PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Back in 2009, Niels Arden Oplev (Flatliners – 2017) directed, what I think is, the superior film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. No hate towards the American version, but Niels’ Swedish/Danish vision, starring Noomi Rapace is just… Damn, it’s so good. It’s because of how it is that I was interested in screening his latest film, Rose. I went into knowing nothing about it and after watching it, I needed to know more.
Follows two sisters, Inger and Ellen, and how their relationship is challenged on an anticipated coach trip to Paris.
The synopsis does not do this film justice. It’s not just about two sisters on a trip to Paris. It’s about a woman struggling with schizophrenia and how that impacts not only her family, but outsiders both on and off the trip with them. Doing more research on the film to prepare for this interview, I learn that Niels has based this on his own family, and his sister Maren Elisabeth, who is schizophrenic, and the very real trip that his sisters took together.
To celebrate Rose‘s US release, Niels and I chatted about why he wanted to make this film and his sister’s reaction, mental health in America, reception of the film, and more!
PopHorror: I really loved Rose. It is a very beautiful movie. So, I am super excited to talk with you about it today.
Niels Arden Oplev: Thank you.
PopHorror: Yeah, of course. So, this film is very personal to you. Was it a hard decision to decide to make it?
Niels Arden Oplev: I started writing it in 2015, and I basically wrote a version of it, a draft of the script every year. I actually ended up shooting a lot of other stuff in between. But I mean, it wasn’t a hard decision to make it in the sense that I think it was tough to shoot it. But when I started shooting, I was very confident that I could make a good film. And of course, especially because Sofie Gråbøl said yes to play the lead, and she’s just so amazing as a character inspired by my older sister. But I think the pressure of shooting a film is always high, and you want to shoot a good film and you are on the time, and financial pressures are immense. But then when you add that I’m insane enough to write a film about my two sisters and my brother-in-law, and it gets so close to you, and you kind of think that my oldest sister – for her to grasp the magnitude of this story and what goes on – is kind of difficult. So, you’re really responsible in a way that you’re not when you’re shooting a normal film. I think that pressure really got to me.
PopHorror: I can’t imagine the pressure of that, with family and trying to do it justice. So how were you able to separate your worry on how Maren Elisabeth would think and focus on sharing the story?
Niels Arden Oplev: Sofie and I had many conversations, and even in the daily work at the set, we had many conversations about where her character was, where Inger was compared to Maren Elisabeth, that’s the real name of my sister. And how was she walking compared to Maren and how was she talking? And some of the stuff is very close. Sofie was concerned because she felt her acting was bigger than anything she’s ever done before. And I was like, “You can’t judge this acting compared to a normal character because Inger is a character where the deepest angst or the joy or something changes in a split second.” You cannot approach that from a normal acting where you can kind of lay out the arc and the development and all that. Because also she doesn’t really change that much. So it’s a completely different approach.
And then the other thing I’ve done when I was writing, I kind of asked my… Well, I didn’t kind of. I asked my sister – that’s Kirsten, that Ellen’s character is based on. I said, “You have to be the ambassador for Maren Elisabeth.” In the sense that if I write something, because I don’t trust myself as a writer. Once you start writing, you try to write the best film. And then I said, “If there’s something that’s too much for her that you think that’s in the film that Maren Elisabeth can’t handle, it goes too close to her, then we have to discuss and maybe I’ll scale it back or some. So we kind of had had that dialogue out through the years of performing the screenplay.
So I was confident that I could separate it and make it and balance it right. But it was more when the film was starting, it was in the edit. And I showed her – Maren Elisabeth – some scenes from it, and she actually reacted quite negatively because she couldn’t piece it together by only seeing a scene here and a scene here. I thought I could ease her into it, but it actually backfired. And there was a moment where I thought, this is the dumbest idea I ever had. But when she saw the whole film, she actually got it totally and was able to separate herself from Inger, even though they of course are very close. So it was a quite interesting ride, I would say.
PopHorror: I read that essay or editorial, whatever you want to call it, on Talkhouse.com, but you had written it about making the film and about her reaction to the three scenes and seeing them out of context, and then showing it to her and constantly watching her, like turning your head and watching to see how she reacted to it. That was a beautiful article, and really gave me a lot of insight into the film. So, I’m glad that in the end, that she appreciated it and that she said it was a good one. I know a lot of hard work went into it.
Niels Arden Oplev: Yeah. It’s kind of interesting because the film is really, in a lot of ways, a wide-audience film. It’s really approachable for many people. It’s not like a narrow, artsy film that’s going to turn some audience off, I don’t think. And I felt like I took an enormous risk treating such a serious subject or heavy subject with this kind of heartwarming – even lightness – in some moments or humor and stuff. But it was really something that happened. I set out to write something that was totally serious, and it is a serious film, but the humor that spun off from Inger’s character was kind of uncontrollable. Basically Inger, even in the screenplay, just did whatever she damn pleased. So that was a big issue for me. I even called my producer and said, “This is too funny. It’s too funny. I mean, I don’t know what to do.”
