Lorenz Suter
Strangers, Lorenz Suter (2017)
Lorenz Suter is a Swiss screenwriter, producer and film director. His feature film debut Strangers premiered at the Madrid International Film Festival, Hofer, Solothurner Filmtage, and Montréal Festival des Films du Monde.
In an exclusive interview for Filmatique, Lorenz Suter discusses solitude, the beauty of film noir, shooting a Dogme-style movie in Switzerland and his next project.
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FILMATIQUE: Strangers traces the story of Tamás, a lonely and isolated male character who lives in Zurich but hardly ever interacts with other people, hasn't seemed to learn German properly and mostly keeps to himself. Of course, all this changes when he is implicated in the disappearance of a beautiful woman for whom he broke his cardinal rule: to be alone. What was your inspiration for this solitary man, and how do you believe his character informs the way we live now?
LORENZ SUTER: My first inspiration is life itself. Not necessarily my life but what it can sometimes feel like. I like to show the audience the inner truth that, in my experience, people more often than not contradict. When Strangers' lone main character says he prefers to be alone we know there's something rotten. Why else would he go after the sisters? Or maybe his attraction is subliminal, something he's not choosing but is drawn to.
It's this contradictory behavior I feel says something about what it means to be human— especially with young people's urban lifestyles. My generation likes to think of themselves as independent individuals that are aware of why they are doing what they are doing, like choosing one job, partner or lover over another. It's hard to submit yourself to the unknown, because it's a dangerous place where you have no control. The main character Tamás is for me the embodiment of that discrepancy: an individualist resisting the impulses that make him unpredictable and human.
Strangers, Lorenz Suter (2017)
FLMTQ: You have stated in several interviews and the film's press notes that Strangers is something of a love letter to film noir. Can you please discuss some of your favorite noir films, and how they influenced your evolution as a filmmaker?
LS: I've loved film noir ever since I discovered the shadowy world populated by characters like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, brought to life by the best filmmakers from Billy Wilder to Stanley Kubrick. But it wasn't only the hard-boiled detective and crime stories that grabbed me. Film noir isn't bound to stereotypes and trademarks like the trench-coats, icy blonds seducing men and scoundrels of the night.
Film noir is more than a genre. It's a perspective, how one looks at the world— the notion that the world is unstable, and a dangerous place to live in. Film noir is sometimes described as pessimistic, but that neglects its beauty. Noir characters might be doomed, yes, but they enjoy it while it lasts. They burn for more than they can ever get ahold of— a woman's desire, money, power. But that's okay. Because the fire that's burning in them too beautiful to miss.
FLMTQ: How did you seek to incorporate and adapt these influences and the overall atmosphere of your film— through performance, cinematography, sound, editing or otherwise?
LS: To show noir's tragic beauty wasn't easy since it's been done so gorgeously be the masters of cinema. And Strangers' very limited budget didn't allow us to film with moody light setups and carefully constructed sets. So we early on decided to achieve a more Dogme-style neo-noir look with only available light and on-location shooting.
We wanted to keep the images mysterious, obscure and give them a nostalgic feeling with muted colors reminiscent of a fading photograph. We're often in the dark and unsure what facial expressions we see in people. Emotions are characteristically and aesthetically ambivalent. This is also done in the sound design with a voice-over narration that haunts our protagonist's mind. So does the ominous music composed of old instruments that are sampled and mixed with synthesized sounds, making the bygone times and the present collide in strangely beautiful ways.
Strangers, Lorenz Suter (2017)
FLMTQ: Strangers is a very compelling film from an acting perspective. Can you discuss your casting process? On set, how did you work with the actors to achieve such strong performances, especially given that, for Tamás, much of his role is based in interior experiences such as doubt and ambiguity?
LS: I already knew the actors before making the movie. I knew the main actor, Nicolas Batthyany, from film school at the Zurich University of the Arts. We shot The Man Who Didn't Want Anything, a short movie in black and white that looked like a textbook film noir from the 40s. It already had the triangle love story at its core.
With Strangers I casted the same actor with two new actresses, Marina Guerrini and Jeanne Devos, playing the sisters. But this time it wasn't by the book, as a matter of fact the screenplay wasn't completed until the end of the shoot. We started out with just a couple of written scenes and went from there. We improvised and let the fatal love triangle evolve.
Writing, acting and editing was a work in progress for more than two years; nobody knew where it was going. Chaos and life itself led the way. It was all about letting the unknown in our life. This made the process fascinating artistically because the actors never knew what their characters were going to do next or if they were going to turn out as heroes or villains. Are they lying? Are they telling the truth? Do they even know they difference? I always told the actors to be in the moment and not to judge their character's actions. It took them a lot of courage to stay in the dark for so long. But that's why, I think, the three of them were able to deliver such challenging and psychologically layered performances.
Strangers, Lorenz Suter (2017)