Spring: A Few Minutes With Directors Justin Benson And Aaron Moorhead

Posted in Blu-Ray/DVD, Interviews by - June 03, 2015

Spring is the story of an American backpacker, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), who after his mother dies, decides to travel abroad and start anew. Whe he arrives in an idyllic southern town in Italy, he meets the lovely Louise (Nadia Hilker), romance blossoms between the two — but Louise harbours a dark, secret that could destroy the happiness they are hoping to build together.

Spring is the second feature film written and directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, of Resolution fame. The film has been doing well in the festival circuit, as well as at various special screenings. Last month, Benson and Moorhead were in Toronto for a special presentation of Spring. While here, they made time to sit down with me and discuss a few interesting parts of their film and filmmaking process.

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Heidy M: The film blends some film genres in an interesting way. Where did the idea for the film come about?

Justin Benson: We don’t talk about which genre we’re working in, generally. We just think ‘this is interesting… that is interesting’.  The whole story began with the idea of a woman being able to use her own stem cells to remain immortal. Not as speculative fiction (as in Gattaca), but as an interesting myth / thing we can create. But this would require an act of love, reproduction, sex; so what followed was the idea of making it a romance. The thing is that neither one exists without the other. [There was] never a discussion of blending things. It was more that there was a seed of this idea of creating a new monster, and everything else grew from there.

HM: What visual aspects were in mind when creating this ‘monster’?

Aaron Moorhead: Placing the monster in a beautiful location and what the monster actually does (attack others) — the visual juxtaposition of the idyllic with the grotesque — is something that thematically works with the film. The fact that it is this feeling you get when you’re in love and something is not quite right… because nothing is ever perfect. Like, ‘what’s poisoning this paradise?’ which ties into the movie in a pretty obvious way.

Visually with our monster… we were thinking of great transformations in history like, American Werewolf and more modern stuff like, Hemlock Grove. They are really impressive. But we personally are having trouble finding them scary. And it’s probably because they aren’t really based in nature in any way. They feel like they’re based on something supernatural. It requires something… outside the law of science.

We went back to the scarier stuff that we find visually [striking] like the Xenomorph in Alien. It is so terrifying because it looks like a parasite that we all know. The theory [for the monster] is something that comes from nature; it occupies a space in our minds; deep in our fear. In building the monster, we wanted to seem like she had been sighted in historic times and that is why certain myths were created — like the werewolf or the vampire myth, for example. And somehow these myths all pointed to our own evolution. And no one has bridged that gap; the fact that all of our movie monsters could also be bridged to our own evolution. We think that’s a cool idea!spring-toronto-film-festival-3

HM: Was the location something you had in mind when writing the script and planning the film?

JB: Yeah, the script was written for the Amalfi Coast. Something interesting about the Mediterranean Coast, mixing something so heavenly beautiful with something so grotesque. [As well], I had already been there; I had a mental map in my head. It is so much easier to write when you know where all the locations are.

Then it turned out we could not shoot at the Amalfi Coast because it is too expensive for any film. By huge amount of luck, we found the Puglia region. And they opened their doors for us. They actually made it financially viable.

HM: The leads Evan and Louise (Lou Taylor Pucci & Nadia Hilker) are receiving great reviews on their performances. Were they your first choices?

AM: We tried to cast it through traditional ways with agencies. The person that stood out [as Evan] was Lou. We saw Thumbsucker; that was really it… We thought this film would be a good yet late coming-of-age story.

JB: [For Louise’s role] at first, we could not find anyone for that role. [The character] needs to have an accent you can’t quite place. .We ended up sending an email to all the producers and filmmakers we met throughout the festival circuit with our first film, Resolution. Nadia came back from three different lists. We auditioned her on Skype a couple of times. And right away she had really good instincts for the role. She didn’t try to play the role like a femme fatale.There are other things about Nadia that [work well in the film]. She is impossible to place ethnically and [it plays well with how we reveal her story towards the third act in the film]. She is amazing!

HM: The soundtrack is also quite good. Either of you care to talk about it?

JB: We were so, so lucky. [The composer’s] name is Jimmy Lavalle. He performs under the name The Album Leaf. It is such a great band. He’s so accomplished… he’s truly a genius. One way we really connect with him is that when Aaron and I are developing material, we don’t go and tell him ‘do this or that’. And he doesn’t ask us if he should do a Hans Zimmer ‘thing’. He literally just watches the movie and comes up with something completely new.

If you missed the chance to see Spring on the big screen at TIFF, or at a cinema near you, the film is now available on DVD & Blu-Ray. The discs even have extras totaling more than 90 minutes. Check out the film that has been referred to as Before Sunrise with a supernatural twist.

Spring

This post was written by
Heidy has a love of fine art history, films, books, world issues, music and science, leading her to share her adventures on her website (www.hyemusings.ca) , and as a contributor at other outlets. She loves sharing the many happenings in Toronto and hopes people will go out and support the arts in any fashion possible.
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