Claudia Llosa & Samanta Schweblin Interview Fever Dream

Claudia Llosa & Samanta Schweblin Interview: Fever Dream

Fever Dream director Claudia Llosa and author Samanta Schweblin chat about the process of adapting the surreal novel into a Netflix film.

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Claudia Llosa & Samanta Schweblin Interview Fever Dream

Based on the internationally acclaimed novel by Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream is a deeply surreal film by award-winning director Claudia Llosa (The Milk of Sorrow) arriving October 13 on Netflix. Told from the perspective of a woman named Amanda (María Valverde), who may or may not be hallucinating her way through a fever, the narrative centers on parental fears and environmental dangers.

While visiting Argentina with her daughter, Amanda meets the mysterious Carola (Dolores Fonzi) and her son. The two women are immediately drawn to one another, but Carola’s strange history combined with Amanda’s own sense of caution in her unfamiliar surroundings combine to create an atmosphere of tension and poison. The winding narrative grows ever more frenetic, eventually leading to Amanda retelling the story on her deathbed at the start of the film.

Llosa and Schweblin spoke to Screen Rant about how they collaborated on the script, and which aspects of the novel they focused on adapting for the film. The interview below has been translated from Spanish and edited for clarity.

Claudia Llosa & Samanta Schweblin Interview Fever Dream

Screen Rant: What spoke to you about the novel Fever Dream that inspired you to turn it into a film?

Claudia Llosa: I remember reading Fever Dream and having an almost physical reaction that was so strong and piercing. I felt an immediate emotional connection and desire to make it a film. This had never happened to me before, and I didn’t read the novel with the intention of finding material to adapt. For me, it was a discovery in every sense of the word.

If I could point to clear reasons for that feeling, first, I would say that I wanted to explore the fear portrayed in the novel when it comes to the “rescue distance.” That’s the name Samanta gives to the sensation every parent experiences, which speaks to the never-ending struggle to find the balance between giving your child their freedom and protecting them from the world. You want them to grow and enjoy life, but at the same time, you want to be there the second they need you. And that same feeling is reflected in the parent. They want to keep enjoying and exploring their own life while discovering more about themselves, yet they can’t be distracted from their child in order to be there when needed. That feeling seems to be so universal and so human.

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Beyond that, I intuited how that inner voice [of the narrator] could be adapted – it opened a new world for me on the visual level; imagining how to unveil this story visually and through the ways, the narration would dialogue with both the protagonist and the audience.

Without a doubt, those were the two things that compelled me to adapt this work and beg Samanta to join me.

Samanta, what was the collaborative process like for you, and what was the most difficult part of translating your words to film?

Samanta Schweblin: We worked for almost a year over Skype, writing 4 or 5 hours a day in a very methodical and consistent manner. It was a new experience for me because I had never adapted my work for the cinema – nor had I ever collaborated with someone else in the writing. I also didn’t know if I would be able to distance myself enough, because I felt so close to Fever Dream and I was sure that an adaptation required the ability to renounce aspects of the material that wouldn’t translate well.

I was filled with doubts and fears about what might happen, and it ended up being a bittersweet experience in the best sense. Firstly, because Claudia is very talented and was very generous with me, so I learned new things day by day. Sometimes we would finish our work, and I would sit down to write down notes about our discussions or scenes – or even disparate ideas that came to me thanks to our conversation, which could be applied to film or literature.

The joy of writing with a partner also helped erase the borders between us, to the point that I sometimes lost track of what I had written and what Claudia had. There was a raw generosity and openness in our work where ownership was lost, which was lovely. I was able to rediscover the story, which was at once the same and yet new because the language of cinema is totally different from literature. That was delightful.

Claudia Llosa: That was exactly my experience.

As soon as Amanda and Carola meet, they are drawn to each other by an almost supernatural force. What made Maria and Dolores right for the parts?

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Claudia Llosa: They represent two ways to understand motherhood, or to understand a mother’s relationship to the world. There’s a feeling that one holds the key to a secret the other needs to reaffirm and rediscover herself – to be reborn. At the same time, there is the possibility that Carola is a projection of Amanda’s in her fevered state, representing her fears and fantasies alike.

That reflection of motherhood and rebirth had to be present in the physical performances of each actress, who must have opposite but complementary energies. There’s a very mysterious aura surrounding María Valverde [who plays Amanda] that is both delicate and controlled – which are two very different elements that are hard to unite. Meanwhile, Dolores Fonzi [who plays Carola] is something of a hurricane, full of life and yet containing a mysterious abyss that connects her back to Amanda.

For me, the back and forth between them had to be full circle in a relationship that’s about replenishment and rediscovery. And it was a privilege to witness. The generosity of those actresses is giving themselves over to their roles with everything they had.

Samanta, your novel speaks of a universal problem in poetic terms, but the story and film are uniquely Argentinian in their setting. How much research did you need to do to place the world of your story, or did you focus more on the surrealism of the narrative?

Samanta Schweblin: I did a lot of research, and I contacted scientists. Of course, none of this is seen in the novel because the novel is told from the perspective of someone who does not understand the dangers they are witnessing. The novel isn’t about that necessarily, but it was very important to me that the events in my story be possible, and that there was nothing in the narrative that wasn’t realistic.

I spoke to one scientist in particular who worked with me to explain how the characters might feel in these situations. So, my opening line, “They’re like worms,” comes from the fact that when one’s blood rushes to their stomach, their extremities fall asleep. Your lips, fingers, toes might feel like worms. Even if it doesn’t seem scientific, it’s a tactile description that grounds the world of the novel in realism.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/fever-dream-netflix-claudia-llosa-samanta-schweblin-interview/

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