PM: Yeah. I mean, growing up in South Africa, you know, I’ve seen some films about South Africa, where  I can sense that there’s an enormous benefit to the distance of being from somewhere else. But at the same time, you know, people do get all het up about people telling other people’s stories, etcetera. So I just want to ask…

DD: Oh, yeah. That’s why I always insist on having my perspective in the film – because I wouldn’t ever dare to talk about Japan from the Japanese viewpoint. So that’s why I have the young German in the film who goes to Japan, doesn’t know anything about it, is a fool, the traditional fool who is very, um, well, innocent on one hand, but also quite ignorant. 

And I need to have that perspective because that’s, of course, my perspective. As much as I read up and do research, I’m still ignorant about a lot of things – because you can never get the inside perspective of a country. So, I need to have that perspective from the outside in the story itself.

PM: It seems to me that, in this film, for example,  you have Japanese culture and you have German culture, and then you have the spaces in between them  – and it seems that a lot of your films deal with that space in between. And I think that’s a very valuable space and one that we kind of are ignoring in the current discussions about cultural appropriation and everything. 

DD: I was talking about that with my workshop here in South Africa. It was really interesting – cultural appropriation. 

PM: Well, do you want to just elaborate a little bit on your experience of the workshop and what you said? Because it is a big thing at the moment.

DD: Yes, but, um, I wore an African turban to this workshop because I wanted to talk about exactly that – cultural appropriation – to just give a very visual signal. But I found out that the members of the workshop, coming from very different countries, you know, like from Nigeria, from Ghana, from Sudan, from Kenya, from Egypt – it was really a very diverse group – and they weren’t really that concerned with cultural appropriation because it was not their theme at all. So they couldn’t really care less in a way because they are busy telling their stories and they don’t really give a shit, you know, about some white filmmaker trying to hijack their culture. It’s not…it’s not their concern, it seems.

PM: Okay, that’s interesting.

DD: I found that also quite heartening because they have more important stuff to discuss.

PM: In fact, that’s my feeling. I mean, all of that stuff is interesting and his value, but I think at this point in human history, there are many more important things to discuss

DD: Yeah, and I found it very refreshing and very uplifting to see that. Especially the women in this little workshop – they really want to talk about their stories and their stuff. So, yeah, they can’t be bothered, really, with the topic.

PM: Okay. Just quickly, to go back to the Japanese screening. One thing that I’m interested in is your specific use of dark humour in the film and in your films generally. Did the humorous moments in the film, even though they are often not that funny, but they’re still kind of humorous, how did those moments play with the Japanese audience?

DD: Very well. Very, very well. And I was quite surprised about that because, as I said before, it’s so emotional to them, the whole topic. But yeah, that’s what I try to always sneak in – a little humour, a little…It’s like opening a window and getting a little bit of fresh air. Especially when the topic is quite heavy and quite sad.So, Yeah. It was important to me, and I was happy that the audiences everywhere picked up on that.

PM: Yeah, and what I like about it – and in fact, the general kind of real-world surrealism that of inject into your films – it never feels…uh…what is the word? It never feels ‘constructed’. It actually always feels like it’s just arising out of real life. I know with Cherry Blossoms, a few people spoke about ‘the conceits’ of the film, but I didn’t think they were conceits. I felt that it was like a strange kind of realism.

DD: So, ‘conceits’ is such a difficult work for me to understand. I never quite understand what it means. Is it meant in a negative way itself, the word?

PM: No, no in that context it’s not. It’s more kind of…a more American word would be ‘the implausibleS’ but that’s a slightly different thing, implausibility. But concedes are kind of like the setup, the premise.

DD: Yeah, Yeah. That’s how I understand it. I was a bit worried that maybe it’s really negative.

PM: No, no, no. It’s definitely not.

DD: Yeah. Sorry, what was the question?

PM: In fact, it wasn’t really a question. I was just saying that all of that stuff always actually feels kind of quite organic. It doesn’t feel like something you’ve imposed on the narrative afterwards. Yeah, and if that’s your intention?

