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| Ben And Suzanne: A Reunion In 4 Parts |
One of the freshest and sweetest films in this year’s South by Southwest line-up, Ben And Suzanne: A Reunion In 4 Parts follows a US couple who have been apart for many months and reunite in Sri Lanka to find that nothing quite works the way it did between them. It’s actually part of a series of short films, but the others are shorts. Just before the festival I met up with director Shaun Seneviratne, stars Sathya Sridharan and Anastasia Olowin, and producer Doron JePaul Mitchell to discuss the genesis of the project and what was involved in getting it to this stage.
“Let me tell you about those shorts,” said Shaun, reassuring me that it’s not necessary to see them all first. “Every short really was envisioned as a standalone piece. And actually, the shorts always came out of this idea of doing this movie. And then throughout these years and the exploration of this idea, I just wanted to dig deeper into some of the concepts that related to it, some scenes that were in my mind, and that's how the shorts came to be. So the shorts were almost accidental in a way.
“It starts off as a proof of concept, but really it ends up being an exploration of them at these various stages of a long distance relationship. The first one is very much about feeling perfect together, and that moment of separating. It's that trip to the airport coupled with this flashback memory of when things were amazing. And then the second short, Chill Of Loneliness, is very much about separation. What is it like when couples have been completely separated and how do you still try to maintain a connection of some kind? And then the third one, which is still in post-production, that's about isolation. So that's very much like, who are you when you're in your own world and very much separated from everything else?
“It's been really great,” Anastasia says of her experience playing Suzanne. “Shaun's such a generous collaborator, and I feel like the characters really grew with us over the past ten years. We came to it each at our own place ten years ago, and it's been really special to dig into them deeper and look at different aspects of their personalities and different aspects of their relationship as this time has gone by, and as we've changed and gotten to know each other better over this time.”
Why did they decide that now was the time to make the feature?
“It's always been the thing that I was really working towards, for so many years,” says Shaun. “And I don't know, there's a lot of circumstances, a lot of things that happened along the way. We make these shorts. You apply to labs. You don't get into the labs. You rewrite the script. Every time we rewrote the script, I rewrote it from zero, back to blank page one. So there was a lot of time that kind of went into it, a lot of thinking that went into it, and a lot of growth. And then this year came, and I was just like, ‘I have to do it. I have to do it now. This is the time.’
“Once I've sort of convinced myself of something, it's very hard to stop. I just need to go forward and do it. The train has left the station. In February, Anastasia and I did a location scout in Sri Lanka, and that's when we shot that other short film. We met with the production company in Sri Lanka, Visionworks. It was a great meeting, and they were like, ‘Okay, cool, time to send that first cheque over.’ And the minute you spend that first bit of money, it's like, ‘okay, it is happening.’ And that was in February, and now we're in the end of February, so it's been a full year now, and we are at the South by Southwest première.”
“I came on board right before production,” says producer Doron. “In many ways, I like to describe Shaun as a moving train that you either buy a ticket to or you jump on board. Having known Sathya for a couple of years through NYU grad acting, I was attending a party of his, and my wife, or at the time, fiancée, met Shaun and said ‘You have to meet this guy, Doron.’ And so we hit it off. We started talking about romantic comedies, our love of French New Wave cinema, and just this concept of what it means to be faith forward when it comes to creating art, and not waiting for an industry to always give you the okay.
“That led us to being like, ‘Let's go out for coffee in Red Hook.’ Because we're hipsters.” He laughs. “We ended up in Red Hook, we talked about more film, and he asked me out to dinner about a week later, and over Indian food in Fort Green, he was like, ‘Would you come on this journey with me as a producer?’
“I loved the script. I loved what it stood for. But more importantly, I was super excited about what these three creators could accomplish and the fact that for me, I'm always about less. What does it say? No paralysis in analysis. At some point, you've got to just jump.” As the others nod, he makes sure to credit Quincy Jones for that line.
“The idea is that when you have an opportunity to jump, you jump,” he continues. “And as a creative architect, for me, it's all about, ‘Alright, if this is the project, and you've already written the first check to Visionworks, now it's time to figure out the rest of it. And so I came on board in May and we jumped into production in July.”
This Anastasia’s first leading role in a feature, but Sathya says that it’s an important one for him too.
“This one's really special because of getting to work with Shaun, Anastasia, this team of artists and friends. We've been collaborating, as we said, for the last ten years. There's a real personal investment, not only to the relationships, but to the characters and the story. Yeah, I've done some indie films. I've been around the block a little bit, but to be able to work with friends in a different country is just a completely different experience entirely.”
“In terms of commitment, I didn't realise this was going to be a ten year process when I first auditioned for the short!” Anastasia laughs. “But I'm very grateful that it has been. I mean, I think the feature only benefits from the fact that we all know each other very well at this point. We read the script and we don't even have to question, like, ‘Oh, is this a joke? Is this not a joke?’ Because Sathya and I understand Shaun's sense of humor and his sensibilities, and so we spent ten years building a shorthand without trying to really. And we became friends in the process, and that's so special, too.
