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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Saturday 7 april 2018
Phoenix, Ramsay improvise a blistering and brutal thriller

By JAKE COYLE on. I just felt invigorated ev-
AP Film Writer ery day. It was always alive.
NEW YORK (AP) — For a It was grimy and sweaty
moment while sitting next and crazy and noisy and I
to the Scottish filmmaker never slept."
Lynne Ramsay, Joaquin Ramsay and Phoenix, both
Phoenix slips into a low, cliche-adverse to the ex-
Liam Neeson register. treme and strong believers
He's describing how his in following their instincts,
tormented vigilante — a found they were kindred
broken, brooding soul of spirits.
fragility and brutality — in "It's really fun to sit around
Ramsay's "You Were Never a table and go through
Really Here" bears few of things and analyze it and
the traditional thriller pro- intellectualize moments.
tagonist qualities. But the truth is: When it's
"It's not like: 'You kidnapped really great is when you're
my wife! Now I know my actually holding the ham-
mission and I'm not going mer and you're walking
to stop,'" Phoenix says with down the hall. That's when
an exaggerated growl things come alive," Phoenix
while Ramsay chuckles. said.
"There are several moments Post-production was just
where you wonder: He's just as accelerated. Ramsay
going to say, 'F--- this. I can't rushed the editing to ready
do it.'" the movie for last year's
"You Were Never Really In this May 28, 2017 file photo, writer-director Lynne Ramsay, left, holds her award for best screen- Cannes Film Festival, where
play, and actor Joaquin Phoenix holds his best actor award for their work on "You Were Never
Here," which opens Friday, Really Here," during a photo call following the awards ceremony at the 70th international film it was purposefully sched-
is Ramsay's fourth and most festival, Cannes, southern France, Sunday. uled last in the Palme d'Or
frenetic feature film. While Associated Press competition. It won best
it has some of the broad screenplay for Ramsay and
outlines of pulp — when a line suggests. thing so lofty. But it's just says Ramsay. "To me, there best actor for Phoenix. Al-
job goes wrong Phoenix's "I wasn't quite sure what it turned out that every film was a kind of catharsis in most two years later, they
avenger-for-hire is plunged was," Ramsay said in a re- I've made has ended up making it." still marvel at the unpredict-
into an underworld of child cent joint interview along- a character study even if Much of the film's pro- able, whirlwind production,
sex trafficking — it's far side Phoenix. "I wasn't say- I thought I was making an pulsive, deconstructionist one further destabilized by
more fractured, poetic and ing: I'm deconstructing the action movie." spirit is a result of how "You Phoenix's unpredictable
existential than the story genre. I wasn't doing any- As she showed in the ac- Were Never Really Here" performance.
claimed trio of "Ratcatch- was made. After Phoe- "I first started getting into
er," ''Morvern Callar" and nix's schedule changed, the idea of toxic stress and
"We Need to Talk About he called up Ramsay and having repeated trauma in
Kevin," a character study asked if they could start your life from a very young
for Ramsay is never a shooting not in the fall of age, and what that does to
straightforward undertak- 2016, but in the summer. somebody developmen-
ing. Her films — intimate "I said, 'Can you do this in tally, to their brain. Literally
and volatile — reflect splin- like six weeks?'" said Phoe- neural pathways that aren't
tered psychologies beset nix. "And she said, 'Yeah.' formed and go dormant,"
by trauma: at-sea people And then she said, 'I'm still says Phoenix. "I became re-
grasping for a foothold. A working on the script.' And ally interested in the idea
young boy reconciling the I thought that was amaz- of this guy whose physi-
death of his friend. A wom- ing to be willing to jump in cality and his brain aren't
an who wakes on Christ- on it without feeling like it's matching up right. There's
mas to find her boyfriend there." this goodness to him but
has killed himself. A moth- The shoot over 29 days in he can't really figure out a
er whose son shoots up a New York was filled with long-term way of solving a
school. rewriting, improvising and problem. He's forced to just
In "You Were Never Re- shape-shifting. Ramsay and do things in this immediate
ally Here," Phoenix's Joe Phoenix met on the first day way."
is haunted by shards of of production. Some roles For a filmmaker so at home
violent memories: his fa- were cast just days before at a breakneck pace, "You
ther's abuse of his mother, their scenes were shot. Were Never Really Here"
a death in Iraq, a shipping Ramsay estimates she shot is Ramsay's first feature in
container of dead mi- enough footage for three seven years and her sec-
grants. In a way that might films. ond in more than 15 years.
resonate for anyone who "I've never gotten to the She extensively prepared
keeps up with the news, end of a film shoot and to write and direct "The
Joe, in his own warped thought: Let's go make Lovely Bones" before being
way, is consumed by a another movie right now. dropped for Peter Jackson.
sense of helplessness to Normally, you're exhaust- "She's had a rough go of it
life's tragedies. ed," said Ramsay. "This was as a director because she
"The world's really over- maybe the most exciting is so true to her vision," said
whelming at the moment," film shoot I've ever worked "Kevin" star Ezra Miller.q