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HEART OF DARKNESS
A report from the set of The Living In The Home Of The Dead, written and directed by Simon Rumley
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“Eterna 500 carried more latitude than I expected and it was brilliant going into darkness.”
s I believe it’s one of the darkest films to come out of England, both colour- wise and emotionally, we needed a really fast film that would capture as much natural life and
light as we could get,” says director/writer Simon Rumley of The Living In The Home of The Dead.
Like his previous feature films, Strong Language, The Truth Game and Club Le Monde, all buoyant youth-cul- ture dramas, Rumley’s latest has been shot on Fuji.
“We needed to have the ‘look’ of something fast and dangerous to show that this wasn’t a traditional British film, all safe and nice, but something that could go into deep darkness and still look okay,” he says.
Rumley’s psychological drama fol- lows the grim fortunes of the aristocrat- ic, impoverished and reclusive Brocklebank family. Set in modern-day England, it is centred in a magnificent but decaying Palladian mansion where Lord and Lady Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd Pack and Kate Fahy) live with their mentally- challenged son (Leo Bill) and the family nurse, Mary (Sarah Ball).
From a script he wrote quickly in about eleven days, it’s an unnerving story about being disturbed - a blend of European art-house combined with the tight plotting of films by directors like Shinya Tsukamoto, Chan-Wook Park and Kim Ki Duk.
“I wrote the first draft about three years ago as a reaction to watching my mother die of cancer over an incredibly quick, painful and traumatic three months,” he says.
“What started off as a nightmare existing within its own logic and in its own world slowly started to change into an excessively disturbing tale which was nonetheless rooted in reali- ty. As I re-wrote it, themes of uncondi- tional love, family and acceptance all evolved and became the core of what the script is today.
“Although this film should appeal to a horror audience, I view it more as a tragedy, since the storyline’s most gruesome twists all come from the central character’s desire for uncondi- tional love.”
Shot on location at Tottenham House, the Wiltshire country home of Lord Cardigan of the Crimean War- famed family, apparently strange occurrences began to happen before they even started shooting. Electric cords were mysteriously cut overnight and chips of steel shrapnel appearing from nowhere - which started produc- tion off with a dark edge before one foot of film was in the can.
“Only part of one wing of the house is used by the family,” explains Rumley. “It is a sort of stateless state- ly home for rent. The main part of the house had been rented out to a prep school and more recently to a drug rehab home but it has been uninhab- ited for some months. The inside is wonderfully run down, lost in an overgrown, genteel estate of rolling fields and trees that could be a Constable painting.
“It seemed that something of the conflicting drug rehab era still stuck to the walls; it was spooky and scary, on the cusp of horror. Working in the long, dark corridors didn’t need very much psycho-drama acting!”
Rumley met his producer Nick O’Hagan while he was working on his film Club Le Monde and they talked about movies along the lines of the current trend of energetic, economical Asian psychological dramas.
“We knew that people were fright- ened of unusual scripts and this script doesn’t follow convention so we have paced it very carefully to make the story, which is disturbingly unusual, more palatable and understandable.
“We went with a lower, more imme- diately available Anglo-Indian invest- ment budget rather than waiting for bigger money. We are using locals as extras and our production team is young, all under 35 and keen. It was shot entirely on location so there was no studio work.” ■ MARIANNE GRAY
The Living In the Home Of The Dead was originated on 16mm Fujicolor Eterna 500T 8673
Photo main: Kate Fahy as Nancy Brocklebank in The Living In the HomeOf The Dead;
from top: Director and writer Simon Rumley; the cast and crew prepare to film a nightmare scene; Leo Bill as James Brocklebank & Kate Fahy
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