Alexander is a completely normal kid. He loves his parents, if given the chance he will always sneak out to play football, and he shoots people dead on a daily basis.
Okay, so maybe it was an exaggeration to say ‘completely’ normal. If you’re starting to worry here, you can relax (a little). While his story is based on the real-life issue of child mercenaries, the Alexander in this case is a fictional character.
Ariel Kleiman, Jeremy Chabriel and Vincent CasselThe film he inhabits is ‘Partisan’ and, while it’s based on reality, it takes you to a place that hovers outside of time and context, where darkness and light flow with equal force. 'Partisan' is the first feature film of Director, Ariel Kleiman; but he is certainly no cinematic noob. If you venture into his collection of short films and adverts, you will notice a familiar current of darkness snaking through even the funny ones.
Yet Ariel himself is anything but a dark character. His first words were accompanied with a laugh and, above all else, he conveyed an air of lightness and humour. When asked how he felt about having completed his first feature film he again laughed. “Any time I make a movie – it’s been the same for everything I’ve ever made – I can never watch it after. So I’m probably not the best judge of it. But I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. I’ve watched it once and it was a pretty painful experience.”
Rest assured, 'Partisan' is only painful if you’re the filmmaker. For the audience, they're taken on a journey through the life of a child assassin and experience his world with all the limitations of his young perspective. There are enough snippets of information to stuff the story roughly into a pocket of time and space. But, somehow, it feels better to just let go and allow yourself to experience the unfolding events in step with Alexander, who has no more information about what’s going on in his world than the audience do. Had the story been set within its grander context – be it drug running, political upheaval, religious rebellion or whatever – the people, their idiosyncrasies and emotions, would so easily be lost to the magnitude of the bigger picture.
Ariel’s way, we see the human side, the parts we can relate to. Not just of Alexander but Gregori too. He is not painted as a thorough villain. “We tried to write the character as much as possible as a dad. Not to say he’s anything like my dad. But so much of his motivations are paternal. At the same time, we saw him as a child trapped in an adult’s body. A kid who just never grew up.”And this makes the circumstances and events that much more heart breaking. Those images you see of kids with guns and snarls on their faces that chill you to the bone – somewhere in there is still a kid with childish ways and desires. With this as a background, the brutality of their actions is graphically highlighted.
Vincent Cassel (famous for his villainous roles in ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Ocean’s 13’) perfectly embodies the enigmatic leader of this band of killer kids. With such a strong force portraying Gregori, it was a mission to find an equally powerful Alexander. After trawling through countless audition tapes, Ariel finally found a force to match Vincent’s in Jeremy Chabriel. “The thing with kids and acting is they’re either incredible or really bad. The first time I saw Jeremy was on a tape. I was blown away by his presence on screen. He’s just got those amazing bright eyes and he carried himself with this incredible stillness and strength. The second that tape popped on my screen I thought ‘here he is’.”
Recalling the first time he actually met Jeremy, Ariel dissolved into laughter. “The character has to sing in the film so I asked him to bring a song along and sing it in the audition. He sang 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen. I offered him the role that day.”
{youtube}QO448MvL6do{/youtube}
Jeremy wasn’t the only kid on set. In fact, Ariel had 15 of them to contend with. “I’m not going to pretend it was easy! But kids are amazing. All the kids in the film are younger than 11 and, under that age, they just have no self-consciousness so they’re incredibly natural.”
Ariel's short film, ‘Young Love’, featured the other kind of cast members famous for being difficult: animals. A whole herd of alpacas to be precise. Ruminating on the difference between directing a herd of kids and a herd of animals, Ariel arrived at his verdict carefully. “Alpacas are weird, they’re like sheep, they’re followers. Whereas the kids on this… there was no rhyme or reason to their behaviour, it was just chaos. I reckon the alpacas were more… trainable.”
{youtube}sutAdO2fNBI{/youtube}
With his first feature film now complete and already winning awards from Sundance and praise from critics and audiences, Ariel has so many directions in which he could go. He remains open to, well, to whatever he feels drawn to really. The one thing that’s certain is his deep love for film.
“I've always loved movies. At one stage I think I’d watched 80 percent of my local video store! Definitely a movie junkie. And whenever I could get my hands on a camera I would be filming stupid stuff. Going out with friends on the street, pulling pranks or interviewing people. In a way, I feel like I’m still kind of doing that.”
'Partisan' is in cinemas from 28 May.
