, extreme close-ups, and medium shots with one high angle shot in the hotel bathroom, which gave these scenes a heightened sense of claustrophobia. Loktev was able to draw out a powerful and emotional performance from an untrained, first time actress and mix her “fictional character” in the very “real and raw” Streets of Times Square. Loktev was able to surround us and meld our emotions with She’s experience so we lived the story not by watching her but by going into and through her.

DNDN is antithetical in its POV and execution compared to Paradise Now and Nikita, films that share a similar subject (suicide bombers and trained assassins). Briefly these other films involve people who we get to know deeply, where they come from, why they do what they do.  These are traditional action dramas where as Loktev’s film is impressionistic with no back-story or formal script to “hang onto” and where we become the main character and viscerally experience the film through her.   

I sat down with Julia Loktev on a beautiful spring afternoon in the garden of the Mud stop Café in the East Village of New York.

Monica Sharf: You started as a sound artist…

Julia Loktev: I did sound and then from sound I decided to add image so it made sense to go to film school. The first things I did were movies for ears. After that I made a feature length documentary and then between that and this feature I did some video installations. When I did the video installations I always thought of myself as a filmmaker and it’s kinda of funny because when I was doing things in an art context people called me a filmmaker and now that I’ve done a fictional film suddenly I’ve become a video artist. It’s always the other that’s a little more exotic. 

MS: Why was your first film a documentary?
JL: I didn’t set out to make a documentary. I made fiction shorts in film school and planned to make fiction films afterward. Then I realized there was a story in my family about my father being hit by a car.   I guess people always say start with what you know and for me that was a beginning. This was a story I could tell in a way that I couldn’t imagine anyone else being able to tell it.  It was a way of trying to use cinema to explore this subject. It was a documentary that looked like a fiction film and now I’m doing a fiction film, some people say looks like a documentary in parts.                            

MS: I was going to ask you about that….it has a very documentary, Cinéma vérité feel about it…
JL: Parts of it do…but it’s a very impressionistic use of camera and sound. When people talk about Cinéma vérité I think about it as capturing reality in the most natural possible way. And that’s not where I’m coming from… I do like having this very structured, very formalistic, expressionistic space and then having the real world come in and mess it up a little bit. So we shot on a real street, in the middle of Times Square in the densest crowd and that does lend it that real element of documentary.  

MS: That’s interesting that you say that…the impression was for me and I’m not sure if that was intentional on your part…that everyone was real and she wasn’t…
JL: I don’t know if she comes across as less real. We were throwing a fictional character into a documentary world so I hope she comes across as “real,” whatever that may mean in the context of cinema. But there’s definitely a documentary world all around her that is functioning according to its own rules and not always bending to the rules of what we were doing.

MS: I want to back up. Can you talk about how you came about this idea? JL: It started with an article I read in a Russian newspaper about a girl walking down a main street in Moscow with a bomb in her bag. What really drew me to the story was the elephant in the living room, the ending. We can’t talk about that. But I can say that it definitely doesn’t turn out how you expect it to. But also I had been walking the same street as this girl was about a week before in Moscow like tourist with a backpack not knowing where I was going and I thought up until you have the explosion from the outside it really looks like the same thing, two girls walking around disoriented. What fascinated me was that under the surface something completely different was going on and I thought is there a way to make a film that gets out what is happening under this girl’s skin that isn’t about how something looks from the outside but feels from the inside.  

MS: Can you talk about the steps that you took…unpeel the onion if you will because it looks like you have many layers. It was helpful to have some initial knowledge on your film and the subject matter before having seen it.
JL: I think it’s really a good way of putting it. This film is an onion with multiple layers, details and I’m even wondering if the film is even better the second time around when you’re not going with the big story and the suspense which you experience so viscerally the first time. A lot of these details come from research of actual suicide bombers and thinking in the most logical way, through the problems, like, these guys need to a hotel room where they’re going to be masked because they can’t go around the hotel corridor wearing masks. There’s a lot of little strange absurd details in the film but they mostly come through a very dogged attempt to think through the task at hand, think through how do these guys go about doing this mission, what are the things they need to do, what is this girl thinking about in this moment, how does she deal with the material world around her.  

