– The Austrian director wonders how far you can go in the name of God, and if it’s worth it
Ruth Mader – whose previous film Life Guidance [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Ruth Mader
scheda film] was presented in Venice in 2017 – it recalls some of his experiences in Serviam – I Will Serve [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Ruth Mader
scheda film]presented in competition at Locarno Film Festival and now screened at Sarajevo. The film centers on a prestigious Austrian Catholic all-girls boarding school that has less to do with spirituality and more to do with status. One of the nuns (Maria Dragus) is not very happy with this, so she encourages her young student to truly embrace God, starting with a penance belt.
Cineuropa: I know stories of girls who are seduced by religion, or at least who respond to its call with force. It is strange but believable that a little girl wants to “suffer for the sins of the world”.
Ruth Mader: As a child, I myself was particularly attracted to religion. I can say that I strongly believed in God. But when I went to boarding school, I met girls who believed even more than me. This was my initial model for the role of Martha, who wants to follow Christ’s footsteps firsthand, even physically. In Latin America, there are even more traditions of this kind.
Such schools look like something from another era, but they exist. What it shows doesn’t have much to do with spirituality, it seems. It is a status symbol.
That’s right. These private Catholic schools are for the elite of society who see Catholicism only as an ornament. Since I was attending one too as a child, many of my impressions of that period, the atmosphere and the mood can be found in the film. The parents of these girls didn’t really believe [in Dio]they simply used the institution to confirm their status to the outside world.
This building is so empty, deserted, devoid of joy. Like a haunted house, almost. Is that how she remembered him too? How did you manage to create that universe?
The girls experience great solitude in boarding schools. That is why in the film they are also isolated in crowd scenes – in the dining room, in the shower or at the school sports event. It is a hermetically sealed space. Yet, at the same time, these large glass facades make it look so transparent and open. It was exciting to show and talk about this huge contrast.
In We serve, what initially seems realistic turns into something foreign. Did you think about genre cinema, thrillers, during the development of the story?
We wanted to make a thriller from the start, also because I like to watch thrillers myself. The films of Hitchcock, Kubrick and John Carpenter have certainly been a huge inspiration to me.
The nun played by Maria Dragus is also very mysterious. It’s hard to say what exactly moves her. How did you handle that role?
Faith is rapidly declining in a secularized world, that is clear. But this nun still believes deeply and she fights for the faith of every child left in her care. She has a special relationship with Martha because she understands her, and her faith in her is particularly strong. She is happy to have found such a girl in that place. She is very zealous and radical, I would say, and of course she goes too far in the end.
Relationships between girls, which here are practically left to themselves, can be very intense and cruel. Is that why you wanted to introduce animated fantasy elements, for example? In a way, it is the only way out.
Relationships in the colleges are very formative. Girls can be violent too, yes. However, friendships can develop there that last a lifetime. As for the animated sequences, this is the first time you have started de The Apocalypse Giovanni’s [l’ultimo libro del Nuovo Testamento] have been filmed. This part of the Bible is very mystical and, in my opinion, is the strongest visually. Animation represents how these girls experience faith and, at the same time, it should also stimulate the viewer to ask themselves this simple question: what if God really exists?
(Translated from English)