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Raoul Peck tells
the world what happened and makes those
who turned away responsible for the lost
lives of more than 800,000.
How did you go about re-depicted the
violence?
Raoul Peck: I
think I went to the extreme of what I
can show for the movie. The film is not
Kill Bill. I don’t know if we can be
more graphic than that. But the fact
that this films reality is
authenticity…is of course the slightest
thing has 10x’s more impact on you. But
if you watch the film you don’t really
see the atrocities. Not the way I could
have done it. The pressures in your
head. It’s more what you think. What you
deduct from what you see. This is what
is working in your mind. But in the
country, we made sure that even when we
are showing dead people, like the young
girls; I told my set designer, the
costume person, please make sure that
when we see those bodies, we want to hug
them. We don’t want to be disgusted, we
want to hug those girls. That is why the
light was pretty much down. You don’t
really see all the details. So, that was
the approach. And you know, all my work
has been on violence. I was raised on
American movie but for me violence is
different. Violence in Haiti, when I see
violence in Congo, violence is something
totally different. Violence is not
choreographed. Its’ not pretty. And if
you have witnessed fist fights in the
streets…your whole body is filled with
something. And it’s ugly. So, I know and
I try to work on that in all of my
films. Even with the killer. I make sure
that in all situations you have some
sort of eye contact with the killer. And
to make sure that he’s not doing this
because he’s a bad guy or he’s a
monster, he’s a human being going to
kill another human being. And you need
to have a half a second moment, whether
it’s eye contact and that the person
decides to do that anyway. And that’s
when you stop and think about violence.
That its not just to kill somebody. Like
in all the western films where we got
used to cowboys killing Indians.
Why tell this story now as oppose to a
couple of years after it happened?
Raoul Peck:
You can’t really plan this film. First
of all you have to feel that the people
themselves are ready to talk to you. And
it takes time. With the Holocaust, the
survivors started talking after 30
years. Mostly because also the world
didn’t want to hear. They were hiding.
They were hurrying into the Cold War.
The survivor camp starting using some of
the Nazi’s against communists. They were
not really into condemning so much or
survivors talking about the camps and
all that. It came very slowly. Its never
too early but you just have to follow
the people when they are ready.
Before you spoke about the violence in
the film. How did you prepare the
children for the scenes and how did they
react afterwards?
Raoul Peck:
Well, we um, we worked with all the
actors all the extras. Some of them, we
had to explain what film was. Some of
the girls were from the best school. So
they were educated. Although we had
mixed. Some were from very poor schools.
But they never had contact to film
before. But in the villages it was
different kind of work. We even had to
explain the notion of cinema. My
assistant was there several times and
they choose people. Then we choose from
those people the ones we wanted. We had
psychologists going there and talking to
them. And we trained the young girls.
They were not actresses. So, we had to
train them and do exercise with them. So
many months and weeks prior to shooting,
they were really prepared. We didn’t
just throw them in there. In the
particular scene which you are referring
too, when the soldiers enter the
dormitory…everybody was crying. It was
like reality. Not so much the thought of
dying or death or massacre, but just the
notion of solidarity. It was there. And
I was crying myself. As soon as you have
eye contact with any of the girls, you
start crying, they start crying. We did
that like 6, 7 takes. It was beyond
directing. It was something like a magic
moment. They felt they were in this
moment. In this real thing happening.
And everybody thought it was great to
work like this. So it was emotional but
it was much more about solidarity.
Are you trying to tell this story now to
make the world recognize what happened
and be made responsible for turning
away?
Raoul Peck:
Well, I’m very cynical about that. There
are no leaders today who did not know
that it was happening. From day one they
had pictures. They had people there
telling them what was happening. Even
before it was happening. All the human
rights groups, were giving them precise
information. There isn’t one character
in the film that I cut out, who went to
the UN and said, I am a trained militia.
I am trained to kill 1300 an hour. I
could show up where the arms are. This
is what they said to the UN. And the UN
said ok. They sent somebody to check all
those places. They had an officer. And
he went there and he saw those things.
He wrote the facts to New York saying
that they next day he will go down
there, take all the arms and close down
those places. He got the response, don’t
move, that’s not part of your
mandate. We have evidence of the
preparation of the genocide.
How was it working with Idris? And was
he the best pick for working with what
you wanted to show on film?
Raoul Peck:
Idris is a very wonderful actor. He came
with a very modest attitude. He didn’t
come like a typical Hollywood actor,
like I’m gonna show them I’m the macho
man. No, he really listened, he looked,
he smelled. He felt the country. He was
very attentive. And that is not easy
especially with the particular roles
that African Americans are given. It’s
very hard for them to have a wide range
of acting skills. Idris was very, very
impressive for that.
Did you experience any resistance in the
areas you filmed?
Raoul Peck:
Again, I didn’t come there as a foreign
or American director. People knew my
film. Lumumba is a very known film in
Rwanda. And I came through very good
friends that I had for very many years
before. So, they introduced me
everywhere. It was very personal contact
from day one. And that helped. They
never had the impression that one of
those big foreign production companies
coming to us using our story using our
location and never coming back. To me, I
was home. Very early on people were
telling me death stories. We were also
bringing jobs. Which was an important
aspect to it. Rwanda is a poor country.
So the first week we had calls for
extras. There was a riot. The production
office, police had to come. The film
made noise. It was a small city. Every
body knows everybody. And that was the
only way to do it. To be very close with
the people and not pretend to be that
you are from outside. My technicians, I
met every single one of them. I
explained to them, where we were going,
why we were going and how I wanted it
done over there. They had the choice to
come or not to come. And all of them who
came, they came much more than doing
just another movie. It was not about
that. It was about the comprehension of
something. Wanting to be part of that.
Sometimes In
April premiers March 19 on HBO.
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