DD: Yeah. For me, it was absolutely liberating when the first little tiny video camera hit the market. It was a little Sony camera that was as big as a book, in 1999. And for me, that was so liberating because I’ve always tried to –  I don’t know how to put it, really, but to get a sense of reality into my films and not have a very controlled, fictional world – which, to a lot of filmmakers, is what intrigues them. But to me, what is the most intriguing is to have reality come into the story somehow. And with this new technique, with a digital technique, I could almost seamlessly bring fiction into reality. What we normally do is that we try to reenact reality in films. You know, when we set up a room, we try to make it feel like the real thing and…you know what I mean. 

But this way, I could bring my fictional context or story into real life. The first film I made this way was Enlightenment Guaranteed, where I took two German actors and we went to a Zen Monastery and we took the story of the two brothers into a Zen monastery in Japan.

And that was very, very not only liberating to me, but I just got a kick out of it – to have also reality come in and change the storyline. Not too much, of course, because I  do want to talk about certain things and not have it entirely changed, but to always allow reality to come in. 

And for Fukushima, for instance, there was this old priest, and I tried to find the person who took care of the victims and the surviving people of the catastrophe, spiritually. And I found him and he told me his story. And I found him so charismatic and so interesting that I asked him to become part of the film and tell his story in my fictional context, which he did. I think you sense it when somebody tells the truth. You sense it. I think you can really tell on a guttural level that those lines are not written, they are not made up, and this person is not made up.

PM: Yeah, yeah. Completely.

DD: And also there are people in the housings and the temporary housing – you know that these are the people.

PM: Yeah. I mean, it never occurred to me that you might be using actors. They always just felt real. 

DD: Yeah. And I think you can tell as the audience – it gets to you in a different way. That’s something. What I try to do again and again, is to find the bridge or the connection between my fictional setups and reality. My stories are from real life so I try to bring them back to reality.

PM: Can you tell me a little bit about the character Satomi? Was she based on anyone in particular? I really loved how abrasive she is and how real.

DD: Well, she’s very much based on all these interviews that I held with all these older ladies in the temporary housings over four years. I talked to so many of them.  And that’s what her character is based on – and also something that has always struck me about Japan – that it seems so polite on the surface and underneath it’s so tough, especially for women and especially for older women. 

But that’s something that the Japanese audience always giggles at – how strict and how fierce she is. Because they are so familiar with that attitude, that behaviour. And that was also something that I really wanted to get into the film. And it’s also very, very direct, and the way she talks is not polite at all – which is very Japanese also.

PM: also.

DD: So,

PM: Yeah, she just felt really real. She felt completely like a real person.

DD: Oh, good, good! I’m glad.  Because she was played by one of the biggest stars in Japan, Kaori Momoi – she’s like the Meryl Streep of Japan – and she was very devoted to this part. And it was also quite astonishing that she was willing to not only go with us to the zone – or the former zone – but also had to stay in this really horrendous container, which she lived in for six weeks,

PM: Yeah. How did you fall in love with Japan? What is it about the country and the culture that led you to make so many films that are set there?

DD: Well, it was a film festival – The Tokyo Film Festival – in 1985 or maybe before. I got invited with my very first feature film, which was called Straight Through the Heart, to this festival. And then I didn’t want to sit in a dark cinema. I wanted to see the country. 

So I hitchhiked across Japan, which was totally unknown at that time. Women hitchhiking was even worse than hitchhiking in general. Nobody did that. 

So yeah, What I think has fascinated me and still fascinates me about Japan, is that it seems so German on many levels. 

PM: Yeah, yeah.

DD: And, at the same time, it’s so exotic and so different. But we not only share a lot of history, a lot of really ugly history – Japanese fascism, German fascism, the Second World War, and so on and so forth. But also, what happened after the war – the destruction of the cities, the fascination with America, with pop culture,  with just becoming as American as possible in the fifties and sixties, with being torn between tradition and between trying to be as American as possible.  A lot of these things feel very, very familiar. But then at the same time, it’s totally different. So it’s like a constant short circuit in my brain when I go to Japan. I feel at home, and, at the same time, I don’t.

