Lose Your Head, and an interview with writer, producer, and co-director Patrick Schuckmann
Take Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, David
Lynch's knack for colors and dissolution of the self in Mulholland Drive, swallow
these things along with some nameless pills, and match them to a sweet beat in
Berlin. Welcome to Lose Your
Head, the story of Luis, a Spanish party tourist who meets Viktor on the
scene, and falls into one rabbit hole after another...
I love Berlin. The juxtaposition of the shadows of its history
against the brilliance of its arts and the neon of its nightlife make it an
incredible city. It's an excellent backdrop as we get to know the painfully
naive yet adventure-ready Luis, who left the warmth of Spain and the coldness
of his boyfriend to have some fun in Berlin. Once the eerily friendly Viktor
comes into the picture, we know this is going to be one of those "young
kid gets more than he bargained for" scenarios, but there's much more than
that going on. There's a sister scouring Berlin for her missing brother
Dimitri, who happens to look a lot like
Luis. And the fact that Viktor was among the last people to see Dimitri alive.
There's a party culture founded on making dreams into reality, of evading
responsibilities in favor of the freedom and danger of falling in love, and
forcing the flow of love. There's the loneliness and rejection of relationships
unfinished, or gone wrong, and the empty search for closure. With an ending
that plays with linear storytelling and makes for excellent conversation, this
is a great film -- just don't watch it before you go clubbing.
It was a blast to chat with the film's writer, producer
and co-director Patrick Schuckmann about the evolution of the story.
CR: Where
did the idea for the film come from?
PS: I
worked on the project on my own for about three and a half years before director
Stefan Westerwelle came on to realize it together with me.
I was inspired to write the script when I came out of my house in Kreuzberg one
day, and saw two people putting up missing posters of a
young Portuguese guy. On the poster there
was a young, handsome guy looking very happy, and his
relatives or friends were putting up the posters. The case was
featured very much in the media, as
he had disappeared after a night at Berghain. His body was found in
the river Spree. What had actually happened was that he tried to walk across
the river when it was frozen on a January night. He fell through the ice and
they found his body four months later in April in the river. It was a sad end to
that story, but that was just the inspiration. While he was
still missing, a
lot of my friends and people on the club scene were talking about it. They
all had theories about what had happened to him.
There were all these speculations and rumors. I wanted to write about these
fantasies how somebody could go
missing in this internationalized Berlin party scene and not return. The party
scene has gotten so much bigger over the last ten years, and maybe more
confusing to people. I didn't really research the case as
I didn't want the story to be too closely modeled on a
real person. I didn't even
know if he was gay or not, I just wanted to make up
my own fiction about what happened.
CR: What
kind of reactions have you gotten from people who've seen Lose Your Head so far?
PS: Audience reactions have been very positive so
far. Some of the reviewers couldn't deal
with the fact that the ending is not very clear, or they thought the ending was
confusing. But that was the point: to achieve a strong identification with Luis'
character, and make the audience as confused as him
about what is real and not real. He gets caught up with
his own fantasy story to explain Dimitri's disappearance. And the audience gets lost in all these
different stories, we don't know if it's a drug trip or a dream. All these
boundaries get blurred. It's a dream in
a dream, I guess.
CR: Since this story is so very much in the vein of Vertigo and Mulholland Drive, where do you think your personal touch lies in the script?
CR: Since this story is so very much in the vein of Vertigo and Mulholland Drive, where do you think your personal touch lies in the script?
PS: I wanted a completely realistic setting,
something like a documentary approach. Someone coming to Berlin and
experiencing everything that I like about my city where I've lived for 25 years.
It is seen through the eyes of a
tourist who comes here for the first
time. That part was very personal for me, deciding what places should be
featured in the film and how to make it all feel real. From there, I wanted it
to develop more and more into a fantasy, but start in a super-realistic setting
that would then have a thriller element slowly creep in. The thrillers that I
like are the ones where you don't know if something is actually
happening or if it's all going on in someone's head. It's also
a very personal film in a different way, about the end of a
relationship, the possibility of starting a new one. The insecurity about what
happens when you fall in love at first sight with a complete stranger. It's
happened to me, triggered by this club experience of maybe taking ecstasy, and
then meeting somebody, and then you think -- oh wow, this is a perfect being,
and you feel in love with this person that you don't know. And then, later,
all these doubts and insecurities come up. It is similar to taking a drug like ecstasy, that
can create a very positive experience but you also don't completely know what
you're getting yourself into. It
is about the ambiguity of falling in love with someone you hardly
know, who you can project everything into, and about
the fear of being left behind or of being tortured by the person who you've
given all this power because you're in love with them.
CR: Why do drugs play
such a strong role in the film?
PS: Ecstasy was very much the drug of the 90s, and
everyone in the clubs was on the same drug. Now on the club scene in Berlin
they take as many drugs as in the 90s, even more, but they're not
aware of what they're taking, and they mix everything, and
don't know the full effect of what they're taking. There was way
more education about drugs in the 90s than there is now -- people
just think, if you take drugs, it's a bad thing, if you don't, it's a good
thing. So if you do -- better not talk about it.
Lose your Head wasn't meant to be a drug education film but I'm a bit surprised that reviewers
didn't write more about
the drug aspect. It would be nice if
that triggered more discussions.
PS: I first saw Fernando in this wonderful film Unmade Beds. It is almost like a prequel
to Lose Your Head, I actually saw it after I'd
already written the outline for the movie. Fernando plays a young Spanish
guy who comes to London to find his father. He gets lost on the London music
scene and he meets a DJ and goes to concerts and stuff like that. He always
wakes up in a different bed. I
really liked Fernando in the film and he was first choice to play Luis. He
really touches me as an actor and I could really relate to him. I wrote him a
letter and asked if he was interested in the script, and he wrote back saying
it was the perfect story for him, and he loved the script.
We sent Marko the script in Slovenia. I'd first seen him on a
German TV series where he plays a Russian mafia guy with a lot of tattoos, very
tough, very brutal. He
is so convincing that we were a little bit afraid to offer him a gay
role, but we found out that in reality
he's a super nice, super sweet guy. He had played
transvestites and basically everything. He's just a very good actor.
CR: Viktor's
character is so creepy but so sad. He seems desperate for some kind of a
connection, but if he loves something it's like he'll just kill it instead.
What does he represent for you?
PS: He was definitely the most "made up"
character. At first I was worried that he wouldn't seem
real enough. He's the only character not based on personal observations -- he's
more like a fantasy
of someone you hope to meet after coming out of a
boring gay marriage, and you want some excitement or passion in your life. And
danger also, of course. What I like a lot about Marko is that he brought a lot
of humor to the role. Maybe
not everyone agrees but I think his Viktor is also
very funny, ironic and
playful. I didn't want him to be another brooding, mysterious guy.
*
* *
My thanks again to Patrick!
Check out the website for more info on Lose Your Head, featuring interviews with the cast and more. Follow all the action around the film via the Facebook page.
And if you can make it to any of the following screenings, do it!
And if you can make it to any of the following screenings, do it!
25 May, 19:00
4 June, 20:30
12 June, 20:30
13 June, 22:00
And in Germany:
10 May, 19:30
16 May, 19:00
19 May, 21:00
AWESOME FILM!
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