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| Morfydd Clark in Starve Acre Photo: Chris Harris |
British director Daniel Kokotajlo's sophomore feature Starve Acre, sees him shift his focus from the Jehovah's Witness faith and the fallout following a young woman's transgression in his début feature Apostasy, to British folk horror.
Based on Andrew Michael Hurley's 2019 novel of the same name, set in 1970s rural Yorkshire, the life of academic archaeologist Richard Willoughby (Matt Smith) and his wife Juliette (Morfydd Clark) is upturned by the sudden death of their young son, Owen. Richard throws himself into his work, exploring a myth connected to his property, while Juliette reaches out to the community. Soon, they become preoccupied by a sinister force that has crept across their threshold, that brings with it the opportunity for an unexpected reconnection.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Kokotajlo discussed the tradition of British folk horror and its resurgence, his artistic background and obsession with texture and feeling, and nostalgia for Seventies cinema.
Paul Risker: What compelled you to adapt Hurley's novel at this particular point in time?
Daniel Kokotajlo: I was looking for this kind of story; something that was strange, uncanny and unidentifiable in some way. I was also excited by the challenge of how to bring this story to the screen and I loved what Andrew was trying to do - the unexpected nature of it and how it reveals itself to be something more sensitive. Also, I just appreciated how refreshingly simple it was - an ode to old British storytelling and unashamedly so. It was a setting and a mood that I wanted to be part of despite that it's about grief, and it's quite heavy. There's this feeling, a mood that you can enjoy, but it's hard to explain.
PR: Classic British films like Séance On A Wet Afternoon, The Innocents and The Wicker Man are simple stories that provoke a certain feeling that you can't articulate. It's the threading together of the music with the images, the story and performances that creates a pure feeling that transcends explanation.
DK : All of those elements you're describing, from the unexpected nature and strangeness of it, to the off-kilter decisions and the left turns, all come together to create this enjoyable experience despite what's happening onscreen. That's maybe the nature of certain cult films and why certain people really get into them. I think that's what people describe as folk horror nowadays as well. It's the kind of film that isn't necessarily a slasher or gore, and it's not afraid to do other things. Instead, there are other preoccupations with showing you the strange side of life.
It's hard to explain, but I had that experience recently when I saw Adam Simon's Braindead. I thought, 'this is going to be pure Eighties schlock.' It has Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman in it and so it was this crazy casting, and it was not what I expected. It was this transcendent story about the nature of the mind and what goes wrong. You couldn't tell what was real or not anymore. It was a beautiful film, and I've watched it three times now, and it's the same every time. I know that's not the same genre, but there's something about the hectic nature of it as well.
PR: Sometimes it's necessary to adjust our expectations and accept the filmmaker's intentions. Starve Acre is the type of film that conjures up expectations, not only because it belongs to a tradition of folk horror but the references to specific films, like Rosemary's Baby and The Wicker Man on the poster.
DK: You can't really put Séance On A Wet Afternoon on the poster because there are only a handful of people that are going to turn up for it. So yeah, it's balancing with commerce and that's why quite a lot of films flop when they first come out. That's why Wicker Man was considered a flop. It was a double bill with Don't Look Now. They [British Lion Film Corporation] really didn't trust there would be an audience for it because it was a strange story. You could argue that more people like that film these days than Don't Look Now.
You can only trust that the film will eventually find its audience and I still hope and trust in that. The good thing about Starve Acre is we're working with the BFI on distribution in the UK, so I've done a lot of work putting it in context. I'm running a season, Roots, Rituals and Fantasmagoria at the Southbank that will be out in September - a whole season of films that influenced it, and I'm doing various talks with people. Hopefully, it will put it in the right context for the audience.
PR: There's a texture to the voices and the image in Starve Acre that recalls films from the Seventies. This has become rarer in cinema with the evolution of technology, which is a pity.
DK: That's what I respond to and that's what I care about more than anything. It maybe comes from my more artistic background and obsessing over image and texture. I also have a music background as well, so, I care a lot about sound and how that connects with music. I'm over all those things, and I'm aware of how it creates the mood and the feeling you'll experience, just as much as the story itself.
I saw Mandy recently, and I love the feel of it. [Panos] Cosmatos has gone so over the top with the filters and the texture, but it's okay because it's what he wants to do. Once you learn to accept it and go with it, and not be negative and criticise it, you become like a child again. You get transported into this place and that's what I love about film if you just let yourself go and accept it - if the film has that quality that allows you to do that. I'm kind of talking about dark fantasy that appreciates the sound and the visuals. It's a wicked experience when you let yourself go.
