 |
| Jimpa |
Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde's Jimpa is inspired by her own experiences of belonging to a queer family. Olivia Colman plays Hannah, an Australian-based filmmaker who is developing a film about her estranged gay father, affectionately known as 'Jimpa', played by John Lithgow. Visiting him in Amsterdam, she is accompanied by her trans-nonbinary teenage child Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) and husband Harry (Daniel Henshall).
Frances' announcement that they intend to live with their grandfather is met with consternation from their parents. While Harry believes they need to actively reject the idea, Hannah is hopeful that as Frances spends time with their grandfather, they'll have a change of heart.
Hyde's previous credits include her solo-directorial début 52 Tuesdays, about a 16-year-old whose mother announces plans for a gender transition. This restricts the time they can spend together to Tuesday afternoons. She also directed the adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth's novel Animals, and the award-nominated comedy, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, starring Emma Thompson.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Hyde discussed her desire to share her vulnerability, when, at large, we're training ourselves to not be vulnerable. She also reflected on our relationship to language, how queerness is an exciting lens through which to see the world, and the freedom to be had in breaking down the categories used to define us.
The following has been lightly edited.
Paul Risker: It's important to consider vulnerability when making and talking about films, because to make or be a part of a film is to be vulnerable. The audience too must allow themselves to be vulnerable, and yet the subject of vulnerability is something we don't discuss enough.
Sophie Hyde: For me, it's really important in what I make, and it is also unavoidable in the kind of person that I am. And I'm craving it in my life. I'm looking for that every day — I think we actually all are. The fronts and the masks that we have get in the way of this a lot of the time, otherwise we'd all just walk around like a blobby, soft creature. But we actually are just blobby, soft creatures, and so, that's what I want out of something. It's also scary, of course, and you get what I call the vulnerability hangover, which I get relatively often when I'm making and certainly when I'm showing films.
With everything I've made, part of what I've trained myself to do is to walk into a room and be open and vulnerable and find discomfort and be okay with it. Also, to feel like a fool and feel like I'm sharing too much and try and find a line. I've been really fortunate that a lot of people have met me there on this film and my other films, who have decided that's something they're ready for as well. And as a filmmaker, that's how I feel all the time.
When I show a film, I feel like I am stripped naked but usually no one knows which bits are connected to you. With Jimpa, it feels like no one actually does, but everyone thinks they do. So, there's an interesting dynamic between the fiction and the nonfiction in the film.
Speaking with audiences, they tell me things that they think are connected to my life, and I think, 'Oh, that's not right.' But I also think, 'Okay, I don't need them to know this part.' But what's really perceptive and interesting about what you asked is about the audience, because we're training ourselves out of being vulnerable when we watch things, and there's a lot of really cynical work out there. People are enjoying it and finding something in it because maybe we are cynical. But I find there is something about walking into a cinema or seeing any kind of art, engaging with it and being open to what it's going to be, rather than what you're looking for specifically. It does mean that you have to crack yourself open a little bit and ask, "What's this?" I don't think we're doing it a great deal, and the problem with our attention [spans] means that we are constantly protecting ourselves, and we miss out on a huge amount. But I know why we're doing it — look at the world; of course we are.
All I care about in filmmaking is intimacy and vulnerability, and the ways that we might try and hide that or use it. Jimpa's an interesting one because I'm bringing up things about my own life that not everyone knows about, and I deeply question the motivation of the character that is based on me, and how she operates.
PR: There was a certain discomfort watching Jimpa because I'm not used to such openness and thoughtfulness. Films like this are in the minority. It is, however, important to take the conversation into uncomfortable spaces rather than stay in the reactionary space or the echo chamber. Also, your willingness to be vulnerable, and share personal insights brings a weight to the conversation the film stimulates.
SH: Look, I think filmmakers are almost always personal. There are a lot that don't show their work is about them, but it is a lot of the time. Those of us that reveal that in our work are trying to offer something, and it's received by some people beautifully and not so well by others. And industrially, we are uncomfortable about it, because we want a movie-making machine that is about something else. There are those of us that are trying to challenge that status quo in some way, and Jimpa might be doing it in a very gentle way. But everything is very volatile at the moment, and so, we're used to arguments.
When I was working with Matt [Cormack], my co-writer, he had a lot of those questions that come up in the film about whether we can tell a story that isn't about not having conflict, even though that's what Hannah says, but isn't driven by the idea of instant reaction, where the drama only comes from reacting against somebody. Can we look at characters who are trying really hard to be kind to each other? Are they being kind? Not always because it doesn't always work. Sometimes you need to tell the truth, but are they trying to be kind? Yes. Can we be surprising in our responses? Yes. And can we sometimes take a moment to think, 'Oh, what would be the most useful response for me to have here rather than just fight back?' These are the things we were interested in exploring in the film and that we continue to ask of our characters over and over.