MS: It seems as if you researched the actual process about how terrorists go about this – or is it purely from your imagination?
JL: I’ve read more about suicide bombers than any sane person really should…in Russian newspapers, American and Israeli newspapers… there are interviews available with people who set out to be suicide bombers and for one reason or another didn’t go through with it, either the thing didn’t work out or they backed out…these interviews are fascinating because often people reveal the most banal details that are part of this story. For instance, there was one girl who backed out because she felt “she was doing it maybe because my boyfriend broke up with me and when I get to heaven god is going to know I came for something that wasn’t a pure reason.”  And so something like that I would work into the story. Not in a direct way but with little pieces: girls who would talk about the clothing they wore for the mission because there’s always this part of dress up when they are transformed first, to look one way for the video, where they present this image of militancy, to hold a gun, to wear a military jacket before the mission and there’s this second part of the dress up which is the way they are dressed up for the mission itself to blend in.  So in the film they take this very conservative looking girl..this almost clinical but very true scene where these guys select clothes for her to wear to blend in with the other girls in Times Square.  No matter how giant the overall task, extreme events are made up of the most daily details.  And that’s usually what people remember after the fact.  I was struck by when you hear about people talking about 9.11 and some woman who remembered losing her shoe while she was running and for her it will always be associated with that shoe she lost in the street.  

MS: You were talking about the details in this film that were acute…can you set up the two parts to this film: the preparation and the action and maybe discuss your idea in terms of camera composition, lighting, and the long pauses how they added up to show the world you wanted…. 
JL: We thought about the film very much in terms of two different movies, the preparation (which) takes place almost entirely in interiors. You see the outside world very briefly, and mostly overexposed as if it doesn’t exist. Everything is very schematic, simple. We used very Japanese like compositions, everything is de-saturated, as close to black and white as you can get. almost grey blue and white. She’s in this room surrounded by masked men who are going through the last preparation stages, everything seems simple. We wanted to eliminate extra things. In the sound we didn’t want hear the neighbors in the motel room next to her, we wanted to hear the impact that she makes on the world at this moment,. When she switches on a light switch, when she brushes her teeth, we really hear it.  We just focus on her in this isolation and then this plan gets thrown out into the real world and this girl finds herself for the first time in her life in Times Square. I wanted to see and hear Times Square through the head of this girl who’s there for the first time. Times Square is by nature very colorful and so we pushed the color even further to exaggerate it so she experiences it as this assault of color, of images, of sound from all sides.  You hear different languages spoken around her, different street sounds that engulf her…it becomes about a battle of wills between her and the city and she has this very private act that she’s going about but in the middle of the most public space imaginable.  I wanted to capture New York as I’ve rarely seen it on film especially in fiction films.  You don’t feel the energy of the street when I walk out into the city. I hate to say this but I’m a little proud of that that we managed to capture it.  Because most of the time people usually create a really fake New York in movies.  There are these kinds of tropes: the junkie, the hooker in thigh highs. What are fascinating to me are the multicultural aspects of it, the diversity of the faces. I wanted to work with a real street. Look at Times square it’s perfectly, beautifully cast and art directed and at night it’s fantastically lit. So let’s use this incredible resource of this city which people usually avoid and push it to see Times Square from a very subjective POV. . Most of the time if they shoot somewhere like that, they block it off and bring in some of their extras.

MS: Let’s talk about the casting process of the lead actress and actors versus non-actors and then what you were looking for?
JL: I had a page of things that I was looking for in this girl and this was accomplished once I found Luisa. Some of the things were very much about surface: someone ethnically ambiguous, a vulnerability who could pass for 19, a girl who wasn’t a trained warrior, it wasn’t about “Nikita” here. A girl who’s uncomfortable with her affect on objects, on people. It wasn’t necessarily who Luisa was but she was able to embody in a kind of perfect way. I wanted someone whose face is constantly responding in the most microscopic ways…it could be flair in her nostril or some little twitch in her face.  When we held these auditions they were really screen tests. We asked them to say their names without smiling, to say a few things about themselves, but really I knew if I was interested before they started speaking because I was watching them listen to my instruction. And I was watching the expressions on their face as they listened. Did they appear to be thinking, did they appear to be processing this information. How much did I learn about them in those few seconds of silence when I was speaking.  There were 650 wrong girls and one right one came in when I was at my wits ends. She was working as a nanny and saw a flyer on a lamppost.  She missed the auditions wrote me an email and said “if you haven’t found someone by chance I thought I’d write, but I don’t want to be an actress but am interested in film and the whole creative process.” It turned out perfect because she became a collaborator on the film as a whole. Like when we had to go location scouting for toilets we went together, clothes shopping even recording sound effects…After the fact Luisa did all her own Foley effects, all the parts where we didn’t have her breathing in close-up, she did her breathing, and sounds.  She really enjoyed learning about filmmaking I think she could even make a movie now if she wanted to …I would let her watch takes which I know is ill advised but she was a real collaborator so it really made sense.  

