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| The Ugly Stepsister Photo: Lukasz Bak, courtesy of IFC Films |
Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt's feature debut, The Ugly Stepsister (Den Stygge Stesøsteren), reimagines the Cinderella story with a satirical bite and a violently dark and potentially nauseating twist. Set in a kingdom built upon superficial beauty, the story follows Elvira's (Lea Myren) attempts to earn the prince's affection. To do so, she will have to compete with the more beautiful Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss).
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| The Ugly Stepsister Photo: Lukasz Bak, courtesy of IFC Films |
The Ugly Stepsister's central themes are a continuation of those explored previously by Blichfeldt's in her 2013 shirt film, How Do You Like My Hair? And 2018's Sara's Intimate Confession (Saras Intime Betroelser). The latter in particular shows the director's humorous wit, conjuring up a conversation with a talkative vulva.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Blichfeldt discussed the revelatory impact of discovering David Cronenberg's cinema, finding a new point of view on the classic story in a dream, and challenging misogynistic narratives.
Paul Risker: Why filmmaking as a means of creative expression? Was there an inspirational or defining moment for you personally?
Emilie Blichfeldt: I didn't start watching movies until I was in my teens. My parents believed in books, not movies. As a lonely teenager, films became my friend, especially Amélie, who was my first best friend — also a lonely woman with romantic ideas and a love for big noses.
That film was huge to me because it plays with everything filmic. It's tactile and funny, a bit raunchy and magical, and it plays with music and rhythm – it's a great movie. Then three years later, I discovered Lars von Trier and fell in love with all of his work. It's so beautiful, and so dark, but so humanistic at the same time. He doesn't care about what other people think, and I love that.
Quite late on, only 10 years ago in film school, I discovered David Cronenberg, which was a huge moment for me. The way he touches upon human existence and the modern world, the fear and the vulnerability of having a body, and existing as bodies in this world, with his humour, elegance and style, just floored me.
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| The Ugly Stepsister Photo: Marcel Zyskind, courtesy of IFC Films |
So, I was excited when I got this idea [for The Ugly Stepsister]. I immediately knew it was body horror because, for me, the story or idea always comes first. I wouldn't say, "Oh, I want to make a body horror, what can I do?" I was excited for it to be a body horror because that was something I'd dreamed of doing.
PR: Looking back on your discovery of Cronenberg's cinema, how different would your creative trajectory have been had you not encountered him?
EB: I wouldn't have known how body horror or gory stuff could play with an audience if I hadn't first watched Cronenberg's movies.
My own movies have been about women struggling to fit in with the idea of what beauty or that ideal is. And my personal journey as a woman has been about this experience. I felt very uncomfortable with my body, especially being a woman. I know men can also relate, but I felt like an object of this ideal or thinking I should fit into it. Being a woman is a very bodily experience, and a lot of the time we're told that we should just think of ourselves as intellects, but that doesn't work because you're walking around in this body.
Seeing Cronenberg's movies, I was allowed to reflect upon the fear and vulnerability of my body. He also holds his images, but it's not a shock effect. It's this very elegant dissection, carefully opening something and presenting it to you for your reflection and for you to start to study it. If I hadn't had that experience, I wouldn't know that was something I could somehow pass on to my audience. So, I was very conscious about making sure that the gore was onscreen long enough because the audience needed the time to get used to it — maybe they would shy away at first, but it would still be there afterwards.
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| The Ugly Stepsister Photo: courtesy of IFC Films |
PR: Body horror touches a nerve with the audience, and I found myself squirming uncomfortably during certain scenes. Moments will affect people differently, depending on the vulnerabilities we feel in our own bodies.
EB: We are sympathetic and empathetic creatures, and that's a great way to bring the audience into the character's shoes — pun intended in this case. And especially with a character that we have shown no sympathy or understanding to before. It has been the opposite — we've ridiculed her and said that she is not anything like us. Talk about internalised self-hatred because most of us are like the stepsister, trying to alter ourselves physically, the way we dress or do stuff to try to fit in. She's the relatable character in the story, and for us to feel her physical pain is a way to sympathise with ourselves as well.
PR: The film comes from a personal place, but what compelled you to want to take this story and use it as a prism to explore the personal?
