Family ties and trauma

Laurynas Bareisa: 'I liked flipping dry drowning and drowning dry because I think dry drowning is more of a medical term, but drowning dry is more of a process. It sounds to me more like a metaphor for what is happening to these people'

Laurynas Bareisa’s Drowning Dry (Seses) has been on a strong festival run since it premiered in Locarno, where it won the Golden Leopard for Best Film, screening in Palm Springs this week. His film charts a fateful weekend getaway of two sisters, Ernesta (Gelmine Glemzaite) and Juste (Agne Kaktaite), with their husbands Lukas (Paulius Markevicius) andTomas (Giedrius Kiela) and children. The narrative is presented in fragments that reflect and refract until the traumatic event at the heart of the film is fully revealed. We caught up with Bareisa to chat about the origin of the film, its themes and his approach to the narrative.

Perhaps we could start by talking about the origins of the story, which I know stems in part from personal experience. Did drawing on those emotions make it easier to write or harder?

It was a moment that I experienced, which was kind of emotionally similar but I didn’t recreate it, I changed most of the things. It was connected to a choking incident, which I switched to drowning and I was alone, so I made all these people up. I think the personal aspect of it makes it harder because then you have to look at yourself from the side. My first film was about very extreme circumstances, but here this accident is common and you can imagine it happening to yourself.

Laurynas Bareisa Photo: Courtesy of POFF

I’m interested in why you chose Drowning Dry as the English language title rather than a direct translation of the Lithuanian title Seses - which means sisters - not least because you’ve flipped the words around from the way you would expect to hear them in English. By using Drowning Dry, not dry drowning, it makes it a reflection of what it normally would be, in a film that is all about reflections and mirrorings.

LB: The original title was Sisters because I started writing it just for for myself and I didn't imagine developing it and of course, Sisters is a bit suicidal in English, as a title so I decided to find something that would be a bit different and would also open up a film a bit. The international audience is mostly cinephiles and festivals so I think they're not scared of a bit of difficulty or a metaphor in the title. But we had a very wide local release and we tried to expand from our usual art house cinema audience so we decided to stick with a simple title and not overburden the viewer. I liked flipping dry drowning and drowning dry because I think dry drowning is more of a medical term, but drowning dry is more of a process. It sounds to me more like a metaphor for what is happening to these people and it sounds like it's still happening. Drowning is the first word, so the emphasis is on the continuous event.

Can you tell me a bit about the casting process for the film and the rehearsals work because presumably you're having to take quite a different tack with the adult actors here as opposed to the children.

LB: We had a very gradual process. With the adults our emphasis was on group chemistry. So we decided to find the first one and then match them until we had a good group. So we started with the older sister and matched them step-by-step with each other based on their acting experience and on their personal characteristics. For the children, their casting director Ugne Siauciunaite was on the set, so she was there for all the stages from the beginning, the first person that they saw and the person who sent them home after the shooting day.

Lukas (Paulius Markevicius) andTomas (Giedrius Kiela). Laurynas Bareisa: I think this kind of modern masculinity is still a work in progress and we have a lot of wrong ways to deal with it'

We did three kinds of rehearsals. We did rehearsals with all of the adults and children by the script with the scenes that children were in just for them to always know what's happening.Then we did rehearsals with the children with Ugne about the technical stuff, like with the breathing exercises so because the little wouldn't be afraid because you can get dizzy. So just to have them as safe as possible and understanding what's happening and what’s around them. Then with the adults we spent the time developing their different dynamics and the family. We built a history for all of them and a group history - so, when did they meet? Which was like the first husband? When did they have children? To have this solid base because half of a film was improvised and half is by the script. But, of course, we had the structure because we had jumps.So we had the structure of the script but we had time and scenes to improvise within this. WE tried to find different dynamics and combinations and this was based on how they understood the characters and how we had prepared.

The improvisation sounds like quite a flexible element of the film and yet in terms of the framing and the shooting its a very controlled film, for example using mirrors to shift the audience’s perspective.

LB: I’m flexible because I do my own cinematography so I could decide on the shot at the last minute from my eye and experience. Also I knew the place and we’d prepared different combinations. At first, it was a bit difficult because it was kind of chaotic, you know, because nobody knows what's happening but after a couple of days, it was quite easy.

You capture the way that memory can be very slippery, especially around traumatic events - which is encapsulated by a scene where the sisters dance which replays with a different piece of pop music. How hard was it for you to select the tracks and did you get to use your first choice?

LB: I always knew that I wanted I Love You Always Forever. The first first idea was to use two songs by Atomic Kitten but the problem was that even if they are two different songs, 20 minutes apart, It was hard for me distinguishing them apart, and for a viewer, it wouldn't be obvious that it's a different song. So I dumped that idea and decided to with I Love You Always Forever and High (by the Lighthouse Family) and we got them.

Laurynas Bareisa on the choice of music for the sisters' dance: 'I think it mattered because these are the songs that are stuck in my head from when I was 10 and this kind of music translates across cultures'

It was kind of difficult and took a long time - it was even comical because we had a shooting day scheduled for this and in the morning we didn’t have the rights to the songs. And we shot this scene with six different songs and combinations and then the next day we got the rights. Back home in Lithuania everyone is very surprised that we had them because usually we just use our pop hits or something created by a composer but here I think it mattered because these are the songs that are stuck in my head from when I was 10 and this kind of music translates across cultures.

You also explore family tensions and the masculine rivalry between the two husbands.

LB: I imagined all four of these characters as different points of how one would deal with a situation like this, but this especially these two kinds of male forces were very important for me because this masculinity is a bit lost and misguided. Most of the moves and communication between the men are misguided - and between the men and their partners. So you feel that there's some tension or passion or feeling that’s tucked away and kind of locked and, and it shows itself in different ways. Even in constructive ways like Lucas did save the girl, you know, but also he couldn't reflect on it and couldn't talk about it.

It was important for me because I think these kinds of forces get us lost. I think this kind of modern masculinity is still a work in progress and we have a lot of wrong ways to deal with it. I was thinking about it as a negative kind of force. But I wanted to have one relationship in the film that was kind of a positive force and the one thing you can count on. And the sisters' relationship was important to me. I didn't want to question this relationship. I wanted to have this one strong positive relationship, which is kind of nurturing and gives hope.

Can you tell me anything about your future projects?

I have one project that I'm very afraid of. It's kind of difficult for me so I'm working on it.There's a family in the centre of it but what's happening is a bit more radical and a bit more strange around them. I still see cinema as a way where you can experiment with form but it’s difficult because you can get it very very wrong.