MS:…and the idea of a Tabla Rosa, non celebrity…
JL: …I wanted someone you didn’t know, someone who was a blank slate, a blank screen someone the audience could project your fears and your fantasies onto. She doesn’t say much except “please” and “thank you” and you don’t get to learn about her family stuff but you learn her through your face. There were other people I cast on the street, for instance there was this guy who comes along and hits on her towards the end of the film. I cast him in Times Square the day before, he was fantastic, so open, and…he improvised off my script and adjusted his performance when I gave him directions. It kind of makes it fun…Nothing against professional actors I’ll probably gladly work with professional actors again but there is something thrilling about working with actual people…the film is a mix, there are s professional actors and a lot of people we cast off the street. There is this element of unpredictability and improvisation, which makes it fun for me to get up in the morning and come to the set.  

MS: It seems like you and Luisa have a really good rapport?
JL: Yes which enabled us to make the film.  It’s strange, I just thought of this now, in my documentary, which is also extremely, extremely close and intimate, with my mom in it. People always asked me about our relationship and it was our closeness that allowed me to shove the camera very far into my mother’s face. In this case I think it was this kind of intimacy, closeness and trust that Luisa and I developed before the shoot. I mean it was very much we alone communicating in this very private language surrounded by the public of the crew. And Luisa really allowed me to really push her.  So you can try things that work and have a sense of humor to laugh at the things that don’t work…  

MS: How do you determine who your DP is, what kind of relationship do you have with them, and how much do you control in terms of the vision – or does the person collaborate with you?   
JL: My idea of collaboration with anyone is I always somebody who doesn’t just do what I want but can show me things I had no idea I wanted. But I come at it already with a very strong idea of where I’m starting.  I came to Benoit, (Benoît Debie) my DP.  I already had the images of the two different halves and how I wanted it to look.  

MS: How did you find him?
JL: Looking for a DP was probably the second hardest thing after looking for the actress. It took us months and months and months because I wanted somebody who was able to work incredibly visually, who was and spontaneously in this very not controlled environment of Times Square. I interviewed DPs who freaked out when I said we were working in Times Square and we’re not blocking the street off and we’re not throwing up a silk and you probably won’t even get a bounce board, but I want it to be actually visually expressive at this moment. I really was attracted to Benoit because of his work on Irréversible, which is a stunning looking film, there were no film lights that it was all lit with practicals and the lighting truck had a bunch of light bulbs and he was spraying light bulbs and I said OK, this is my man.  And he had never been to the states. We only had the money to bring him over once. So he came over to do the film, shot the test, shot the film and went back. He was fantastic. But when we were looking for a DP we sort of joked that we were using the Village Voice syndicated sex column “Savage Love.” And he had to have (the same) set of criteria for a good lover was “GGG”  “Good, Giving, Game.” We wanted someone who was visually stellar, who very open and collaborative and game. Benoit was someone I could say in the middle of a shot, “let’s move here.”  We would have some idea of where we wanted to go but we could change and say “let’s keep rolling and following her down the hallway and see where it goes” and then it would blow out and the camera would stop and Benoit would say “I like” in his very French accent.  This was very fun.  There was something so empowering about this … that I knew that at any point I could move Benoit, I was like a dance partner, I actually physically move him to the side or communicate through gestures or gently nudge him physically without having to say anything and he would adjust perfectly. Or I could say in the middle of a shot “Run Benoit.” And Benoit would start running with the camera for a block and then he would say “Oh that was fun.”  

