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Rolf de Heer.
 South
Australia's most successful and acclaimed auteur, Rolf de Heer,
was at home in Adelaide briefly last week to coincide with the
release of his film, 'The Old Man Who Read Love Stories.' He
explained that this film, his tenth completed feature and his
own personal favourite, is not really his latest, nor is the
story he identifies so closely with even one of his this time.
He also let slip some hard-learned lessons of the craft of making
films.
De Heer's name and its close relationship with success and controversy were made long ago with the release of his fourth film, 'Bad Boy Bubby' (1993). Starring Adelaide punk-rocker, Nicholas Hope, de Heer rates it as a major success. "It broke me through to being recognised internationally," the writer-director explains, and it remains one of his biggest box-office performers.
De Heer's reputation was gilded soon after with Cannes screenings of 'The Quiet Room' (1996) and 'Dance Me To My Song' (1997). He cites 'The Quiet Room' as an example of the whirlwind mode he sometimes uses to good effect. "I had to pay the rent so I had to come up with a film that I could get finance for in a matter of weeks, from scratch, absolutely from nothing. That's a great story, how this tiny little film ended up in competition at Cannes. And 'Alexandra's Project' was very fast for the same reasons and ended up in competition at Berlin." (Lesson #1) "There are many different ways to make a film," he muses.
As to his latest release, based on a story by Luis Sepulveda, de Heer says, "I liked the novel a lot, but it was quite tricky to adapt." He confesses to feeling it would take him about the two hours screen-time to outline the story as, to him, every part of the film is important.
"One noted British actor read the script, liked it and wanted to see some of my work. Someone, in their wisdom, sent them 'Bad Boy Bubby' and the result was a terse note from his agent which read, 'My client does not wish to spend three months in the jungle with a madman'."
Richard Dreyfuss apparently wasn't so fussy, and ended up taking the role. Happy with his cast and crew, all was not smooth sailing for de Heer though and he eventually swore it would be the last film he made. He was aware that Werner Herzog said the same thing after his Amazon experience filming 'Fitzcaraldo' (as documented in the film 'Burden Of Dreams'), but de Heer said his experience was different.
"It was a wonderful place to shoot; French Guyana, tucked in the northern corner of Brazil. Yes, it was hot and steamy but I enjoyed the jungle immensely. But the politics of the production were terrible, awful. It was very complicated; an official French, Spanish, Dutch and Australian co-production, with interpreters standing-by." He recalls once, for instance, someone from the production made railway tracks appear in the road through this little village at the end of the world.
"It took a year in post-production and then almost three more years to untangle it to get it out onto the screens. It was such a miserable way to do things, I thought, I don't want to do this anymore. It's too hard. Life is too short to throw it away on these conflicts you are forced into having."
Typically, though, the hard- (and often fast-) working de Heer has made and released 'The Tracker' and 'Alexandra's Project' since then. He'd written the outline of 'The Tracker' ten years before, and was lured back into film-making when Peter Sellars urged him to make it for the 2002 Adelaide Festival.
De Heer says, "The Tracker' was a wonderful experience from beginning to end, so I've learned, don't do complicated co-productions, and don't do stuff where you can't structure it in the way you're used to working, and with the people that you like to work with."
"Creatively, 'The Old Man Who Read Love Stories' is the best film I've done," he says, but he is equally proud of his 'lost' film, 'Epsilon,' which got tangled-up in similar ways. He speaks of the experience of a tiny crew and two-hander cast working in isolation with painstaking 'motion control' camera technology. "And for me that process, where we shot in extremely remote locations for over a year, is living my life, so I'd say that was a great success."
And where to now for the not so old man who loves to tell stories? The next 'de Heer's project' takes him to the remote north of Australia to work with indigenous dancer and actor David Gulpilil, who starred in 'The Tracker.'
"He is going to be co-directing with me and starring in a film that's all going to be shot on his land and in his language."
With all those lessons learned, we can anticipate this eleventh with confidence and relish.
Andrew Bunney
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'The Old Man Who Read Love Stories' is now screening at Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas.
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