Interview

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By Caitlin Quinlan

An interview with director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović.

Murina screens at Metrograph through July 14.

The ocean is as vast as it is deep. But for the teenage Julija (Gracija Filipovic), the protagonist of Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s beguiling debut feature, Murina, to be on land with her controlling father Ante (Leon Lucev) isn’t that much less terrifying. Julija finds solace in the blue depths, diving below the water in search of a freedom she can’t enjoy anywhere else on the remote Croatian island off the Adriatic coast she calls home.

A Croatian American filmmaker based in New York, the 36-year-old Kusijanović is in the spotlight, with Murina having received the backing of Martin Scorsese as an executive producer, and the Camera d’Or prize for best first feature at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Though resolutely her own, her film contains hints of L‘Avventura, Antonioni’s treatise on alienation in coastal climes-through the rugged, rocky shorelines, dotted with sailboats, and also the central act of substitution that anchors the narrative. When the enigmatic, handsome Javier (Cliff Curtis) arrives to visit Julija’s parents, she eyes him off as a potential replacement father, ready to whisk her away from her present life. Kusijanović’s tale emerges as a coming of age story reckoning with national history and potent symbolism, questioning how a space so vast can be so claustrophobic, how a youth full of potential can become so lost. “They call it mentality in Croatia,” Kusijanović says when we speak over Zoom. “But it’s not mentality. It’s violence.”-Caitlin Quinlan.

There are several scenes where it seems as though there’s about to be a violent outburst, that Julija is going to enact some kind of shocking vengeance.

It’s always more interesting to see things unfolding than finished. The build-up is more interesting than actually arriving, or orgasming. And threat is more interesting than revenge. There’s something charged in unfinished actions…

There’s a style of fishing in Croatia where you sit at the back of the boat, you drive very slowly, and then you put the bait in the water, release, and then pull back and release, and pull back and release… That’s kind of the rhythm.

It‘s almost tidal. The sea has such clear power and presence in this film.

I really used the water as a place of self-inspection. It’s subconscious, for Julija, it’s where she enjoys what is forbidden above the water-her desires, spilling blood, reimagining different power dynamics-and then eventually, what is subconscious underneath the water manifests above. It’s like casting spells. I also wanted to treat [the water] as another universe. It is a different space, in terms of both movement and sound, and it’s very physical and sensual. It’s a great place to explore cinema because you have to do it without language.

“we weren’t looking for these glittery, underwater shots with light rays coming through. It’s a heavy, expansive, mysterious, dark and ominous world.”

How did you work with DP Hélène Louvart on the underwater scenes?

Hélène had this very interesting idea about light underwater. She did not want sunlight. It was a great approach because we weren’t looking for these glittery, underwater shots with light rays coming through. It’s a heavy, expansive, mysterious, dark and ominous world where we went under. It wasn’t like an idyllic Mediterranean holiday. We actually covered the sea with black panels and then we also shot in the shade.

We could dive in twice a day because we were shooting at a real depth of 30 meters, and once you’re under, you just shoot for an hour straight, you don’t dive out. [To prepare] we swam a lot in the area. We tried to imagine the movement and the emotional arcs of these underwater scenes, and how to execute them. Logistically, we were very prepared: all of these scenes were first rehearsed above the water, then with the actors on real locations under the water, then they were shot-listed exactly for the entire crew who couldn’t communicate once they had dived in.

Of equal weighty symbolism in the film is the land. For example, Julija‘s father wants to sell land that he doesn‘t own, which is the site of a national tragedy.

There are two reasons why it’s important to me-one is because what is left of Croatia is land. The rest of us are leaving it. The youth that can create, and who could have imagination to create life there, are leaving because they have no opportunities and it’s so suffocated by corruption.

But [secondly] my family are architects, and I’ve always been fascinated by how we are defined by the place we move through, [how] drama can really escalate or de-escalate depending on the architecture of a place. I was trying to find places that would escalate the drama in a very visceral way, with the heat, and isolation, and the sense of burning. Nowhere to hide, no shade, you’re just raw flesh, you know?… And then of course, there’s the juxtaposition to everything underwater. The characters can find solace once they dive under and hide, almost like the moray eel.

Was the symbol of the moray eel (the ‘murina’ of the title) something you had in mind from the early stages writing the film?

Oh yes, I’m so fascinated by that animal. My great-grandmother would tell me, “Beware of the moray eel, she can cut off your entire hand!” It’s an incredible animal because she’s actually not going to attack [a human], unless she’s in danger. And if in danger, the eel bites with one jaw [the oral jaw] and then with a second set of jaws [the pharyngeal jaw], she disfigures. She’s ready to bite her own flesh to free herself, which I do think is a metaphor for my character. In Croatian, moray eel is a female noun, and the way they describe cooking it is that you have to catch her, cut her throat, rip her skin off, and reverse the skin. Then when you burn her, these insides drip and make the meat moist. It’s so violent. You rip out the insides, put it on the outside, and then burn it until it’s gone.

Caitlin Quinlan is a freelance film critic and writer from London.