PopHorror: I liked it when Inger said, “I want to strangle you.” And the woman said, “Can it wait until after lunch?” I think a movie with these heavy themes, you need a little bit of comedic relief. I thought that was the perfect comeback. And with this film dealing with such heavy themes as mental health, suicide, bullying, discrimination, what do you hope people walk away with after watching Rose?
Niels Arden Oplev: Well, I could tell you that because I’ve lived the last 14 years in America ever since I did The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I just think that mental health and mental illness in America is very much an untreated challenge and issue and problem. And it saddens me that nearly every time you hear about mental illness or schizophrenia in the news, it is somebody trying to justify a gun law and in connection with killings and shootings. And I just think that the perception in America of mental illness is distorted and also a bit taboo. And I think that people in America’s, what do you call it… Possibilities to get help are a financial and cultural obstacle. And definitely even for minorities, it’s even a bigger problem. And there’s stigmatism even if you have to go to a psychiatrist or a psychologist or something. I was just thinking that America needs a film that shows that maybe people that suffer from a mental illness could actually enrich your life if you dare to open your mind up to them in some way. And of course, I know that’s much harder done than said, and there are situations where people don’t have the level of tolerance to deal with it. But I also think there’s a lot of fear out there. There’s a fear towards homeless people and people with mental illness. And I think the perception of it needs to change. I mean, I’m old enough to remember this country from all the way back, coming here the first time in 1982 and how America was, and then Ronald Reagan closed all the mental institutions and everywhere where people could get help. And I think America needs Bernie Sanders to be president and change this so that there could be real help for people and maybe remove some of the stigmatism of mental illness and mental self-help.
PopHorror: I agree with you. I think mental health is very misunderstood, and when people don’t understand something, it scares them. So getting a glimpse kind of like this from the inside, because we’re really focusing on Inger in this and how she’s affected by how people from the outside are responding to her. And I think giving them that glimpse, hopefully it will give a little bit more or a different understanding of what mental health is like and how it affects the people that suffer from it and have to live with it all the time.
Niels Arden Oplev: Yeah, yeah.
PopHorror: This film, like you said, took you years to write and then to have it made. How did you celebrate once filming was finished?
Niels Arden Oplev: That’s very funny. So normally on a shoot, you have a wrap party and people in Denmark particularly tend to be quite intoxicated. They work really hard. But we were still under the rules of COVID, so we couldn’t even have a wrap party. We kind of had a wrap beer. It was totally absurd because the last scene we shot was shot in France and Paris and Normandy, and we did have a party in Normandy that was kind of like a halfway party, and that was a real party I’m telling you. Probably also my best speech, even though I don’t speak French, but I gave a speech to the French crew about my love for French cinema ever since I went to film school, and how much of an intoxicating ride it was to go to France and shoot in Paris and all of that. But the wrap party was… We were back in Copenhagen. We had shot most of the film, and the last scene we shot was in that cafeteria that was supposed to look like Germany. So we kind of ended up in a highway rest stop and we had a beer and then everybody had to go home. So it was like, “Damn.” But I would say the premiere for the film, which was then a year later in ’22 when it opened in Denmark, and the premiere was a thousand people. And that was a huge love fest. I mean, the audience in Copenhagen loved the film, and they gave it three standing ovations, and the last one was for my schizophrenic sister that was lifted up on the stage in her wheelchair by some strong men.
PopHorror: Oh, wow! I love that. I love that she was there.
Niels Arden Oplev: That was so emotional. It was so crazy emotional. Yeah.
PopHorror: I bet. Well, I’m so glad for her. That’s really amazing.
Niels Arden Oplev: Yeah, Sofie was fantastic. Sofie was next to Maren Elisabeth the whole time and all the pictures for the tabloids – they call them magazines – was Sofie and my sister. And I was like, “When has the schizophrenic person last been in the tabloids, and it was a positive story?” I mean, it was amazing. It was really truly a once in a lifetime.
PopHorror: Oh, that’s so cool. And I have just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?
Niels Arden Oplev: Oh, wow. Probably Vampyr by Carl Th. Dreyer from 1932.
PopHorror: Oh, that was a good answer.
Niels Arden Oplev: That’s actually three films back then. There’s The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, there’s Nosferatu, and then Vampyr. And they’re all black and white, they’re all from the 20s and 30s. They’re very interesting. Kind of like the firsts of scary movies.
Thank you so much to Niels for taking the time to speak with us. Rose is now available on Digital.
