Writer/Director Augustus Meleo Bernstein and Actors Noah Wyle, Miranda Otto, Vanessa Benavente, Ezekiel Pacheco and Sadie Stanley talk to The Inside Reel about approach, inspiration, generational perspective and movement in regards to their new dramatic film: "At The Gates" from Picturehouse US.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (screaming)
00:02 - You want to get separated from your mom?
00:14 We're committing a crime.
00:15 This is a crime scene.
00:16 (speaking in foreign language)
00:22 - Mom, they're back.
00:23 They're at the gate.
00:24 (speaking in foreign language)
00:28 (dramatic music)
00:31 - Yeah, 'cause the movie has a sense of urgency
00:37 and you were saying pressure, Vanessa,
00:39 and that's really what you feel.
00:41 You feel the dread moving up because who can you trust?
00:43 It comes down to the word of trust.
00:46 And who can you trust?
00:48 Can you trust family?
00:50 What can you trust?
00:51 Can you tell her to talk about that metaphor
00:53 of the pressure and that dread,
00:55 but then also what the end game needs to be in your mind
00:59 as far as playing her,
01:01 both from your perspective, Vanessa,
01:03 and then Miranda, if you'd want to end with that,
01:06 that'd be great.
01:06 - Yeah, I think,
01:10 because in our case,
01:15 the dread starts somewhere else, right?
01:18 The dread starts with ICE and immigration coming together.
01:23 But then I think it just starts polluting everything.
01:27 It starts taking over everything.
01:31 And I think that paranoia when someone's after you,
01:34 it really makes you suspect everything,
01:40 and everything and everyone.
01:44 And so, of course, I trust my son.
01:48 That's the one person I feel I can trust.
01:50 And also, I've made decisions for both of us
01:55 up to this point,
02:03 but now I think I have to also take his point of view
02:08 into the equation,
02:09 'cause he's not a kid anymore, right?
02:11 And so that complicates things a bit.
02:14 And without spoiling anything,
02:19 I feel like the challenge here was trying to,
02:22 trying to get in that headspace where,
02:27 okay, well, what do I do now?
02:29 And how complicated this must be for her,
02:34 because again, their lives are at stake.
02:40 - Yeah, I mean, I was interested in the fact that
02:44 Marianne is very privileged.
02:48 Most of her problems are high quality problems.
02:51 And she assumes in life that the law is on her side.
02:57 She assumes that when she walks into a place,
03:00 she's going to be listened to and understood.
03:03 And she's just walked through life with that.
03:07 And so she takes on this situation.
03:11 And I think still believing in her husband as a lawyer,
03:14 she still thinks that she could sort of
03:16 talk her way out of anything.
03:18 But then in the end,
03:21 I think it's just really interesting
03:23 to see her on the other side of that.
03:25 And sort of when things start to get
03:29 a lot tighter and more difficult,
03:31 she starts to realize what it is to face off
03:34 with immigration officers and what it is like
03:39 to be on the other side of the law.
03:40 (dramatic music)
03:43 (speaking in foreign language)
03:48 - Nico, thank you for helping today.
03:50 I'm Marianne Barrett.
03:51 - Thanks for letting me come work here.
03:53 - Have you explained the rules?
03:55 Peter doesn't want anyone going into his office.
03:58 - Yes, he won't be any trouble.
03:59 (phone ringing)
04:01 - Dining window, open.
04:02 (dramatic music)
04:04 At your door, open.
04:06 (phone ringing)
04:09 - Anna, why don't you and your son
04:11 just go in the guest bedroom?
04:12 (phone ringing)
04:15 (dramatic music)
04:18 The officers that came to the gate
04:23 work for immigration.
04:25 If you were to try to leave,
04:26 they're likely waiting for you out on the street.
04:29 We have a space in the basement.
04:30 But we need your cell phones to make sure they stay off.
04:35 (speaking in foreign language)
04:41 - Now, my last question,
04:42 could you talk about the pertinence?
04:43 I mean, obviously it's very pertinent today,
04:45 but it talks about, obviously, immigration.
04:48 It talks about the American dream.
04:50 It talks about the masks we put up.
04:52 Could you talk about sort of the inspiration for it?
04:57 'Cause obviously, to be motivated to write this,
05:00 you have to sort of think about it yourself.
05:02 What made you think this was the right film
05:05 for you to make at this time?
05:06 - Well, the writing process began in 2017
05:10 when there was an increase in immigration raids
05:15 happening throughout the country,
05:18 significant increase compared to the years before,
05:20 in which people that I knew,
05:23 people that I was very close to were being affected.
