Elbert van Strien Interview Marionette

Elbert van Strien Interview: Marionette

Director Elbert van Strien talks his latest film Marionette, how it took nearly three decades to get it made, and all the existential questions in it.

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Elbert van Strien Interview Marionette

Director Elbert Van Strien’s Marionette follows a woman named Marianne Winter (Thekla Reuten) who moves to a Scottish town to work at a psychiatric facility. There, she comes into contact with a young patient, Manny (Elijah Wolf), who claims he can control events with his mind. Soon, Marianne’s life is spiraling out of control as she begins to question everything about her reality.

Screen Rant talked with Van Strein about the mind-bending film, including how it took nearly three decades to get made and all of the existential questions in it.

Screen Rant: Marionette is based on a short film you made all the way back in 1993. Can you talk about how you were finally able to make it into a feature-length film?

Elbert Van Strien: It was quite a bumpy road to get it made. The short was my graduation film and at the time I already knew I had to turn it into a feature film one day. That chance came in 2004 when it was picked up by a producer in the UK. I met Ben Hopkins and together we wrote a couple of drafts. The biggest chunk of the script was there, but somehow we got stuck and we could never find a satisfying ending. The option expired in 2007, but I had to negotiate for three years to get the script back.

So in 2010, I started writing again and while making another film I found the ending, so the script was ready in early 2012. However, at that point, the doors were closed at the Dutch Film Fund for an English language feature. So we had to look elsewhere. At the time my other film Two Eyes Staring was picked up by Charlize Theron and Summit Entertainment for a remake. This gave me new connections in the US and there was an American producer who liked Marionette and who sent it out to a couple of financiers. At Toronto 2012 the first one said yes. It was like financed in an hour: “We are the greenlight committee, we say yes” – $9M on the table.

They came up with an insane cast list with A-list stars and on top of it was Matt Damon (at that point the script still had a male protagonist). I was like, “Okay, sure, but that’s never gonna happen. But if you want to go out to him, have a go.” To everyone’s surprise, Matt Damon wanted to meet me! So they flew me to New York and I sat down with him and the first thing he said was, “I have read this three times and I want to do it.” So we had a great meeting, he is a very nice guy, and after an hour I left thinking, “He is in.” I called the producer, everyone in the clouds. But then, I don’t know what happened. Matt never said yes, but also never said no. And one month later we decided to move on.

In the meantime, there was this incredible heat around the project with agencies wanting to call me to represent me and propose actors for supporting roles. In the months after I slowly started to realize that in the hands of the American producer the film would cost $12M, so I asked how we would fill the gap. The only solution was ripping out pages. I proposed to shoot it in Europe instead, so we could make it for less money, but for some reason, they were not open to the idea (the film was eventually made for $6M). Then I also found out that apparently, the American financier had said that, “Schrödinger’s Cat is too complicated for an American audience.” Which is nonsense of course, but at that point, I became very worried. I knew I had to make a bold decision and walk away from the money and make the film in Europe instead.

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It was a tough decision, as you never know if it really works out. Later on, I decided to flip the gender, again a lot of heat around the project as it was considered a new project at agencies. We had a British star attached in 2015, again the financing was really close, but her team didn’t support it and we were not allowed to publish her name in the magazines in Cannes. Buyers went like, “Do you have her?” The financing fell through again and we had to start all over, which we did in 2016, building it up in the old-fashioned way with subsidies and equity. The Dutch Film Fund and other funding bodies came on board and we shot the film in late 2018, had post in 2019, and were ready to release early 2020, and then the pandemic started.

How did Marionette’s story blossom from the short film into the feature-length film?

Elbert Van Strien: The main idea is the same – the high concept idea of a boy who can control the psychiatrist’s future. But the short was more like a rough diamond, a great concept but the story felt rushed. The feature gave enough time to really flesh out these deep questions around fate and free will and God and reality. There is a third act that was never there in the short, and it had no flashbacks. The short had a typical short film ending so that has changed as well.

What stuck with you about Marionette that made you want to tell the full story nearly 30 years later?

