Tom Fassaert made a film about his family. He visited his grandmother in South Africa and tried to address all the problems in his family that nobody wanted to talk about. His film A FAMILY AFFAIRÂ is nominated for European Documentary 2016 and here he talks about the film shoot, how he turned from what was going to be an objective observer to another protagonist, being both a filmmaker and at the same time the son and grandson in the film.
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Can you briefly describe what your documentary is about? Ever since my first day on earth, I’ve had my father’s camera on me, at first a silent 8mm ciné film camera, later a video8 camera with sound. My father captured all the iconic moments of my life: the first moments in my mother’s arms, my first steps, my first birthday, my first day at school – everything. During 14 years he documented almost 100 hours of that what he found most significant in his life – his own family. When he and my mother decided to get divorced, however, he suddenly stopped filming and since then has never touched a camera again. This parallel between the break-up of the family and the end of my father’s family films struck me when I started digging into my own family history. We seem only to record the moments we’re proud of and turn off the camera when we feel we fail, or when reality is too painful to capture. I wanted to fill the voids between those iconic happy family moments. To make a film about the longing for love till this very day, within a family that has been separated through many events in the past. But also to end to the suffocating silence within my own family. This all triggered in me an attempt to look behind the persistent myths and tales that I had been hearing about my own grandmother Marianne who I hardly knew. |
What do you think – would it have been easier to make a fiction feature about it?
Maybe a fiction film would have been easier. I started out with this naive idea of making a film about the mater familias in my family, my grandmother Marianne with whom everyone, especially my father, seemed to have many problems. I thought I could do that without getting involved too much myself, with a certain professional distance. Since I thought the problem was mainly something between my father and grandmother, and that was also the relationship I was focussing on, I thought I could tell the story from this observing perspective. Of course, everything changed soon, my grandmother pulled me into the problem she had with my dad, confessed to be in love with me and soon focussed all her attention on me. She literally forced me into the film and confronted me with myself, hiding behind my own camera. She rightfully told me to also show myself, become more venerable. I was as much part of the film and the story as she or my dad were. This complicated the film enormously, since I had to be in it and at the same time create some professional distance and be a filmmaker. I constantly felt this struggle during the whole process of filming and editing. In every documentary you face dilemmas as a filmmaker, you sometimes feel you’re exploiting your protagonist for the cause of the film, you constantly balance on the boundaries of the relationship you trust on. But in this film, it seemed even more complicated since I was also a family member, not only participating in the film, but also a link between these two sides, my father to whom I feel very close, and my grandmother who now opened up much more than I expected. There was a loyalty conflict, even though I always wanted to achieve understanding instead of judgement, I felt both my father and grandmother pulled me towards them. They seemed to fully trust me with all their grief and fully opened up, which is great for the film but also felt like a great responsibility and expectation.
How did you develop the concept and the style of the film?
The concept and style of the film developed through the making of it, in great contrast to my earlier work. As I said before, the subject itself pulled me into the film much more than I was prepared for. That’s why much of the film developed on the run. It became very clear at the start that I could only make this film by being a one-man-band, no crew. The perspective that evolved from that was very subjective. The way of shooting and story-telling in a broader sense became very intuitive, as most choices were made while filming. I had no crew to discuss concepts of form or style in any way. I simply had to trust my gut feeling during these moments. But through this limitation I think the film turned to be much more intimate, also in form, in shooting style, than what it would have been with a DOP and sound recordist. One of the main consequences of this way of filming was that my protagonists would continuously look directly into the lens, as they were reacting to me behind the camera, so the camera became the antagonist in a way. Maybe the audience also experiences this (unconsciously), as if they become me, the grandson and filmmaker, becoming part of my family, so to speak.
How detailed was the script before travelling and shooting?
The characters where quite clearly set up, as was the idea to use the family archive, but the actual story, structure and perspective were developed through the filming and editing itself. I had an intuitive direction, I wanted to get to the core of my family. And I thought I could get there through my mysterious grandmother Marianne. But what I would find and how to get there I only found out during the actual shooting itself. Almost all the concepts I had before filming became useless, because I had been ignoring the fact that I was actually part of the story as well, whether I wanted to or not.
What was the biggest challenge in making your film?
It was very difficult at first to get my grandma to open up, since with or without the camera, she always chose not to talk about the problems within the family or the past at all. That’s probably why many things from the past still had so much influence on the present. Nobody, especially not my grandmother, had the courage to start talking about it, so things were never resolved. I think she felt there was too much at stake. The main reason for her to live so far away from the family was to not be confronted too much with reality. Me, as a filmmaker and as her grandson, digging into these things wasn’t how my grandmother imagined spending time with me (as you see in the film). But since I was the only one in the family with whom she still had any contact, she regarded our relationship as something really important and tried to understand why I had to do this. I explained to her that I didn’t want an idealised portrait of success, but I wanted to address the things that had been swept under the carpet for so long. I was mostly interested in the relations and to a lesser extent in the exact historical facts of the past. She agreed with me on these terms, but that didn’t mean she immediately opened up. It took me many years and a lot of patience and perseverance to get past her facade. I strongly began to feel she used her facade of beauty and success as a way to protect herself from pain, but what exactly was behind it I could only guess at. But I needed to get past it, or my film would only be superficial and shallow. That’s what made me film her over and over again, asking, confronting her with these painful facts. Not to judge her, but to look past her facade, in an attempt to really understand her, to understand why she became who she is.
I hope it resonates with people’s feelings and experiences within their own families. Maybe it can make people want to go beyond simply judging each other and really trying to find insights into the other by talking and spending time together. I hope it gives individuals the courage to start addressing certain difficult topics in their own family, without the fear of abandonment. And maybe it even brings people closer together.
How would you describe the state of documentary cinema in Europe right now?
I think the state of documentary cinema in Europe is very healthy. We have a huge documentary tradition and there’s always the risk of losing that, because of financing problems, national broadcasters taking lesser risks, the huge amount of documentaries that come from outside of Europe etc. But I think Europe has great story-tellers and stories enough to be told, so I’m not afraid. I trust the passion of us story-tellers, to not conform to the more and more commercialised world we have to deal with and keep on making films because we need to, not because we’re asked to do so.
In recent years the borders between documentary and fiction have blurred. What do you think of this development and where do you see yourself in this development?
I don’t think the borders between documentary and fiction have changed or blurred since the invention of cinema at all! It’s always been like that. Just look at one of the first documentaries ever: NANOOK OF THE NORTH by Robert J. Flaherty. The only thing that might have changed is the discussion about it.
