Marius Holst talks turbulent upbringings with The Fan Carpet’s Stefan Pape

When coming out of a harrowing, naturalistic drama covering themes such as violent child abuse, oppression and estrangement you always expect the director to be a merciless, cold-hearted filmmaker – yet that couldn’t be further from the truth in regards to meeting King of Devil’s Island director Marius Holst, as the warm and friendly Norwegian discusses his critically-acclaimed drama with The Fan Carpet‘s Stefan Pape.

King of Devil’s Island – which is out now on DVD and Blu-ray – is set in the early part of the 20th century, and tells the bleak, true story of a group of young boys who embark upon a convulsive uprising against a brutal regime, with hopes of securing their freedom at the end of it.

Starring Scandinavian star Stellan Skarsgard, combined with a host of young, amateur actors, Holst discusses the difference in directing such contrasting performers, and the difficulties in approaching actors who themselves have had turbulent upbringings. Holst also speaks of his pressure in doing justice to such a story, and his inclination to make this film as much of a harrowing visual experience as possible.

King of Devil’s Island has been met to much critical acclaim over here – do you think the fact you studied film in London has allowed for you to instinctively appeal to to British audience?

I don’t know… In Norway we are very big on British culture, comedy, film and football – so there are some similarities there. But what I learnt mostly when going to school here was that I think there were like 20 different nationalities in my term and that teaches you to work closely with people from very different backgrounds and influences than yourself, so that was something I felt I learnt here. I always felt making this film that the goal was always that if an English person, or a Japanese person sees this film without subtitles they should get it, at least 70% of what’s going on, it should be that kind of film. A film told in visuals, and I think thematically what is going on in the film is quite universal, so if I see it in Istanbul, or in New York, you get some of the same emotional reactions.

So when making a film do you think about how it will be received in other countries, or focus solely on the Norwegian audience?

I just focus on how I would like to see the film. I try to make a film I would like to see myself, that’s the only guideline I have. When I make it, of course with this film it’s from a company I started with a few colleagues so we produced it ourselves, which means you carry the creative and financial responsibilities, so okay we had a dark, tough subject, and it’s important that people see it because you want people to see your film, but also because it’s a more expensive film than we usually make because it’s period and we had to stay on location. So I knew that I would have to tell the story but still not compromise the content of the story, because I had researched it and spoken to people who were there and I know what they went through so I had that responsibility, you feel like you’ve got to do justice to the story, but also make it accessible to an audience, and that was in the back of my head.

So did you feel a pressure to do justice to the story, particularly to the families of those who were involved?

Yeah the families, but also some of the people are still alive, so I had people at the premiere in Oslo coming up to me, and this old guy who was like 82 came up to me and he was the grandfather of one of the kids in the film, and he came to me and said he could smell it, he could smell the place, and that was quite tough. But that is an important part of it, but ultimately you have to have a film that finds an audience and is made accessible. I didn’t want to make a black and white, prison break movie, but it related to those kind of films.

Of course it is based on a true story – is it something you knew much about before taking on the project?

I knew about some of the story, but much of the things I found out through research and didn’t know about. I think people have a very superficial knowledge about Bastoy as a prison, it was something you would scare your kids with, the people didn’t know really how it worked and the riots that took place. Few people knew about that.

It is an incredible story, did you feel a duty to release it to the world?

In a sense, yes. Because this was supposed to be my second film and that was like 12 years ago and then I got the idea of making this and I cast it twice. But I put it away and then took it up again and just felt it was important enough to push ahead with. I wanted this one to happen.

Did you go to Bastoy and get a feel for the place?

Sure yeah I’ve been there several times. We were initially thinking of shooting there, but it’s now an open-prison for adults in an experiment to make the prison system more open, but still there are 150 prisoners there so it was difficult. They were sort of leaning and open for us to come and film but it was too difficult in the end so we had to find somewhere that physically resembled it and wasn’t changed by modern times.

In many cases the setting is like an additional character in films, and in this the setting and atmosphere is so important – it’s bleak and chilling – how important to this particular piece is the whole mise-en-scene?

The island represents oppression and the isolation of the characters, not just physically, but on psychological level and what you can communicate through film is cold. I can make you feel cold in a warm cinema through images and colours and skin tones and breath – I can communicate that. These people were left outside of society and psychologically it was cold and physically it was too, so we worked very hard to create that coldness in the viewer and that has to do with the colour schemes, but also the composition; making them small and isolated in the frame. Sometimes I think I spent too much of my resources to get the visual side as we wanted.

There is an authentic feel to the film, helped along that you cast real kids with difficult backgrounds rather than actors – how did the casting process work?

We found out quite early that we couldn’t find who we were looking for from the big cities so we ended up looking at kids from smaller towns and special schools, kids with similar backgrounds. This is a film told very much through images and faces and looks and body language so that was an important as being able to deliver a line. Then of course I would have to go through rounds of improvisation and to chose who I wanted in front of the camera, which was my rehearsal time with the actors, to see who could actually pull off a certain emotion and reaction in front of the camera. Very often you get kids who want to act and want to be in front of the camera and have an idea of going in front of the cameras, but I didn’t want people to act. As soon as people start to act too much in this film it feels very insincere and untruthful, so as soon as you have two people who are real and authentic, one guy who is not will ruin everything, so that put a standard that is quite high which made the casting process quite demanding, because one wrong note then and everything falls apart.

Trond Nilssen and Benjamin Helstad are both terrific, how much do you think their own, difficult pasts helped them get into the minds of their characters?

A lot, especially for Trond, as he has been in and out of institutions a lot growing up and still has some issues. It was very hard for him to get to that place because when you grow up in that kind of environment you learn to protect yourself. So when you improvise with a young actor you give him impulses to react emotionally, but with Trond the more you gave him that impulse, be it aggression or sorrow or whatever, he would become colder and colder and harder, because that’s the way you prepare yourself and how you react, because you don’t show feelings or weakness, you cover up. So to get through that actor was very difficult with him, but I knew from the first time I met him that it was there so that was his advantage and disadvantage, but when we cracked it and I built his confidence up and made him relax, of course you could see he had a very steep learning curve and he could work with his own experiences as well and he could feel that story within him.

It must have been so helpful for the host of inexperienced actors to work alongside Stellan Skarsgard, he must have been almost like a mentor to those young boys…

Yeah of course. Some of the actors had no idea who he was, but of course some did. They had seen him in Pirates of the Caribbean so they were excited about that. But when he goes into character it can be a quite intimidating thing. Benjamin had trouble portraying that arrogance he needed when they had their first meeting on screen because they had already met and when Stellan gets in his costume and goes on camera and gives that weight, Benjamin was very intimated in real life so couldn’t portray that arrogance, so I had to send Stellan out of the room and I had to be his eyeline so he could do that arrogant attitude. But of course it helps them because he makes it real, he is someone on set who is one of them, there is no whiffs or big-headedness, he is a very generous, humble, cool guy to hand around with, and very friendly with everyone.

Not only for the kids, it must have brilliant for yourself to work with Stellan too?

I’ve known Stellan for years and always wanted to work with him, and I always had him in mind for this part because I didn’t want to portray just a solid villain, because the system is the villain. He is someone, maybe even modern in his way of seeing things, means well but when push comes to shove he is ready to cover for the institution and leave the kids alone so he is more a coward and hypocrite, not an evil person per se. He has his job to do and he has a responsibility to protect the institution. But he is wonderful, the days I had with Stellan in the office, I had a field day, it was easy. The other days in the snow with amateur actors was something between psychiatrist and boy scout leader or amy sergeant as it’s a different game, but with Stellan it’s easy and a pleasure.

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