If it's Not a Love Story, what is it?

Keith Hill talks about his debut feature, This is Not a Love Story,

So what's your come-on to audiences?
The deal is they get to see a film that is made - I hope - with care, intelligence and verve, that challenges them a little, entertains them a lot, and tells another story about us and our culture today.

Which filmmakers have influenced your work?
In relation to conceiving Love Story, three low-budget US indie films inspired me on practical and aesthetic levels: Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise, Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It, and Hal Hartley's The Unbelievable Truth. These were first features, each had a distinctive directorial style, and each exhibited a personal worldview. Each also made the most of the lack of money, using it to stimulate them creatively, because the lack of resources forced them to came up with a style of coverage that led to a visually distinctive film.
In terms of storytelling, Eric Rhomer's Full Moon in Paris and Josiane Balasko's French Twist were also significant influences. I love the sophisticated tone that French filmmakers bring to their story telling, the way they manage to balance emotional intensity with lightness of touch. The best French comedies are deceptively light, and also deal with sex naturally, often humorously. Their comedies are frequently not laugh-out-loud, engaging on more subtle emotional levels.
In addition, the central characters of Rhomer's comedies during the '70s and '80s are frequently self-obsessed and living in a fantasy world, which often makes them outright unlikable. But they also ask interesting questions about themselves and their relationship to their world.
Balasko's storytelling flirts with farce. She tells a highly unlikely story, deliberately pushing situations beyond the 'normal', but in the process explores interesting and complex emotions - and all with a light touch. That is very much what I sought to do in Love Story - I'm trying my hand at French comedic storytelling.
And Mike Leigh was a big influence, in terms of the process he uses to develop the characters and stories, with the actors' discoveries and improvisations feeding into the script.

How did you work towards a script?
I originally started with a single scene - a woman and a man are in bed together, and she decides to chuck him out of the house. I soon realised a starting point with a greater story dynamic was required, so I came up with the scenario of a painter who's living with a guy. They're having relationship problems, so she moves out for a few days. Meanwhile, a writer who lives in the same building sees the painter move out, walks down the hall, knocks on his door, and ...
I started working with Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, Stephen Lovatt and Donogh Rees (who unfortunately had to drop out after three months), first figuring out who these characters were, how they met, why they got there. After discussing the characters themselves, we did some improvisations based on clarifying back story, which I taped.
We then moved onto improvising potential scenes for the actual story. I also videotaped these, wrote them up, and we hashed them over. After each session I worked on the story outline first, then increasingly complete scenes.
The second half of the film was mostly written by me without improvisations, because we all knew who these characters were by that stage. But whatever I wrote was submitted to Sarah and Stephen to critique. We also had two read-throughs, to which other actors were invited, and they all gave feedback.

What does this kind filmmaking offer the NZ industry?
The point of difference we have from the rest of the world is partly cultural - both in terms of Mäori and Polynesian stories and our 'Kiwi' outlook on life - and personal - in terms of the stories we tell emerging out of our personal view of the world.
In addition, even with a budget, all our films are very low budget in the international context. So, with the exception of Peter Jackson, small personal films are realistically going to be what we will continue to make.
Other cultures, such as Sweden, Canada, France and Taiwan, have had a big impact internationally with low-budget, personal films. Historically, our most successful and significant films, such as Vigil, Bad Taste, Feathers of Peace, Rain, et al, fit this template. I’d like to think that Love Story fits into this line of films.

© Copyright Onfilm magazine November 2003

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