05:26 And this was happening largely in Los Angeles,
05:28 in New York, big cities
05:29 with big undocumented citizen populations.
05:34 And there was this feeling of fear
05:36 and people wanting to stay in their own place.
05:41 And I also, I grew up Jewish,
05:45 and the story of Anne Frank was present.
05:47 And this idea that you could be displaced from your home,
05:51 a place that you think, and you call your home,
05:54 based on a government policy
05:56 was kind of the inception of the story.
06:00 And then I realized that the film is just,
06:04 is a relatable and exciting mystery
06:07 about a mother and son
06:10 who just are trying to give themselves a better life.
06:13 - Can you sort of talk about looking at it
06:15 from your perspective and the psyche,
06:17 you know, of a different generation than say Miranda's
06:21 and how you guys have to sort of bring that knowledge
06:24 to the forefront in a film like this?
06:26 'Cause it's an important film,
06:27 it's an important thing to talk about.
06:29 - Yeah, absolutely.
06:30 And I think that younger generations,
06:33 like my generation, I feel very proud to say
06:37 that we are a very empathetic generation.
06:41 We are, you know, taking the steps to make change
06:45 and we have a different perspective on the world.
06:47 And it's probably due to how much access
06:49 we have to the world, right?
06:50 Like the more knowledge you have,
06:51 the bigger your perspective can be.
06:54 So I think, you know, that's one way the internet was good.
06:58 And, you know, there's a lot of bad things about it,
07:00 but you know what I mean?
07:01 I think that's, our generation is so compassionate
07:04 and so has such a worldly perspective.
07:07 And you can kind of see that in this movie
07:09 that Nico and Lauren both have a youthful,
07:14 like kind of broad perspective of the world.
07:16 Nico's mom kind of just sees the best in everybody,
07:20 doesn't want to stir up any trouble,
07:21 doesn't want to, you know, cause any issues.
07:24 While Nico is very, you know, he's more aggressive
07:29 and he's more confident in challenging people.
07:34 And it's similar to Lauren and she's young.
07:36 And so she has a different perspective
07:38 and she starts to resent her mother's ignorance
07:41 because her mom is kind of stuck in her way.
07:43 So that's kind of an interesting way to look at it
07:46 as the younger generation.
07:47 (phone ringing)
07:50 - Ana, open the door.
07:53 (speaking in foreign language)
07:57 (speaking in foreign language)
08:01 - Ms. Baris?
08:06 (phone ringing)
08:08 Is the police?
08:09 (phone ringing)
08:12 - What do they want?
08:14 - Oh, I don't know.
08:15 - Where's Peter?
08:18 - I think he's upstairs.
08:19 - He's upstairs.
08:21 - Peter?
08:22 Peter?
08:24 The police are outside.
08:26 (phone ringing)
08:27 - Why?
08:28 (phone ringing)
08:29 - The police, they're at the gate.
08:31 (phone ringing)
08:34 - What do you mean the police?
08:35 - The police, police, they're at the gate.
08:37 - What do they want?
08:38 - Well, it's interesting because
08:39 it's not just generational.
08:41 It's obviously it's class structured.
08:42 There's so many different things.
08:44 But the one thing, and I talked to Vanessa and Moran
08:47 about this is about perspective and perception.
08:49 How you want to be perceived, how the world sees you,
08:52 all these different things.
08:53 I mean, watching Ezekiel, your character, Nico,
08:56 talk about college and then have to shift.
08:58 It's really, there's a lot of dread.
09:01 There's a lot of dread in this film
09:02 because you're like, what will happen?
09:04 And what choices do they have to make?
09:06 Can you guys talk about using sort of those,
09:09 not metaphors, but using those pinpoints
09:12 to sort of imbue your characters
09:15 with a certain amount of either darkness,
09:17 lightness, depending on the scene?
09:19 - Well, that for my character,
09:22 I want to speak for you.
09:25 Because the tension of the piece
09:28 necessitated keeping a kind of ambiguity
09:31 about where my character was coming from.
09:33 It had a, there was a very fine line to walk between,
09:37 you want to keep an element of menace and unpredictability,
09:40 but at the same time, when you reverse engineer the plot,
09:42 you want to be able to see, oh no,
09:43 those were actually grounded choices
09:45 that weren't lost leaders or red herrings.
09:47 They were in keeping with the piece.
09:49 So that was really the way I approached it.
09:51 Is that not to go too far in one direction
09:53 and not to short shrift a moment either.
09:55 But to see if I could keep that line of ambiguity going
09:58 until he revealed his truth.
