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| A New Kind Of Wilderness Photo: courtesy of Maria Vatne |
Director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen's sophomore feature A New Kind Of Wilderness follows the lives of the Payne family, who have chosen to make their home on a farm in the bosom of the Norwegian forest. After Maria's death, Nik confronts the challenges of raising their three children, Ulv, nicknamed Wolfie, Falk, Freja and his stepdaughter Ronja, as a single parent. The life that he and Maria pursued for their children, living in harmony with nature and homeschooling, faces an uncertain future.
Jacobsen's 2021 feature début, Faith Can Move Mountains (Tro Kan Flytte Fjell), documents the tension sparked in the community of Valldal, a small Norwegian village, when Greek Orthodox nuns announce plans to build a monastery. Alongside the intimate reflections of her 2014 short film, Bestemors Hus, which explores the emotional connection a granddaughter feels towards her grandmother's house, a pattern is revealed. Jacobsen's film work is threaded together by the theme of change and loss.
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| A New Kind Of Wilderness Photo: courtesy of Maria Vatne |
In conversation with Eye For Film, Jacobsen discusses the value of not being fully satisfied with one's films and allowing the story to develop in a natural way. She also speaks about earning the trust and vulnerability of her subjects, a refusal to deliver a simple message and the surprising response the film has received.
Paul Risker: Why cinema as a means of creative expression?
Silje Evensmo Jacobsen: When I've heard stories, I've always visualised them, and when I was younger, when I would read a book, I would see the story as photos/pictures.
What I especially love about the documentary is that you need to use what you have. You need to use the story, the people, and then you need to create it visually within certain limits, because the story is unfolding on its own terms. And those limits spur me on creatively. But it's just the way you can use the visuals, the sound, the music and everything else to create an art form or a story. So, I see myself not as an artist, but more as a storyteller, because I use all these elements to tell a story.
PR: Some filmmakers I've spoken with have pushed back against being called storytellers, whereas others, such as yourself, are comfortable with that label. Also, ‘what we are’ versus ‘who we feel we are’ can often be out of synch. I’ve spoken with directors who say that it took a number of films before they felt they could call themselves a filmmaker. Perhaps lurking beneath all of this is the impostor syndrome, but it’s interesting how terms such as director, filmmaker and storyteller are responded to so differently.
SEJ: What you say about impostor syndrome, we've all got that in us. Whenever I start a project, I always picture it going a particular way, and it always goes another. I cannot understand a documentarian who knows what the film will be in the beginning, and it turns out that way.
You make the film as well as you can on whatever terms you have, and I'm never 100% satisfied. When people say they love my films, I think, 'Really?' [Laughs] But I think that's good because then you want to do it better next time, and you want to go deeper. You're never fully satisfied, and I never will be with whatever I'm making. But part of the urge to make something new is that it's going to be bolder, and that's a good way to develop as an artist.
PR: Going back to the beginning, what was the genesis of A New Kind Of Wilderness?
SEJ: About 10 years ago, I was in the process of wanting to become a mother myself and I discovered Maria's blog. She was the mother of this family and an amazing photographer. She captured their everyday life in nature, how they lived and how they wanted to be more self-sufficient, by being closer to nature and each other. And in Norway, this is really uncommon.
She was inspiring, and so, I called her. I said I really wanted to make a series that would follow her throughout this process and all the family's other projects. I made a pilot, and I pitched it to the national broadcaster, but unfortunately it didn't work out. But Maria and I stayed in touch because there was so much going on there and, a couple of years later, I read on Facebook that she was sick and a couple of months later she died.
I was asking myself why I didn't start to film when I really wanted to. So, I called Nik and said, "We can still make the film with photos, stories and your values, but it's now going to be a different film. It'll be about you going through all of this." He said, yes, and that's how it all began.
PR: It returns us to the earlier part of our conversation about how you have to allow a story to develop in its own way.
SEJ: And in a natural way. When I started to film them again after Maria passed away, I had a totally different project in mind. I was only going to follow the children through the course of a year and change perspective each season. But you need to adjust to the story and the people. You cannot force the story to be something it doesn't want to be. When you make documentary films it's difficult, and so, you need to follow the pattern and don't abbreviate in your first edit.
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| A New Kind Of Wilderness Photo: courtesy of Maria Vatne |
PR: You clearly have the family's trust, and so, they're willing to share their vulnerability. Could you discuss the consideration of trust as a documentarian?
SEJ: It's crucial because if they didn't like me or if I didn't like them, I couldn't have made this film. And especially with this kind of film where you have children who are in a vulnerable situation, and you're gonna spend hours with them. It's so important that they feel they can trust you. And even though I knew they did, it was sometimes still hard for Nik to let his children be in front of the camera during the worst period of their lives. Of course, he had regrets, and he asked himself, 'What am I doing?'
