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| Girl In The Night |
The story of a crime-fighting girl who claims to have superpowers and a kleptomaniac youth who can think of no better way of getting to know her than stealing her bicycle, Girl In The Night (aka Dekla Noci) is one of the gems of this year’s Fantastic Fest. It’s directed by Slovenia’s Luca Marcetic and stars Lara Wolf as the girl, with Urban Kuntaric as her hapless admirer, Rok. Shortly before the festival, the four of us got together to discuss it.
“It began in 2017 with a high concept logline,” says Luca. “I went from there and I was trying really hard and it took me a long time to make a story out of that log line. It took me a couple of different versions before I got to this final storyline and then created a script from it.
“It's about this guy who meets a girl who thinks she's a superhero. In the very first version, she wasn't really a superhero. She thought she was a superhero, and he wasn't stealing things, and it was a really direct, kind of romantic story.”
I tell him that I was impressed to see a story about a female superhero who keeps all her clothes on. That's kind of refreshing.
“Yes, I find it cool, too,” says Lara. “This was the first thing that got me interested in the script. We are used to watching male superheroes, and this one is a female superheroine. And not just that she's a superhero, but I like this cringe humour. I like awkwardness. I am an introverted person. So maybe that's why I liked it even more, because I found myself a little bit in her, immediately. But yes, it's a good opportunity to play a role that is mostly played by a male.
“Branko Ristic was my trainer who prepared me for the action scenes because I'm not that physically active. I do yoga and stuff, like this easy stuff.” She laughs. “So that's why I enjoyed it even more. We made the choreography for each fight and then it was like everything...” She waves her arms. “I had fun.”
I ask Urban what's it like playing a male character who's a sidekick? The character seems very happy with it, but Urban has to sell that because the audience won't be expecting it.
“I liked it as well,” he says. “ I like being the Robin to the Batman, But I also like the introverted, very down to earth and almost boring persona of him. Luca was saying that he's always attracted to the people who are introverted, who are not in the spotlight. When he came to cast me, I was surprised because I'm the complete opposite of the character, so I guess it was kind of a challenge for me to inhabit this person, but a challenge is always thrilling.
“One thing that appealed to me is Luca is about 10 years older than me, so when I was in primary school, he already began with his YouTube videos, and I was mesmerised by his videos. And I was like, ‘When I grow up’ – I kind of knew I wanted to be an actor – but I was like, ‘I wish I could work with this guy’. And so when he approached me, I didn't even have to read the script. It was just like, ‘Yeah.’”
I suggest that a lot of the story is about jealousy, one way or another. Jealousy of people having things that other people don't, or of having attention when they don't.
“I love that,” says Urban. “Jealousy is the thing that actually drives a lot of the bad stuff that Rok does. And again, it was an interesting aspect of a character to explore because I'm not a jealous guy myself, so I have to say that everything about this character is so much different from me, apart from the height. It was an exciting shoot.”
We discuss the filmmaking process.
“We live in Slovenia,” Luca points out. “It's a really small country with not a lot of budget for films. When I got the idea to make a superhero film, the first challenge was how to make a Slovenian superhero film that would be believable when you watch. It was kind of impossible at first, so that's why this production limitation entered into my script writing. And that's why I kind of hide all her powers. Some are shown onscreen, some are shown offscreen. And the way the action scenes are also framed are two reasons: one is because I really like to watch action scenes from a film and statically, without the shaky cams and whatnot. And also silhouettes.
“Why are they in silhouettes? Because that's also a production limitation. I wanted to make a fight scene, but to make a good fight scene, you need a lot of time and money for it and talented people who can do it. So because of limitations, I just put them in silhouette and I put them apart from the camera. But still, this limitation really did something special for these action scenes, I think. Also, a scene where she fights this woman, which happens off camera, is also, first of all, because of limitations. Mostly, because of limitations, I thought about doing it creatively.”
But he also works with a rabbit, I point out. I have a rabbit of the same breed, and I know they’re not the most cooperative actors. Why choose to work with a rabbit when under so much pressure already?
