Balancing worlds

The debut feature from The Broken Circle Breakdown star Veerle Baetens is an uncompromising adaptation of Lize Spitz’s novel Het Smelt (It Melts), which tells the story of a woman confronting the trauma of her past. The story unfolds over two time periods as the adult Eva (Charlotte De Bruyne) prepares to travel back to the small town where she grew up. Action in the present is interwoven with what happened to her one fateful summer as a child (when she is played by Rosa Marchant, who won the acting prize at Sundance for her work).

We caught up with the Belgian director over Zoom to chat about the film. The very spoiler-averse may want to wait until after they have seen the film before reading the second half.

Reading the press notes, it seems iit was someone else who first pointed you towards this novel, with a view to directing the film, which is quite unusual.Can you tell me a bit about that and about your collaboration with Maarten Loix?

Veerle Baetens: Yes, it was an offer from the producer of the The Broken Circle Breakdown Dirk Impens. He was the first to offer me a job as a director and as a writer. Actually, he said, “If you don't want to write it, it's fine.” But I said, “I want to write it.” When I read it, I found all the elements I needed to make a movie that could become my own. And it wasn't easy, the writing. If you read the book, you will feel a different sort of energy. We had to make a movie that is honest in every way and that was difficult.

So did it help that you had a collaborator in terms of boiling it down to what you wanted?

Director Veerle Baetens: 'I think people need to be more friendly about people who are complicated' Photo: Thomas Sweertvaegher

I first wrote for two years on my own, and after two years, I felt I needed someone professional who had experience. And so Maarten, it was a coincidental meeting in a way because I had worked with Delphine Girard, on A Sister, and she said, “Maybe Maarten is someone for you”. Martin is Flemish, but he has always been working on French-speaking work, so I didn’t know him. We met up. He didn't read the book and I asked him not to read it for a long time. And it clicked - and we still feel the same way because we’ve started working on a new film.We have the same taste in movies, what we like and what we want to talk about.

A lot of the subject matter in this is quite difficult. How did you set about casting your younger cast because of that - not least because you have to get older members of the cast to correspond with them.

VB: We started with the young ones, because of course, it's more difficult to find the diamond in the rough in between a lot of kids. We looked at 2500 kids, but then we started having workshops, which was really a nice way of working with kids because they have the whole day to become themselves, to become at ease and to show what they can give. From that you just narrow it down every time and we eventually got five kids. On the basis of their physical appearances and characteristics, we cast the the adults,

How did you work with the cast? I presume you had to do quite a bit of work on the set as well as the earlier workshiops, because some of those scenes are quite emotionally tricky.

VB: Yes, of course. I think that was my biggest concern. What I always said is, I didn't want to make a movie about trauma and cause trauma. So that was one of my main concerns. Rosa, who plays the main part, is 16. She looks like 12 but she's 16 actually, so that was a win. She's very mature, very intelligent and she had read the book before she started casting. So that was good.

Young Eva (Rosa Marchant) in When It Melts. Veerle Baetens: 'Rosa, who plays the main part, is 16. She looks like 12 but she's 16 actually, so that was a win. She's very mature, very intelligent and she had read the book before she started casting' Photo: Courtesy of Veerle Baetens

Then my main goal was to create a group of friends before they started the film so that they are confident and feeling fine with each member of the group. So we spent a lot of time together, giving them workshops in acting. But also spending time going on a weekend, cooking together, hiking together, playing games together, let them talk about themselves with little scraps and videos.

So they were friends when they started. The shooting of the [key, difficult] scene was at the end of the shooting period, so they also had the whole time to really feel confident. And, of course, their parents were there and there was a psychologist on the day of the shoot. Also, I think aftercare is very important for kids, even if it's a fun movie. A kid is experiencing such a huge thing in their lives at that time of their lives. And I think afterwards you really need to still stay in contact to make sure they don’t feel you’ve been like, “Hey, I got my film, bye!”.

Do you think your background in acting helps when it comes to getting performance from other actors?

VB: I think it does, because I would also get in to play, replace the other actor and try to get it out of them in a sort of playful way. I also interacted during the workshop, so they knew how much I can go into a feeling and they know me already. So yes, I think being an actor and not being scared of going into an emotion helps.

For a debut, it’s a very complicated story in the sense that it's happening across two time periods. You've managed to strike a really impressive balance there between the past and the present.How did you set about that challenge when you were writing it and take on thechallenge of moving between the time periods?

VB: I think it has become a dialogue between young and old Eva who get to meet each other again at the end of the film. It's a sort of search for both of them. But I didn't know that while writing it, or while editing it, it's something that I see now. When we wrote it, it went much faster in between the past and present. Coming from the book, we had three timelines, we already narrowed it down to two, which was good.

We had to in the first 20 minutes show who Eva the adult is in very little time. It’s something complex, so that was difficult to write. Then we came into the edit and scenes work. The past worked fine. Because we first shot the past, we edited it. So Charlotte, who was playing, present Eva could analyse it and have the same mannerisms. But in the edit, we felt the structure wasn’t working, so we really had to search again for another language.We felt that bigger parts of every timeline worked better. We really had to reinvent the language to make Eva’s present and Eva’s past as evenly important.

It's interesting you say about her, sort of connecting with herself, because it's a film that's very much about loneliness. At the end, the only person she does really connect with is her younger incarnation of herself in a way. How did you feel about that because loneliness is a really interesting thing to have to depict on screen?

VB: Well, I think it's something that grew during the edit. Of course, it's about loneliness, but it could have been about peer pressure, it could have been about trauma. It is also about trauma but you're right that loneliness is the main theme I think and also self-love, which is lacking completely. In the end she's, in a way, forgiving herself or they're both forgiving themselves.

Veerle Baetens: 'We looked at 2500 kids, but then we started having workshops, which was really a nice way of working with kids because they have the whole day to become themselves, to become at ease and to show what they can give' Photo: Courtesy of Veerle Baetens

But I was scared of making a passive movie, of people looking, thinking. In the book, it's fantastic because it's all written down, what is thinking is an internal monologue and it's fabulous. But in film, it's not working. So we [showed this] through interaction, like wanting to belong, making herself beautiful to be presentable for the boys, but also looking for a riddle, being of any use. I really didn't want to have a slow movie.

I think it's very important to show that path, how it happens and how people get isolated and how we have to look at the signs in a way.

Without spoiling the film, were you under any pressure over the trajectory of the story?

VB: A lot of people said, “Do you know where are you going to? Do you know what you're doing?” Sometimes I jump before I think and that's how I got a broken ankle one time jumping from a tree, not thinking that it could be very dangerous not checking the ground - and to learn from that. But at the same time there was something right about it. And if Dirk, who asked me to do it, believed in me, then I thought, “Well, then I should believe it myself too.”

Were you worried at any point worried that it might be triggering for people?

VB: Yes, of course, we talked to a lot of people. Of course, there is that [possibility] but then not talking about it, do you think it's better?

Presumably it is a debate that you want to open up with people. Yes. So that people are more open to talking about the issue of childhood trauma and how it is dealt with in adulthood.

VB: Yes, because you see that people avoid her in a way or find her difficult. I think people need to be more friendly about people who are complicated. Me myself, when I meet someone like that, I always feel felt like the elephant in the China store, you know, “Yeah, you need to talk about it, come on”. But digging into the story, which I have been doing for six or seven years. I must say it's not so easy for everyone. It's even very fragile to approach it. But still, I think we shouldn't avoid it.