Exclusive: Asif Kapadia at the Venice Film Festival
The hardest relationship: a love triangle. The worst conditions: the Arctic. Director Asif Kapadia - born and raised in East London from an Indian family – is here in Venice with his new film Far North, the tale of Saiya: an Inuit woman who was cursed at birth, the beautiful Anja with whom she shares her tent and Loki, an ex soldier. Passion, broken hearts and terrible revenge are all set against the snowy wilderness. He talks exclusively to Vera Brozzoni.
AK: The journey of this film is really simple: three people in one location.
Scripting the film took some time because the original story by Sara Maitland is five pages long, so I had to create a real story without losing simplicity.
Casting was much harder, I was looking for two Asian actresses who looked the similar but of different ages, so that they could look like mother and daughter but also friends, sisters, lovers – the mystery of their relationship is never solved. Then I had British and French funds to afford shooting in very difficult locations.
VB: How did you manage shooting in such extreme conditions? Did you find the Arctic inspiring?
AK: It was very hard: in the summer there is not enough snow, in the winter there is no light! So we had to shoot for three weeks in the spring for five years.
Then we also shot scenes in Norway, Siberia and Himalaya. Despite difficulties, I love shooting in these hard locations, because the landscape increases emotions.
People in Siberia still live in those extreme conditions, and all the hunting details depicted in the film come from seeing real people. Even the horrific act at the end is a result of this living. Saiva’s reasons are not clearly explained, still you feel sympathy for her.
VB: Saiva putting on the mask of a dead person also reminded me of the final of Japanese film Onibaba.
AK: Yes, there is a similarity. It comes from the core of shamanism, that involves people changing shapes.
This story is imbued with shamanism, it’s a fairytale but also has some historical elements. I would call it magic realism, like the current of painting.
VB: Of course realism is represented by the Inuit community being threatened by Western civilization.
AK: You see, in Norway they have coal mines that are coveted by the Russians.
Over the years the indigenous up there got abused by the Russians and now have started abusing themselves through alcoholism, just like Saiva abuses herself through isolation.
Anja wants to go away because she doesn’t know where she comes from and wants to see other people to tell her who she is. All three characters have their reasons in the end.
VB: Your film seems to recreate the Aristotelean idea that woman is closer to nature and man is closer to culture.
AK: Yes, the idea is there. He is a soldier who runs away from a life of murder, his knowledge is useful to the women at the beginning. But also, the apparition of a man breaks the harmony between the two women, and as his life goes up, Saiva’s goes down.