“So to be able to finally make this film after so many years with these people and collaborators that I care so much about, it was really fantastic. Because it had been so long, I didn't really believe it was going to happen until I was on the airplane. I was just sitting there thinking ‘Something's going to shut it down.’ So it was also just that excitement of like, ‘Oh my God, we're finally here. Let's go!’
“I love the country. I think it's a beautiful place. The people that we met were so fantastic. Shaun's family is there, and they were all so wonderful and just excellent people, so it was fun to get to spend time with them. And our crew was amazing. I'm a big fan of the food, so I felt great. And it was also really fun because Shaun and I had that trip together, and Ben is coming to visit Suzanne in a place that she already has a familiarity with and that she already has a level of comfort in. And so without realising it, we kind of method acted the scene where Ben showed up and he had never been there before. And I was able to be like, ‘This food, I think, is delicious. This place I really loved visiting.’”
There was a lot of improvisation, she reveals.
“Anastasia and I would look at the script and be like, ‘I need to say this in my own words, Shaun,’ Sathya remembers. “The great thing about Shaun is that he's so unprecious when it comes to dialogue, when it comes to any suggestions that we have. He's so willing to just see what happens in the moment, to find spontaneity. So there are a few scenes that we found in just riffing a little bit. But then there were also some really beautifully written scenes that we played pretty verbatim.”
It's a light-hearted film most of the way through, but there's also some darkness in the background of it, particularly in the way it explores microfinance NGOs.
“Part of the relationship that this movie is based on is I was in a long distance relationship with someone,” says Shaun. “She was working at an NGO in India. I'd gone to visit her, and then things were out of sync, and it was two weeks of what I thought the vacation would be versus what it was. So then I was exploring the idea of, ‘Okay, how do I know more about what she does and what her work is?’
“I have so many friends that have been involved or are involved in NGO work and the Peace Corps and things like that, and I think it was around 2015 or so when I started learning or reading about these stories that were happening in so many different parts of, particularly South Asia, of microcredit loan debt. So there's all these farmers, for example, that take out these credit loans, and it's all by an NGO, but it's all sponsored by a bank, right? So ultimately, it's still a function of capitalism. And eventually these loans need to get paid back.
“That's where all the really horrible things start to happen, right? You start reading these things about farmers committing suicide on record levels. A particularly insidious thing that I had read about was people starting these groups to keep each other in check, so then what that does is it turns the community against each other, where you have a whole village against this one person, and there's just so many really sad stories.
“Something really resonated with me about that. Even wanting to do something good and be a part of something that's positive in the world, It's really hard if it's always going to be tied to some kind of larger capitalistic endeavour. I was kind of fascinated by that idea. Earlier versions of the script had some of these much darker elements, but then the tone changed. There's a way to feel that and understand that while maintaining the lightness of what is happening over there, but still speak to the truth of the darkness of what does exist.”
There's a lot of silliness in the film as well – and a running gag about Starship Troopers
“It started off with writing the balcony scene and I wanted to find a way to bring up bugs,” says Shaun. And then it was the line ‘What's the bug situation like?’ And then coming up with ‘Oh, it's some Starship Troopers shit.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, that's funny.’ I wrote that in and then it became this running joke throughout the whole thing. Not even in totally planned ways.”
is it true that he wrote the score for the film too?
“Yeah, kind of,” he says.” Not intentionally, but I'm very happy how it happened. I didn't write the full score, but there are certain elements we were experimenting with, particularly for the montages, trying different sound cues out. I had this idea of using emo music, and then we tried Sri Lankan songs and nothing felt right. And then our editor Joe [Violette] and I were talking, and it's like, ‘We should have something that feels like it has a unique fingerprint, that's unique to the movie and unique to Sri Lanka.’
“I had these instruments in my apartment, a digital tanpora and this shruti box that's almost like a harmonium. I played them over the phone. So it kind of came out of this creative discussion. I recorded a ton of samples, sent it over to our editor, Joe, and then he found these different pieces to place throughout the film. And then with the other aspects of the score, like the saxophone pieces, it was more creative direction, providing references, because I also have a music background as well, too. So I was really heavily involved in those conversations with our composer, Jake.”
It took a lot of patient work and prayer to complete the project, Doron says.
“There was always a delicate balance between moving with the urgency of ‘This is a fresh and refreshing tale that needs to be shared with the greater public, coupled with my patience of like, ‘Let's make sure we get a cut that feels coherent.’ And when we finally reached a level of synergy, it really was just a step of faith to saying, ‘We're going to submit to these festivals this year, and we're just going to take our shot. We're going to swing, we're going to shoot for the stars, land on the Moon. And the Moon happened to be South by Southwest.”