PR: Folk horror often plays around with trust and who you perceive as weak and inoffensive may be misleading. Starve Acre provokes the audience's paranoia by playing on certain prejudices and our unconscious bias.
DK: That was the enjoyable part of telling a story about the north, and being from the north myself, it's easier for me to do that. It's slightly unexpected that all of these characters are playing up these prejudices, but it's okay because I'm embracing it. You can still make it interesting and, after all, you're not judging anyone. With Gordon and Mrs Ford, they're not doing it with a wicked smile on their faces. Instead, it's almost like they're just milking the cows, and they just have to do these things. There's something northern about that and I love it.
PR: You spoke about setting the context of the film. You can enjoy it as a creepy story with elements of mythology and folklore, but if you know the genre, mythology and folklore, then that will also affect your experience. Cinema doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it's true here, not just politically and culturally, but what the audience brings to it emotionally and intellectually.
DK: That's why films change. You watch a film ten or 20 years later, and it's a totally different experience because of what you bring to it. Sometimes you watch a film, and you realise how little is said or shown; it's just the way you're interpreting it. That's probably true about the culture of folk horror nowadays. There seems to be a sort of resurgence and I see a lot of it everywhere I go - stuff to do with folk elements like old British weird, paganism, folk music or folk dance. So, there is a conversation going on between all these different elements which will hopefully help put these things into context for the audience. But who knows what the experience will be like in five or ten years' time if that stuff dies off.
PR: Films like Starve Acre are playing on our nostalgia and interest in the past. It's not always healthy, especially politically. With there being a limited number of stories to be told and each generation asking the same questions, is it inevitable that we must repeat cyclical patterns and drag the past into the present?
DK : I'd like to think there are still new ways to do things or new stories to tell. It's just whether people are ready for it. You can go really far out and tell experimental stories, but is anybody going to listen? That's the thing, and so, I don't know - you could be ahead of your time.
What was refreshing about this is that we tried to make it appear old-fashioned but then be quite sensitive and explore something on another level about springtime and rebirth, and how that has been passed down through the ages. So, it was working on a symbolic level that I quite enjoyed.
I think you're right; folk horror is popular now because people want to look back and put on rose-tinted glasses, but that's why folk horror is good, because it plays with that. It's essentially saying, "No, don't do that; there's no comfort in the past. It was dark and miserable, and we were not nice people back then, so let's not do that."
Also, the Seventies was just a cool fucking time. I grew up in the late 80s, but I'm nostalgic for the Seventies for some reason because I grew up watching a lot of the New Hollywood films, getting into Al Pacino and Serpico. How free and easy it all was - the looseness of the hairstyles and the costumes and everything was real. There was something refreshing about those days.
PR: European, including British horror, has a certain energy and feeling that derives from our cultural history. America, as a young country, for example, is lacking this. How important is this cultural history to the essence of European horror?
DK: We do have a history, and we can go back and suggest there were other things before what we now know. That's why I like folk horror, and Starve Acre, in particular, is looking at the nature of, for example, the hare and what that represents.
If you look at the hare pre-Christianity, it was connected to the Greek Gods of love and passion. It was always connected to a positive thing, like a symbol of love, to the point where the Greeks used to eat the hare because they thought it gave them sexual prowess. Then, with the Reformation, these old concepts and ideas suddenly became wicked and evil, and that's why afterward the hare was then always connected to the witch. It was always about shapeshifting, and it became demonised.
Growing up as a Christian, what was exciting was looking at what had come before. You can't really do that in America because it inevitably ends up being about Native American ways, and you can't really do that these days, because it has been done to death, and we don't really have the right voices anymore. It's hard to say - maybe there could be a really wicked Native American horror out there that I'm not aware of or is yet to come.
PR: That's why diversity is important?
DK: Totally, and that's why we need more voices and the platforms to tell those stories on, because at the moment there are a lot of voices, but they're all dealing with low budgets. You can only tell certain kinds of stories as a result, and so, it would be nice to get bigger budgets and more voices.
Starve Acre is released in US cinemas and On Demand, Friday July 26th by Brainstorm Media. It will be released theatrically in the UK and Irish cinemas by the BFI on Friday 6th September. The season, 'Roots, Rituals and Fantasmagoria' will run at the BFI Southbank and on the BFI Player from Sunday September 1st.