10:00 - Zico, for you.
10:02 - Yeah, you just see Nico adapt quickly.
10:04 You brought up college and he's been brought from a life
10:08 where he's had to adapt to everything really quick
10:10 if something catastrophic comes right away.
10:12 So seeing him change up really quick
10:14 just to take up that mantle of being a man,
10:17 like I said, it's something a lot of kids like me go through.
10:22 Kids that come from poor areas or immigrants
10:25 me being an immigrant myself,
10:26 I've been having a lot of adversity in my life
10:30 and I've had to learn to get used to anything
10:32 that comes my way.
10:33 'Cause either way, you're gonna have to learn how to win.
10:35 So you see that in this film.
10:37 (speaking in foreign language)
10:41 (speaking in foreign language)
10:44 (speaking in foreign language)
10:48 (speaking in foreign language)
11:16 - She is very much her mother in many ways.
11:19 'Cause I love that scene when there's sort of line going on
11:22 on both sides, but that just shows that you and Miranda
11:26 probably saw those elements in each other.
11:29 Could you talk about that?
11:30 'Cause those scenes really pop in many ways.
11:32 - Thank you, yeah, yeah.
11:33 I really like those scenes too.
11:34 I think I remember filming that there's a scene
11:37 in the bed where Lauren is kind of telling her mother,
11:42 well, maybe if you just stopped for a second
11:44 and asked how they were doing or how they were feeling,
11:46 it's like, you see this like teenage girl,
11:48 like suddenly like understand what empathy is
11:53 or like understand, like that's the moment where she's like,
11:56 wow, there's so much going on that we don't even know about.
11:59 You know what I mean?
12:00 And it took Nico opening up to her for that to happen.
12:03 And that's pivotal for her.
12:05 Like that'll change her life forever, you know?
12:08 And so that she's frustrated her mom isn't seeing that
12:10 even though she was just that way not too long ago.
12:13 - Obviously, Augie was blocking in a certain way.
12:16 So you knew where the frame was,
12:18 but within that, what were you allowed to do?
12:21 There was rehearsals I heard.
12:22 Did that, how did that engage as far as,
12:25 ironing out the character or finding like
12:27 the little details that you liked?
12:30 - Yeah, it was ironing things out.
12:32 And we did rehearse that scene, I think before we shot it.
12:35 But yeah, I mean, Augie just wanted us
12:38 to kind of make the words our own.
12:40 I think that when you get too stuck on like exactly
12:43 what's written on the page,
12:44 you can, it can kind of come out weird.
12:46 And although this is like suspenseful and dramatic thriller,
12:49 we wanted the tone of the dialogue
12:52 and the rawness to still be there
12:54 for it to still feel grounded and real.
12:57 And the dialogue really helped that by us
12:59 just saying how we would say things normally.
13:01 - The thing that I think Miranda said is like,
13:03 it felt the house was supposed to feel like a prison to her.
13:06 And yet she has the ability to leave.
13:08 Could you talk about using environment in that,
13:12 but the idea of family, because family is so important.
13:15 You see Nico and obviously Anna and how they function,
13:19 but then you see how your mother and her function.
13:21 Was that the discussion about what families mean
13:24 or was it about perspective
13:26 and how people are perceived in different arenas?
13:29 I mean, there's so many different things we could talk about
13:31 but I'm just bringing up a couple.
13:33 - Yeah, yeah, totally.
13:34 I think a lot of it is about perspective.
13:37 These families are so drastically different.
13:39 So you want them to feel different sitting in the house.
13:43 But I think it's also interesting
13:44 because although the Barris family
13:46 is put together on the outside and they're very well off
13:51 and they have a beautiful house and whatever,
13:53 you can still see where it crumbles inside of the house
13:58 and how the dynamic isn't perfect.
14:00 They're not as perfect, loving, sweet family.
14:02 They have issues and they fight
14:04 and they're not as perfect as they seem.
14:07 And that kind of adds to the weirdness and to the suspense.
14:10 - Why is everything so packed?
14:12 It's like they're already waiting for us.
14:14 And why does the door only open on the outside?
14:19 - Hey, were you and your former housekeeper close?
14:21 - She lived with us.
14:22 - What happened?
14:23 - My mom could be pretty demanding.
14:25 She'd end up quitting.
14:27 - And you're sorry again?
14:28 - No.
14:29 - What are you doing?
14:31 You could not come into my office.
14:33 - Nico, you can't just be up here like this.
14:35 - It's important that children see me
14:37 and treat people like you with respect.
14:40 (dramatic music)
14:42 (dramatic music)
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