Elbert Van Strien: At the time it was my reflection on my religious upbringing. I can still remember the debates about predestination my father had. But these themes and questions stayed with me over the years and almost became like an obsession for me. We are at crossroads of universes many times in our lives, what kind of education, what kind of job, which partner are you really going for and have a family with.

I was aware of all those decisions very much and realized that with each decision a universe would die. It meant a huge responsibility and it sort of paralyzed me. So I had to dive deep into these themes to find out for myself how to relate to these questions. And with Marionette I have found my answer and come full circle.

Elbert van Strien Interview Marionette

Did Marionette change a lot over the years in terms of story or has it largely stayed the same?

Elbert Van Strien: We developed it in 2004 – early 2005. It was difficult to find an emotionally satisfying ending. This was the biggest challenge and it took me almost two years. When I found it I told Ben, my co-writer, but he emailed me, “No this doesn’t work.” But I knew it would, so I wrote it and send it to him and Ben was stunned that it did. Only years later he told me he had cried while reading it!

The script was ready in early 2012. I only flipped the gender later on and that was it. It’s maybe a funny detail that when we flipped the gender, but we decided to change nothing, just her name. I think when you would write a female psychiatrist, subconsciously you would create her in a different way. We were surprised to see that all male behavior worked really well and made her much more interesting.

There’s a lot of philosophical discussions in the film, from Marianne mentioning early on that she feels like she’s coming to Scotland from another universe and the group discussion of Schrodinger’s cat. Did you meticulously layout these hints to kind of nod towards the ending of the film or was that a more organic process?

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Elbert Van Strien: You always start with a story idea, and from that, all themes and questions evolve organically. It just doesn’t work when you start with only a theme, at least not for me. Then it becomes constructed and lifeless. I trust my instinct that stories always reflect your deeper issues and in the end some kind of emotional wound.

So you start writing and more or less discovering what it is really about. Once you know what it is about you try to deepen the debate, so at that point, it is a rational and intuitive process at the same time. The idea of Schrodinger’s cat was there already in the short, but very implicit. Quite late I realized it was crucial to both the philosophical side of the story as well as the inner logic of the story.

The “Creepy Child” horror trope has become common over years – how do you differentiate a character like Manny in such a crowded field?

Elbert Van Strien: I tried to stay away from the evil child movie trope. It would have been very easy to go that direction and make Manny really evil. But then I would have lost all the debate about fate and free will. By turning God into a disturbed child I think, I hope I’ve turned the creepy child horror trope into something deeper and mythical.

Marionette asks a pretty big question – are we in charge of our fates or do we just have to follow the path laid before us? It doesn’t really give us an answer one way or another. Did you always want your film to end ambiguously?

Elbert Van Strien: Well, you know, I don’t have an answer. These are age-old questions and I doubt if they’ll ever be answered. When you look at physics, they are still debating. Einstein believed the universe is deterministic, but according to quantum physics, there is a place for coincidence and free will.

But in the film, I do give my view on the whole debate which I hope will help how to relate to those big questions. For me, perception is key in this. Or like Einstein said, “The most important decision we make is whether we live in a hostile or friendly universe.”

This question also seems to have some relevance in your own life, considering the journey you’ve taken with this film. How does it feel to finally realize this vision emotionally?

Elbert Van Strien: Oh yes. You can imagine that at one point I was really starting to think that there is this little boy out there preventing this film from ever being made. “You want to make a film about God? It will never happen.” But we did! It was a real hero’s journey. So you can imagine we’re enormously satisfied and fulfilled we did make it work. But I could write a book about the bumpy road and all the insane things that happened along the way.

What inspired you to begin Marionette as a traditional horror film? It’s a story that almost lends itself to the sci-fi genre instead, so it was really interesting the path you took to get to this ending.

Elbert Van Strien: It just felt organic and it happened this way. And God is moving in mysterious ways, you know, it is not a computer deciding about us. Manny has emotions like God seems to have emotions. But of course, there are many ways to reflect on this theme of control. Probably I will do that in a different way and another genre in the future.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/marionette-movie-director-elbert-van-strien-interview/

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