EB: I say that I didn't choose the stepsister; the stepsister chose me. I got the idea in a creative nap — it was like a strike of lightning.
I was working with a character that does not fit within beauty ideals. She's two meters tall, gorgeous and chubby. I took a nap and envisioned her as Cinderella in the Czech version of Three Wishes For Cinderella, which we see every Christmas in Norway. To my surprise, I envisioned her as Cinderella fitting the shoe, being lifted on the horse like she weighed nothing and riding off to the castle. Then, on the way to the castle, she looked down and saw that her shoe was filled with blood. She realised, and I did too, that she was, of course, not Cinderella — she was the stepsister who cut off her toes to make the shoe fit.
When I woke up from this nap, I was in shock because I had found a character whose shoes I'd never been in before. I never had sympathy for her, and suddenly I understood that. But that was me — not only do I wear size 11 shoes, but I could recognise the terror and shame she must have felt when she tried so hard to fit in but was found out.
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| The Ugly Stepsister Photo: Lukasz Bak, courtesy of IFC Films |
There are all these layers to the character that are horrible, and I thought, 'This is a great idea because it's within this story that everyone knows, but no one has seen this particular POV before.' I think it's something a lot of people can relate to, and I certainly can. I know that I can talk to this character and the fairy tale in a way that will hopefully be interesting for a broader audience.
PR: The striking contrast has always been the dark roots of the fairy tales, written by The Brothers Grimm, and Disney's sterilised and colourful reimagining. Even though the latter have delighted audiences for decades, we know that they're an escapist fantasy of reality's dark nature.
EB: For me, it's all about grit, right? The Fifties were a great era for Disney because it was all about polish. After World War II, the rise of Disney was an escape from a very dirty and gritty world. But also, in a time when women were supposed to be in the kitchen and picture-perfect all the time, you never saw the backside of that. We can't continue telling fairy tales in this way because time has moved on, and now, Disney's drop with Snow White is testimony to that. People are not interested in that picture-perfect, glossy thing anymore. We need to see that grit, because that's reality. We're sick and tired of all the polish that we get every day on social media and all of that.
I was inspired by the Brothers Grimm versions, and also by a few Eastern European fairytale movies from the Seventies, because they make this enchanted fairy tale, but in a realistic world. They are shot on real locations, and the bodies and all the practical effects are real, but it still has this enchanted feeling to it. That's what I wanted to lean into, because otherwise, it's hard to relate to.
PR: A question I wanted to ask you was about the importance of women making films that deal with the subject of body image. Like Coralie Fargeat's The Substance last year, The Ugly Stepsister takes on these gritty and sensitive types of stories with a ferocity. Not only body horror, but cinema more broadly has been under the purview of men for so long, that it feels overdue that women filmmakers should make their voices heard.
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| The Ugly Stepsister Photo: Lukasz Bak, courtesy of IFC Films |
EB: I grew up very lonely in the north of Norway, above the polar circle, where there are almost no people. And I was a loner on top of that. In my youth, I asked, "Where are the other people like me? Then, later on in my teenage years, I felt the pain from trying to conform to these ideals of beauty. I also felt very lonely doing that, because other women were doing the same thing, but it seemed like they did it better and that it didn't hurt them, or they weren't bothered by it.
I make my movies as if they were me shouting out into the world, "Hello, is there anybody out there like me?" [Laughs] So, I really made it for 16-year-old Emilie. I would have loved to see this movie when I was sixteen, just to understand that I'm not the only one that thinks or feels that what we are doing to ourselves is crazy, when we don't have to. These narratives that tell us we have to are misogynistic. That's why it's also important that women make these movies, because the narrative we are told again and again on social media and all of that, is that it's our duty to change ourselves, to become beautiful and to suffer.
We need to have this other narrative that a lot of people go and see, so we understand that we're not alone. When you suffer under the tyranny of beauty, you feel lonely because carrying yourself in that way is like wearing a mask. And it can be very dangerous to take that mask off and admit that you're not doing it freely or because you like it — that's being vulnerable. So, it's important that we do it, and we create these new narratives that will make us feel less alone.
The Ugly Stepsister releases theatrically in the US from April 18th and UK from April 25th.