“Yeah,” he says. “They always say do not work with animals or children, so. But still, it's a challenge. I wanted to try. And the scenes with rabbits are quite simple. We also used a bit of composite. The rabbit alone, without the actor, and then the actor himself, and then we composited the scene together to make it work. I did everything not to make the rabbit nervous. We basically put it on the scene and just let it do its thing and then choose the part of its action and then composited it with the actor.”
The film is not an origin story. I ask Lara if she worked out a background for her character.
“Yes, I made something in my head,” she says. “I think that she's from a family where she didn't get so much attention, or maybe even the world that the film is happening in is very cold, lonely. I think it is not this world that we know. So, yes, I was between this is the family that something went wrong in, for her to become that determined, or is the world the way it is, so that she has a feeling that she needs to do this, she needs to solve crime? That's her duty, actually. So, yes, I had something about the family, because I love psychology and I always make something up. But I mean, the world is calling her to do this, I think, mainly. To make it better.”
Do her superhero powers come from her determination?
“That's a good question. No, I think that she had it from forever. She was born with it, and then she uses it for good.”
Urban took a different approach to his character.
“I'm way too lazy. I never do such things. I know that were taught about it in acting school, but I was just like, ‘Yeah, but if it doesn't show, is it really necessary?’ So my line of preparation was more like, when I was driving from my work to Ljubljana, where I work in SNG Theatre, I was playing my favourite music all the way up, and the task was not to sing along, just to have a blank expression. To tell the truth, it was really difficult.”
We talk about locations.
“Everything that we did outside is obviously real,” says Luca. “The whole film we shot in the capital city of Slovenia, but when it comes to the interiors, we built a studio, we built an apartment, and then we also switched the apartments. Whichever apartment is in the film is the same apartment, but the art direction is different. I really wanted to do that this way because I wanted to be able to move the walls so we could put the camera wherever we want. There's also a scene where the camera goes even outside of the apartment.
“The funny thing is also that a couple of scenes are basically in front of my apartment building, because I really love this place where I live, and I really wanted to use it in the film and also show it in a way that we do not know that it is the capital city of, Ljubljana, even for people who live in it. They don't really know that it's that part of the city.
“We also went a step further and we basically filmed the whole film without any cars in the shots, because I really wanted to make it as lonely as possible. So we went through all the trouble of removing all the cars from the shots, both physically and digitally, which was quite a problem because it's a capital city full of cars. But still we managed somehow to do it and made it a much lonelier city than it actually is.”
With all the outdoor shooting, they needed to have the weather on side.
“Yeah, we weren't quite lucky. When we started, there was a lot of rain, even though it was winter, and we had to stop shooting for a week or even two because it was raining all the time. We even lost one shooting day because of the weather, but after that, everything went smoothly, although it was cold and we shot for 20 straight days at night and were cold outside, so it was not an easy film to shoot.”
But now the film is at Fantastic Fest. How does that feel?
“Well, for myself, it was always a dream to go to Fantastic Fest. Even when I was younger. I told myself, ‘When I will be big, I will attend Fantastic Fest.’ And now I'm attending it with my own film, which is a really, really a dream come true. I mean, I'm a big fan of genre films. We used to have a genre festival here called Goosebumps, but it doesn't exist anymore for two years now. But many films from Fantastic Fest got here. So that's also where I got the idea, like, yeah, one day I will go there, and now it's coming true. So it's absolutely exciting and wild to me that this is happening. I'm going, and one of the producers and both actors.”
Perhaps if Girl In The Night is a hit, it will encourage people in Slovenia to make more genre films, I suggest.
“Here's to hoping. I would like to see it. I would like to see it. And I'm still waiting to have a première in Slovenia where they will be able to see the film, but it's definitely completely different from everything we've seen here.”
“I'm just happy that my dream come true and I helped Luca's dream come true,” says Urban.
“And that the waiting is over,” Lara adds. “We were waiting so long, and we are very excited. I can't wait to see the movie and for people to see the movie.”