It was important to tell them that they could trust me, and we could take anything out they didn't like, so they could love the film and see its truth. It was really about trust, being open and trying to involve them in what you're thinking and why you want to make this film.
PR: By following the pattern of the story, were there any moments you captured that either surprised or affected you in a memorable way?
SEJ: When I'm in the moment, I don't see it — I see it more afterwards. My favourite moment is when Freja gets a wooden spoon from her dad for her birthday. It was her first birthday without her mom. But just having the lens on her and seeing her reaction to the wooden spoon and looking at her dad and saying, "Oh my God, thank you so much. This is the best birthday ever." Of course, it was a spontaneous reaction, but at the same time, she looks at her dad and says she loves and appreciates him. It was a small but still a special moment to be a part of, and it was quite early on during the filming as well.
For me, it was those small moments, like when they were climbing in the trees like monkeys, which was just so natural or a four-year-old chopping with an axe. It's those small moments more than when they cry or show a lot of emotion that stick with me the most, because they say something more.
PR: Human beings are drawn to the small moments and little pleasures of life. In cinema, it's sometimes those small, quiet passages, sometimes without music or even dialogue, that can affect us the most. A New Kind Of Wilderness is built around those small episodes as much as the dramatic arcs.
SEJ: That's the pleasure of being around them, and they're so natural in front of the camera, like when Freja a goes to bed. I was just filming some stock photos inside the house, and I heard her ask her dad, "Do you think there's another suitable planet when they destroy this one?"
You only hear this conversation between Freja and her dad, and my first thought was that I needed to go inside the bedroom and film because this was a really nice conversation. And luckily, my second thought was, 'No, I will ruin everything if I go in there with a camera now.' So, I just let her talk, and I took some photos outside that are right for the moment.
I'm so happy I didn't do anything because this was just an honest moment of a 10-year-old girl talking to her dad before going to bed. You always need to be ready to get those kinds of moments because you cannot direct them, and you cannot plan for them. Those moments will just come, and they can be the best part of your story.
PR: One of the film's driving themes is its contribution to the conversation about the relationship humans share with nature. This conversation, however, is filtered through the family's personal story, which creates a space filled with sensitivity for the audience to engage.
SEJ: I'd love there to be more of this, but there were four main characters and only so much story to tell. One of my favourite moments was the kids being together with nature, because I think we have detached ourselves so much from it. Can modern man be in touch with nature like these children are? And they're also so natural with their connection to animals and their life cycle.
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| A New Kind Of Wilderness Photo: courtesy of Maria Vatne |
PR: One of the touching ideas in A New Kind Of Wilderness is that a loved one might no longer be with us, physically, but they live on through our memories and the personal belongings they leave behind. The film encourages us to perceive death from a more layered point-of-view.
SEJ: That was my intention, that her photos and stories from the past would reflect what is happening in the present. All their decisions and thoughts were based on her being with them — Freja going to school, and thinking about what her mom would say, and Nik taking Wolfie to school, and then afterward, how she should have been there. And for the children, she's a part of them, and so, she just follows along. I think that's a really nice way to look at it.
PR: One idea worth considering is how the film will affect audiences differently, depending on their personal experiences and also their own personalities and natures. It'll be interesting to see how an introvert and an extrovert experience the film, and those with positive versus negative experiences of school.
SEJ: I've made films before, and I've never experienced it the way I have with this film. It has been everywhere — Japan, the UK, Norway, Taiwan and the US. I really feel that it affects people in different ways, depending on whether you're a single parent, or you don't know whether it's the right decision for your children to go to public school for example.
There are so many different perspectives, and, as a director or a storyteller, you can affect people in a way that afterwards they go home and reflect on their own lives. And that's amazing.
I don't think the family believed anybody would be interested in watching this film. But when they traveled around the world with the documentary, they saw how much it means to so many people, and in different ways. That's really inspiring and that's why I do this.
PR: One reason the film will resonate so broadly, is that it will inevitably lead the audience to consider their own relationship to technology and other aspects of their lifestyle choices. Here, we see an alternative way of living, but it's not necessarily the right choice for everyone, and the film never tries to politicise the conversation.
SEJ: It's never meant to point the finger. Things are not black and white, and it's not saying you should live a certain way. It has been a struggle for Nik to live like that, and I think when some people see the film's posters, or they hear about the film, they believe that the family are probably rich.
But no, it's not telling you this is how you should live. It's more a way of describing a family going through these changes, and you can take whatever you want from it and think for yourself.
PR: Is the experience of making a film transformative?
SEJ: Every piece of work I do changes me in one way or another. Maybe it encourages me to be more open and to be aware of how I raise my own children. Yes, I'm a filmmaker, but first I'm a mother, which is the most important thing. And the values of the family in the film mean you can just think about how you want to live your life and what's right for you. In a way, I made it to be more reflective and to think about how I want to live my life instead of thinking about society and other people's expectations.
A New Kind Of Wilderness is in UK cinemas from May 16th.