So, do I believe that conflict can be good? Yeah, of course. I sometimes believe the character in the film, and myself as well, can avoid those things. But I also find oftentimes conflict doesn't lead to as much resolution as we think. Sometimes it's just people wanting to say shit to each other and have their opinion. And we've got a lot of opinions in the world right now [laughs].
I love this kind of work. I love the work of Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde, people that have put themselves into their work over time. And Miranda July and Mike Mills. There are filmmakers, writers, and artists who've always done this.
PR: What we're touching upon here is the need to challenge and to evolve our understanding and use of language. The meaning and application of words have naturally evolved. You wouldn't now use the word 'gay' to describe being happy, nor would you use the word 'abroad' to say you're going to the next town.
SH: It does evolve, and it should, and it always has. People get this way about the use of 'they, them' pronouns, but we've always used these pronouns in certain situations. But it can also just evolve; we can actually just change. We change all the time in terms of our language, and it's also a jargon thing too.
Sometimes I say kindness, and people go, "Urgh, kindness" or someone will say "gay rights" or "transgender" and people have [a response]. There are all these ideas that build up around a word. So, we have to break those words down again, so that when I say kindness, I mean it in a really robust way. I don't mean being sweet to each other. I'm talking about choosing to be kind, which isn't always easy. Sometimes we have to talk to each other and is that conflict? Sometimes, but other times it's just how do we sit with each other and disagree and talk about it and still have respect? How we do this is a huge question for us right now, because how are we going to do this when I'm in a bubble on my phone and you're in a bubble on your phone, and we are being told that we disagree with each other?
PR: Paraphrasing something that is said in one scene, queer people will just say things and ask questions. It's an interesting observation, especially from a heterosexual point of view. How open are the straight community to forming their own ideas about sex and sexuality. Are these ideas often guided by a long-established status quo? This is an example of the film's power to disarm its audience and encourage them to ask questions.
SH: I think of queerness as a really exciting way of seeing the world. Jim says it in a really crass way in the film: "It's all about sex." There's an expectation sexually that things operate in a certain way for heterosexual people. Gay and queer people have not always had that instant expectation, and so they've had to work it out. But I think that's true of life. It's like, "Okay, how do we actually want to live? Are we just following the script that's been preordained? A lot of people don't fit into that script."
The binary ideas of male and female, straight and gay, of being a top or a bottom sexually, these are all things that limit us. They can help us to sometimes express something, but questioning who we are, talking to each other about it and being able to change that, is something that the queer communities have been so good at and have a lot to teach everyone. Truthfully, teach is the wrong word, but offer.
It comes out in sexuality a lot because there's this idea that if you're straight, you meet, you fall for each other, you have sex in a certain way, you are monogamous, then you will eventually have a house and a baby. All of those ideas can work in so many different ways and they do because everyone's so uniquely individual.
The people in my life that have had to come out as gay, queer, lesbian, or trans, have had to reckon with this really young. Some don't do it until they're older, but some have just never had the choice. And that reckoning has created these gorgeous humans who have thought about the world and who they are and how they are treating other people. That's amazing and that's something to celebrate.
PR: A thought that comes to mind is how we habitually oversimplify. For example, the idea that sexuality is only a biological concept, when from my point of view, it's also psychological and emotional. In order to truly understand human nature or the human condition, we must stop oversimplifying ideas. People are, however, frightened by this because these ideas are a comfort. Nonetheless, it's essential to challenge through conversation.
SH: It really is, and I know there are reasons. I know for some gay men and lesbians, they fought hard for same sex-rights. But for me, and for a lot of people, the idea of same sex or opposite sex, again, puts us into these two binary categories. It's as though we have to understand what sex somebody is to understand whether we're attracted to them, and actually, to understand how we're supposed to treat them. If we could just start to break that down a little.
I agree, sexuality is a spectrum or like a huge world, and we're all sitting somewhere on it. Some people are gonna feel really straight, and some people are gonna feel really gay, and the rest of us are all somewhere in this mush-up. People are scared of that. We're scared of things that aren't certain, but my God, it's so much freer, right? There's freedom there to be something else. And sometimes it's political, and sometimes it's a choice, and sometimes it's a biological urge. And sometimes it's just, who cares? Why do we care? I care about it, of course, but why do we care about how someone else is and interacts? And I do think it comes down to that we've been told that we treat certain people a certain way, and men and women are treated differently. That's a fundamental but a sad part of our culture that is reinforced over and over with these positions. But again, you don't want to only talk about this stuff. You want to be in the world, but we do need to sometimes talk about it.
Jimpa was released in New York and LA theatres on February 6th, to be followed by a national expansion.
