email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

ARRAS 2021

Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden • Directors of Becoming Mona

"We looked for a way to show this very human side of losing yourself"

by 

- The two Dutch filmmakers, winners of the Grand Jury Prize at the Arras Film Festival, analyse the singular approach of their first fiction feature

Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden  • Directors of Becoming Mona
(© Aurélie Lamachère/Arras Film Festival)

Already awarded this year with the Best Director award at the Golden Calves and with the Ensor award for Best Co-Production, Becoming Mona [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Nie…
film profile
]
by Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden has just won the Golden Atlas - Grand Jury Prize at the 22nd Arras Film Festival.

Cineuropa: With Becoming Mona, did you wish to paint the portrait of Mona alone or the wider one of an entire family?
Sabine Lubbe Bakker: We adapted a novel by Griet Op de Beeck, but to paint Mona’s portrait, we needed to paint that of the family, since she is the way she is because of her family. It is therefore a portrait of her, but through the idea that she was shaped by the people who raised her to such an extent, that she struggles to understand who she is. 

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Niels van Koevorden: It is a film about family relations, or family non-relations, both work. 

Was the three-part structure already present in the novel?
S.L.B.: Yes, and we never doubted that we had to maintain it. It was important to show the extent to which time makes things worse. We often say that things will get better with time, but that is not what happens. The time that passes and which we do not show in the film makes it clear that no miraculous changes can occur and make us better people. In the first part, Mona is nine years old, in the second she is 25, and in the third she is about 35. 

How did you work to so skillfully flirt with the drama without falling into something excessive? 
N.v.K.: The main goal of the film’s general approach was to give the actors as much space as possible for their performances to be truthful. We needed the camera to be able to move, as little artificial lighting as possible, and a lot of time to work with the actors so that they could fully immerse themselves in their parts. 

S.L.B.: But we were also seeking this border with the drama, because I think that in real life, it is probably much worse. We have also directed documentaries and, for example, during Christmas family dinners, arguments often break out because most of us are not always healthy, organised and well-balanced people. We looked for a way to show this very human side of losing yourself. We worked towards this with the actors, so that they would feel totally protected on the set and able to really let go and trust us, to try to see how far they could go without any restrictions. For example, the character of the mother-in-law had to give a feeling a danger too, and the slap she gives Mona is the result of improvisation. During the editing, we took particular notice and care of these moments where the viewer might almost feel anger towards the behaviour of the characters. 

N.v.K.: It was also a choice to go further towards the drama, because on paper, the film was presented as a tragicomedy. But it’s true that there is also a comedy potential to the character of the mother-in-law in particular, a “bigger than life” aspect. 

The film is very rich in various surprises. Do they all come from the novel?
S.L.B.: After reading the novel, we wondered for a year how to make a film from it. We had to take hold of this story, to make it speak to us personally.

N.v.K.: In the documentary world we come from, what we usually do is enter a room see a scene and try to capture it. And it only happens once. We wanted to work this way on a fiction set. This therefore means a lot of improvisation, few rehearsals and a mise-en-scene that changes and is perfected with every take. The camera dances with the actors.

S.L.B.: We also try to surprise each other.

Do you have a new project in the works?
N.v.K.: We are developing a series centred on ten monks. At the end of each episode, one of the monks dies or leaves. Human relations are once again in the foreground, but in a slightly lighter, less dramatic register than the one in Becoming Mona.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from French)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

See also

Privacy Policy