TIFF 2015: Director and actor go with the flow in ‘River’ (Includes interview and first-hand account)

Writing and directing one’s first feature-length film is already a daunting task, but setting it in a communist country halfway around the world is an added challenge that could have had mixed results. Jamie M. Dagg’s thriller, River, is set and shot in Laos, which was no vacation in spite of the exotic location. In addition to the “stifling heat,” there was “very little film infrastructure,” says Dagg. At the same time, “all these little things that seemed insurmountable problems contributed to the film.” The film’s star, Rossif Sutherland, agrees that the limitations were blessings in disguise; “We couldn’t have done it with a bigger budget and crew because we would have been too noticeable… You stick a crane in there and you lose the quality of what it is to be in that place.”

The film centres on John Lake (Sutherland), an American doctor volunteering for an NGO in Laos. During a vacation, he observes a couple of Australian tourists trying to take advantage of a couple of intoxicated girls. After closing the bar with the generous owner, John has a confrontation with one of the men and accidentally kills him. Now on the run from the Laotian police, John must try to sneak out of the country before he’s forced to face local justice.

“I felt like a thief because there are very limited rules as far as the film industry. If you get the thumbs up from the government, you get pretty much carte blanche.” – Rossif Sutherland

The morality of Sutherland’s character is ambiguous. On the one hand, John is a doctor who feels obligated to aid those in need and whose judgement was clouded by alcohol. Conversely he took a life and is trying to escape the consequences, manipulating innocent acquaintances and leaving them to deal with the aftermath of his deceptions. “I wasn’t really interested in a white and black contrast of good vs. bad. I wanted to make it more ambiguous,” says Sutherland. “He’s got a lot of figuring out to do as far as who he is as a person and when he finds himself in this life changing moment, he gets to discover a side of him he may not have known was there.” He mentions that Dagg was also very accommodating, adapting the script to fit Sutherland’s interpretation of the character.

Both agree being on location was taxing, but it added to the film’s authenticity. “The place is so cinematic, you just have to point a camera in any direction and it’s breathtaking,” says Sutherland. But “unless you spend time there, it seems like a very alien environment,” adds Dagg. “That feeling of being out of place, where everything is new, it very much affects the journey of the character,” continues Sutherland who would blend into the crowd and move unnoticed in another part of the world; however, in this setting, it’s not that difficult to spot the film’s wanted man. He is undoubtedly credible as the self-absorbed man on the run whose priorities shift drastically when his own well-being is threatened. Most of the weight of the narrative is balanced on Sutherland’s shoulders; a task he carries with his head held high.

One of the main challenges Dagg faced was working with the local government, which sometimes required them to tread lightly. “The people are happy there, but there’s this tension beneath the surface because of the political situation.” Nonetheless, they received the support of the government’s cinema department who are gradually trying to change the local culture. “There are people our age who really love film and want to help change things,” adds the filmmaker. An example is one of the film’s key moments in which the young women are shown drinking in a bar; the scene raised some flags amongst various local organizations, but the film has been approved in its current state by Laotian censors. “So they are slowly changing in terms of what’s culturally acceptable.”

The pair had never met prior to Dagg casting Sutherland in the role, but there was an instant connection made over Skype. “I saw this very young, enthusiastic face of this guy who had written a script I couldn’t get out of my head,” says Sutherland. “I wanted to go on an adventure with him and it’s been a real gift because not only has a film come out of it, but a friendship as well.”

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Don’t miss the rest of our TIFF 2015 coverage.

Similar Posts

  • Review: ‘Once Upon a Deadpool’ is a fun but fleeting experiment (Includes first-hand account)

    Those who grew up watching certain movies on cable — with commercials — before finally watching an uncut, recorded version on VHS/DVD/laser disc/Blu-ray, know what it’s like to discover scenes, coarse dialogue and graphic images they’ve never seen before. It sometimes changed the whole dynamic of a film and made it impossible to ever go back to the shorter, sanitized version to which you’d been accustomed. Of course, the television cut wasn’t really any less good, but it was unquestionably different. This feeling is gaining relic status with the adoption of streaming and video-on-demand, but Fox has decided to recapture the experience with its PG-rated rendering of Once Upon a Deadpool.

  • Review: ‘Chef Flynn’ is a delectable look at a child prodigy (Includes first-hand account)

    When people think of prodigies, it’s often related to arts such as music or academics such as math. Regardless of the specialty, it’s a label applied to young people who have a natural gift for something that takes other people years of practice to do or comprehend. Their particular genius allows them to know inherently how something is done and excel with seemingly little effort. Consequently, they’re so consumed by this one thing, most other areas of their life, such as unrelated studies and relationships, suffer. Chef Flynn is about a young man who was a pre-teen phenomenon in the kitchen and is realizing his professional dreams before many kids his age have even decided on a career.

  • Review: ‘Into the Forest’ advocates a more natural existence (Includes first-hand account)

    When asked who they’d like to spend the end of the world with, the most common response is family and friends. But the end of modern civilization doesn’t automatically equal the end of the world and those closest to you may have different priorities. Running water, electricity and grocery stores are relatively recent luxuries that certainly simplified life, but they’re not necessarily essential to survival. A lot of factors are involved and it definitely helps to have achieved some level of self-sufficiency prior to any disaster. Into the Forest demonstrates given the right tools, it’s trying but not impossible to return to the Stone Age.

  • Review: ‘Southpaw’s grit just isn’t enough (Includes first-hand account)

    There have been several good boxing films made over the years, some based on true stories and others emerging from the imaginations of talented authors and screenwriters. Directors such as Clint Eastwood, Ron Howard, David O. Russell and Martin Scorsese have stepped into the ring and had an impact on the sports film subgenre. But no matter the trajectory of the story, it always comes down to one last fight. That’s part of the movie’s appeal — audiences know they are going to see a well-choreographed match that rivals some of reality’s best. Antoine Fuqua‘s Southpaw follows in its predecessors’ footsteps, which can be considered good and bad.