PM: Yeah. That makes sense. I have German blood but I wouldn’t say I’m German, but I can also I can also see those similarities. And of course, the differences. 

And then the other commonality is that both countries rose again to power in the 20th century and…

DD: Oh yeah, and they became so wealthy. Because they lost the war, they became really wealthy. That’s a very, very interesting contradiction. And what does that do to people, with people? Yeah, there are many interesting facets to it.

PM: Yeah, and it’s a little bit of a side-tangent, but it is amazing to me that Germany, now in 2017, has kind of become the moral centre of the Western world.

DD: Isn’t that…I mean…that’s very funny. Isn’t it?

PM: Yeah. I mean, I’m glad we have one, all things considered, but it’s crazy. 

DD: It’s hilarious.

PM: Yeah, yeah. History is funny. And then the other thing, of course, is nuclear power, which both countries now kind of have a different relationship to…

DD: Yeah, thanks for reminding me. Because, of course, that was also one of the impulses to make this film. Because our decision to pretty much turn off nuclear power is, of course, based on the catastrophe of Fukushima. So this is a very strong connection between these two countries.

PM: Yeah.

DD: The Japanese think it’s totally insane that we decided to pull out.

PM: Yeah, when, in fact, it’s just totally fucking rational.

DD: Yeah.

PM: Yeah. And South Africa, of course, is trying to build a whole bunch of them.

PM: Yeah.

DD: Well – a very important lesson – maybe one should start a tour group to Fukushima. When you experience what it means to walk around on contaminated soil, and always have to think about where you put down your bag, where you sit down on the ground, and all these things. When you realise that your mind cannot deal with it, you cannot process it, it’s a very interesting educational lesson that the human mind cannot deal with radioactivity.

PM: Yeah. Yeah. So kind of relating to that, I have one last question for you - it’s a difficult question but not really. In the film, the desolation is kind of beautiful, as desolation often is when we’ve aestheticised or represented it. Was there a sense of…

Dörrie’s Do you find it beautiful?

PM: I do find it beautiful, but, I mean, not in an obvious, you know, greeting-card way. But there is something, some beauty to destruction, and especially to the aftermath, and to desolation. 

Is that just in my head? Was there any sense of beauty when you were there? Or was it just devastation?

DD: No. No. And to me, it doesn’t look beautiful either. It looks desolate. It looks very sad.

PM: Yes. Yes. 

DD: What I found beautiful was the tiny means with which the lady Satomi reintroduces Japanese culture into this destroyed house. And that I found really interesting, too – that it doesn’t need much to reestablish Japanese culture. You know, a certain way of sitting, of how you drink your tea, of how you cook something, very basic – not renovating the house but reestablishing the Japanese architecture with the shōjis. And that’s it and it’s very basic, very pure. And I can’t really think of another culture that needs so little to re-establish itself. 

You know, when you would think of a destroyed German house, how much would it take to reestablish German culture? A lot, I would say. 

PM: Yeah

DD: And I wouldn’t really know how either. But it was through these little, little, tiny things that Satomi manages to retrieve her culture at a very, very basic level.

PM: That is very interesting. I had some tea after I saw the film last night. And I made it much more slowly and more quietly than I normally would have.

DD: I’m so glad. What an effect it was worth it, I must say! It was worth it to shoot this film and make you drink  your tea more slowly. (laughs)

PM: (laughs) Yes, it was! Is there anything else you want to say about the film?

DD: No, I don’t think so. You’ve got it all covered. Thank you. Thanks a lot.

PM: Sure. 

DD: Good. Okay, yeah. Let’s stay in touch. It was really nice talking to you.

PM: Thank you so much. Okay, cool. Great. Have a lovely flight. Okay. Nice to meet you

PM: Bye!