Director Michael Glawogger spoke about the particular way he makes documentaries, by discussing his film trilogy Megacities, Workingman’s Death and Whores’ Glory. Whores’ Glory is screening at the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, and the Workshop was held on Friday, March 16, 2012 at the John Cassavetes Cinema. Present was Dimitri Eipides, Director of the TDF. The Austrian director was asked many questions from the audience, to which he responded in detail.
Mr. Glawogger spoke about the reasons he shot each film of the trilogy, which deals with working conditions in developing countries. Specifically, for Workingman’s Death the stimulus was Alexei Stahanov, a worker in the former USSR who achieved hero status and fame comparable to that of pop stars in the West, because he managed to dig out a huge amount of coal out of a mine in only one shift. “In this case, the ideology creates the hero and turns him into a hero, putting emotional pressure on the rest about their work rate. I was interested in making a film which would help others understand what hard labor is, so my research started at the point where this man worked”, the director noted.
His latest film, Whores’ Glory deals with the subject of prostitution in three different parts of the world: Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico. As he stated, one of the most difficult parts of making this documentary was “to manage and erase from my mind whatever I had previously heard about prostitution”. He added: “It is a subject about which everyone has an opinion, but few have gone to a prostitute’s workplace, or if they have, they didn’t perceive it as such. Women and clients may be stigmatized, but prostitution has existed for thousands of years even if it is suppressed, even if it carries a death sentence. It is ridiculous to ask if “prostitution should exist today”. His approach goes beyond the subject and the “teachings” of the film: “Everyone asks me ‘what is your film about? Human trafficking? Morality? Whether to say yes or no to prostitution?” Basically, I don’t set up a subject in the film” the director noted. He referred to an example from the film Workingman’s Death which has a sequence showing animal slaughter for 20 minutes. “The strange thing is that all the repulsive and sickening elements, all this violence becomes beauty, as long as the scenes don’t frighten us. This is the point where cinema penetrates the human soul and our brain receives these strange emotions. These are the kinds of moments I seek”, he explained.
Much of the discussion focused on how the director captures reality in his documentaries. Michael Glawogger referred to the methods he avoids using, recounting the following incident: “Once a CNN reporter wanted to film prostitution in Cambodia. Without having the women’s consent, without asking himself if he was doing the right thing, he wanted to begin by telling his viewers: ‘you see what exploitation is?’ The result of this was that the women started moving away from the camera. I explore the details in order to highlight the entirety, I don’t go backwards. If you have the consent of your subjects to speak about their daily lives, you will surely find something interesting to show”. An important issue is how to win the trust of such a film’s basic characters. “It’s easier if you approach these women as just a person and not as a journalist who will expose them in the media and will leave the next day”. However, the director’s insistence wasn’t enough, as he noted “it was not easy to overcome the lack of trust”. He had to get in touch with the local pimp mafia in order to get their consent and then start over from zero to win the trust of the women, and when he finally got to that point he had to pay in order to film them. “It’s a matter of dignity for me to pay those who show me their lives, who spend so much of their time with me. In journalism as in documentary making, if you pay they may tell you something they otherwise wouldn’t. Everyone has his own life and won’t tell you what he doesn’t want to. In the case of these women it was very easy because they do nothing without money. An interview costs more than a… date with a client. They live wildly, dangerously, so why should they tell you their story for free?” the director observed.
The three cities Whores’ Glory was shot in correspond to each of the three religions – Buddhism, Islam, Christianity – which the documentary explores through the prism of sexuality. “I wanted to make a religious ‘triptych” like the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, with Buddhism on the left, let’s say the side of heaven – because perhaps in Buddhism they don’t have so much guilt which is why they enjoy sex, and Catholicism on the right, where the feelings of guilt and fear of death is present in the sexual act”, the director explained.
Referring to the way he captures reality, Mr. Glawogger said: “A documentary is not like a journalistic interview, where you “attack” with questions from the first moment, and this is why an interview has nothing to do with capturing reality. I get to know people, I learn their stories, I come in contact with their environment. Instead of asking questions I prefer to open a conversational subject and let them talk, they are much more comfortable this way. For example in Whores’ Glory I set the camera up in the brothel’s hallway and in that moment you see reality before you, it invades the film. I don’t provoke situations, I create the conditions under which situations can develop. This would be very difficult if I were in a private space. My method is much simpler. I record the flow of reality, I become invisible so that people can open up to the camera. I often leave the camera running and take a break. I leave things free”.
However, as the director pointed out: “This doesn’t mean that I let things happen by chance. It is never by chance, I always make choices. Things develop by themselves only in football and war. In a film you have to know how to intervene, because not everyone feels comfortable being interviewed. For example, in Workingman’s Death there is a scene where workers are carrying sulfur. Because the loads are very heavy, they stop every 10 minutes, smoke a cigarette and continue. I would not have forced them to speak; in that scene they do it naturally. In many places there is no dialogue at all. For example, in the above sequence, we adjusted a steadicam on the worker to record the vibrations of a body that is struggling, in order to capture the feeling of weight”. Asked about which reality the director records “the objective one or his own, inner one”, the director noted: “It is best to admit that there is no reality, only the point of view of each one of us. On the other hand, if one can manage to combine ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ reality in an interesting way, he can approach the moment of authenticity”.
The way he directs his films is influenced by the location, which is a reference point. “The location speaks by itself, before you say anything. For example, in Thailand the whores sat in a glass cage and the customers picked them out of there. In Bangladesh, the brothel was like a labyrinth, full of hallways and the doors to every room hid attractive microcosms. And in Mexico, the men drive by the brothel’s door, in the old days they used to ride horses. As soon as a man gets out of the car, things change, when the room door closes the power relationship changes again. This, by itself, gives you a cinematic structure”, he said.
Then the audience asked about his opinion on sex tourism in Asia. “The subject of prostitution is multilayered. If you ask a Thai woman if she prefers a man from her own country or a German, she will say the second, because the German pays more and is less aggressive. It sounds repulsive, but at the level of routine things are quite different than what most of us would think. Of course there is no excuse for forcing children into prostitution. In Bangladesh, for more than 200 years, once a girl has her first period she can work at a brothel. The NGOs tell mothers they shouldn’t do this to their children, however there is always a reason behind child labor. In those places the entire structure of society must change, we can’t go there as Europeans and tell them what to do” he stressed.
Michael Glawogger’s film subjects are admittedly difficult and hard to approach. The audience wanted to know how the director deals with various prohibitions that might arise during shooting. “Strangely, I have almost never had such a problem. Shooting is an unbelievably boring process for people outside of it, so no one stayed by my side telling me shoot this or don’t shoot that. Sometimes censorship is very strict and you have to decide if you want to make the film at any cost. For example, in Thailand the censor told me that he didn’t want to hear the names of genitals, because the king says there is no prostitution in the country, and if the king says so then ‘that’s how it is’, so I just left out the words. You have to be a bit of a juggler to keep things balanced.
Michael Glawogger’s film Whore’s Glory is included in a section which is funded, among other 14th TDF activities by the European Union - European Regional Development Fund under the Central Macedonia ROP 2007-2013.
