– The Austrian director wonders how far someone can go in the name of God, and even if it’s worth it
Ruth Mader –whose previous film, Life Guidance [+lee también:
crítica
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entrevista: Ruth Mader
ficha de la película]premiered in Venice in 2017 – evokes some of his own experiences in Serviam – I Will Serve [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Ruth Mader
ficha de la película]premiered in competition at the locarno-festival and now projected on sarajevo. The film centers on a prestigious Catholic girls’ boarding school in Austria, where there is little spirituality and much status. One of the nuns (Maria Dragus) disagrees with this and encourages a young student to embrace God, starting with a penance belt.
Cineuropa: I know stories of young girls seduced by religion, or at least responding to it very strongly. It is strange but believable that a girl wants to “suffer for the sins of the world”.
Ruth Mader: As a child, I was especially receptive to religion. I can affirm that she was a firm believer in God. But when I attended boarding school, I met girls who were more believers than me. That was my initial model for the role of Martha, who wants to follow in the footsteps of Christ, even physically. In Latin America there are more traditions of this type.
Those schools look like something from another era, but they exist. It seems that the one you show does not have much to do with spirituality. It is a status symbol.
Yes indeed. These private Catholic schools are for an elite in society that sees Catholicism as something decorative. As I attended one of them when I was a child, many of my impressions of that time, its atmosphere and its humor, can now be found in the film. The parents of those girls didn’t really believe [en Dios]they only used the institution to confirm their status to the outside world.
This building is very empty, deserted, devoid of joy. Almost like a haunted house. Is that how you remember it? How did you create that universe?
Girls experience a lot of loneliness in boarding schools. That is why in the film they appear isolated, even in group scenes: in the dining room, in the shower or at the school sporting event. It is a hermetically sealed space. Yet, at the same time, those large glazed facades make it appear transparent and open. It was exciting to show and talk about this great contrast.
In Serviam, something that seems realistic at first turns into something strange. Did you think of genre films, of thrillers, while developing the story?
We wanted to make a thriller from the beginning, also because I like to watch thrillers. Hitchcock, Kubrick and John Carpenter movies were an inspiration to me.
The nun played by Maria Dragus it is also very mysterious. It’s hard to know what exactly drives it. How did you talk about that role?
Faith is in clear decline in a secularized world. But this nun still believes and fights for the faith of every girl in her care. She has a special relationship with Martha because she understands her, and her faith is especially strong. She is glad that she found such a girl in that place. She’s very ardent and radical, I’d say, and of course she goes too far at the end.
Relations between the girls, who are quite abandoned there, can be cruel and intense. Is that why you wanted to introduce those fantasy animated elements? In a way it is the only escape.
Relationships in boarding schools are very formative. Yes, girls can be violent too. However, friendships that last a lifetime continue to emerge there. As for the animated sequences, this is the first time that parts of the book of revelations Juan’s [el último libro del Nuevo Testamento]. This part of the bible is very mystical and, from my point of view, the impact is more powerful on a visual level. The animation represents how the girls experience faith and, at the same time, provokes the viewer by asking a question: What if God exists?
(English translation)