New Delhi, Sept 5:As somebody born and raised in Iceland where every day plays out like a survival story, filmmaker-actor Baltasar Kormakur says creating movies about endurance and relationships comes naturally to him.
Kormakur is known for directing acclaimed survival dramas such as “Everest”, “Adrift” and “The Deep”, the last being Iceland’s official entry in the foreign language category at the 85th Academy Awards.
“The country I’m born in, every day feels like a survival story. There’s a volcano blowing right now there. Even walking to school was like a dangerous situation sometimes,” the director told PTI in a virtual interview.
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Even today, Kormakur said he takes long horse riding trips across Iceland with his friends and those are the experiences that teach him a lot about life and inspire him to return to the genre.
“It’s hard work, but I do it when I have the spare time. I guess it’s what you’re made of… Also it’s not like being macho or something, but I love to be in those situations. I love to experience. I don’t want to experience my life through a computer. I want to be out there and live it,” he said. Kormakur, 56, believes people often prove their mettle during crises and he tries to replicate such human stories on screen.
“It isn’t always the big muscled guy. It might be a woman or a little guy. People will surprise you endlessly by the way they deal with these difficult and life-threatening situations,” he added.
His latest release “Beast”, a South Africa-set survival drama starring Idris Elba, is also a product of many such experiences, combined with love, loss and healing. The movie, which was released in Indian theatres last week, follows Elba’s Dr Nate Samuels who has to protect himself and his two teenage daughters from being hunted by a massive rogue lion during their trip to South Africa, where their recently deceased mother grew up.
Blending together the themes of survival and father-daughter relationship was a humongous task, said the director.
“It’s just important to find the balance of drama, grief, intensity, so one doesn’t distract from the other. But for me, the whole pudding is what makes it worth the challenge. It needs to be a human story,” he said.
Kormakur said rebuilding his relationship with his children following divorce, a recurring theme in the film, was the biggest “beast” he faced in his life.
“I’m a father of four children and one stepdaughter. It’s the hardest thing you do in life. I’ve been running sets with 200 people and I’m like a king. Everyone does what I say. But when I come home, I can’t control anything.
“And then when you hit trauma, like I had a difficult rough path in my life when I went through a divorce… Bringing them back together, rebuilding the relationship, it’s the biggest beast I have met in my life. But I wasn’t going to give up to that beast. It was killing me at a moment, I thought I was never going to get through it,” he said.
In order to make “Beast” a “soulful” story, the filmmaker said it was necessary to derive metaphors from his life.
“That’s the metaphor in my film, so I can put myself, my soul into it. Even if as a genre, it’s fun, I want to have soulful fun. I want it all to have a meaning. I want to be able to show it to my mother,” he added.
Kormakur boarded the Universal Pictures project during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lion for the film was created using visual effects, but the director decided to shoot the film in real locations as the environment plays a pivotal role in the story.
“You need to get the lion to a place where it fits the environment and all the details are important. Gravity is important to me… And I think by living there, you are more capable of giving the experience to the audiences,” he added.
“Beast”, produced by Will Packer Productions, also features Leah Jeffries, Sharlto Copley and Iyana Halley. (PTI)