MS: Let’s talk about the close ups, how you shot some of the scenes…
JL: We wanted to be at eye level with her, but not always looking in her eyes, there was a lot of profiles, and sometimes at the back of her head but mostly at her which was very difficult in the middle of the street where it’s impossible to compose with so many unpredictable things happening all around, the best you can do is sort of aim and stick to her and try to find her in this crowd.  I didn’t know how this was going to work. I was almost afraid we were going to lose her story not is able to follow her expressions, and we would end up following some guy down the street. I was happy that turned out… 

MS: The idea of a bomber is so loaded on many levels and made it ambiguous. You focused more on the vulnerability of the person and I assumed the uncomfortablity of it and I became her at least that was my impression of it…
JL: I’ve heard people say that and that’s one of the things that I’m really happy about. Your discomfort as a viewer is a new translation of her discomfort and her anxiety as she’s going through that. At least that is what I hoped…it is very easy to make people feel afraid of a suicide bomber; I hope this film doesn’t prey on those insecurities by making her this monster we’re afraid of.  It’s more interesting that you experience her constant struggle with faith, doubt, and hesitation. She has this goal, which she believes is absolutely right, and is meant to be but things get away from that, either from within or without.  

***SPOILER ALERT***

MS: That moment when she is ready to press the button and you have the separation between her and people’s hands and they seemed to have joined in her process. How did you shot that?
JL: I did want a sense that this was not just an act that will affect her but the people around her. They’re drawn into this private drama she is creating. I didn’t want to resort to easy “tropes” like “now we’re going to see a pregnant lady, or now we’re going to see this man with a child or a man walking up with his coffee…” So I thought how do we not get caught up in that cliché and at the same time convey the other human beings around her. So let’s show everybody’s hands at this moment because when people stand at an intersection everybody’s hands are doing something different. Somebody’s reaching for their cell phone, fiddling with a ticket in their hand, or scratching their nose…at the same time she’s doing a gesture, she fiddling with this volume adjuster on an MP3 player that’s the detonator. And it’s a gesture that’s just as tiny as all these other gestures. So we decided to express it in those close-ups of their hands and hers.

MS: Did you work spontaneously in terms of camera positions or did you have a detailed shot list?
JL: Usually I knew the scenes we were shooting that day and of course I had an overall formal idea of how it would go and the first thing when we started to work on a scene we would try to think through it with the camera. And I didn’t have coverage; most scenes were shot only in one angle. You find the shot with the actors and often we didn’t rehearse we started shooting and the first takes we would be fine-tuning the right camera movement and the performance. I like to shoot with as few people around me as possible. I would always say before shooting “who’s here that needs to be here and who’s here that doesn’t need to be here.” I liked to be right next to the camera because if it needed to be six inches from her face, I needed to be six inches from her face with it.   

MS: You were really able to accomplish a lot with very little…
JL: When I wrote the treatment I imagined all the ways that I could be forced to change it…someone saying “hmmmm that’s a flashy little premise there a female suicide bomber” and then the redemptive ending the woman with the baby in the intersection. I want to make a film I want to make. I need just enough money to make it.  I don’t want to get caught up in a long development process, to have to answer to anyone. So I submitted the film to Cineart at the Rotterdam Film Festival and I was very lucky to be selected because they choose something like 40 projects out of 800. It’s like speed dating with international financiers and I had never pitched anything in my entire life to anyone let alone 30 producers. Luckily I was lead to ZDF, this German Television Channel that is partnered with Arte and they put up the majority of the budget.  

MS: Could I ask you how much?
JL: The whole film was about $350,000 with the final film print. People were paid, not a lot but they were paid. And it bought me the freedom to make the film I wanted to make. I think that’s incredible to do that especially with your first film to have that kind of freedom to screw it all up.  

MS: How long did it take?
JL: It took a couple of years but the shooting took a month. We shot in a linear way. We didn’t have any re-hoots. No that’s a lie.  The very final shot in the film, which I can’t really talk about, it’s not the most dramatic shot in the film but I shot that myself, over and over and over again until I got it right. 

MS: What do you want people to walk out saying about this movie?
JL: For me the most interesting interview or i conversation is (with) someone who felt they saw a different movie from the one I made. Because if you make a film that everyone walks out feeling or saying the same that’s not interesting. Some of the best stuff I hear is when people say to me “it’s two weeks later and I’m still thinking about it or arguing about it with my friend.” That’s the kind of movie I get inspired by and that’s the kind of movie I aspire to make.

IFC First Take releases Day Night Day Night exclusively in NY today with a wider release in the weeks to come.