Writer/Director Augustus Meleo Bernstein and Actors Noah Wyle, Miranda Otto, Vanessa Benavente, Ezekiel Pacheco and Sadie Stanley talk to The Inside Reel about perspective, perception, geography within the house, approach and the notion of the American Dream in regards to their new dramatic film: "At The Gates" from Picturehouse US.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (screaming)
00:02 - Do 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 - Mentioning those different things,
00:36 I mean, it's also about,
00:38 at least the way that the movie is built,
00:40 it's about perspective and perception.
00:43 The perspective of each of these people,
00:44 but how they are perceived both inwardly, outwardly,
00:47 and just in their own minds.
00:50 And I think it's really well done in that way
00:52 because it's about taking certain details
00:55 in the personality traits of each of these people,
00:58 whether it be Marianne, whether it be Ana,
01:01 whether or not speaking the way you guys move.
01:04 Can you talk about building in those ideas
01:07 of perspective and perception into the performances?
01:10 Because it's true in any part of the household.
01:12 The household itself is claustrophobic in that way.
01:15 Could you each talk about approaching that?
01:18 Whoever, Miranda, if you'd like to start,
01:19 and then Vanessa.
01:20 - One of the things that was really nice
01:24 is we really, we shot this film really quite quickly.
01:27 And it was just in the house.
01:30 There are a few shots outside
01:33 that were shot right at the end.
01:34 But really we were in a very claustrophobic space
01:37 for the whole time.
01:39 So everything that you see there is very real.
01:44 Yeah, there is a sense for Marianne
01:48 that the house is a,
01:52 is a prison for her in some ways.
01:57 Like she's locked inside this house
01:59 and they're always having to fix things in the house.
02:01 And she's always having people working on the house
02:04 and doing things to the house.
02:06 And then she decides to take Ana and Nico
02:12 into that prison and sort of in some ways is helping them.
02:15 But then in some ways it seems like they're imprisoned
02:18 in the same way.
02:20 - Well, you know, this is,
02:21 whereas this is Marianne's home,
02:24 it's my workplace.
02:28 So even though I know this house
02:33 like the back of my hand, because I'm there every day,
02:37 I've cleaned it all a hundred times.
02:41 You know, there's, it's not mine.
02:46 It's just, it's a foreign place,
02:50 still a foreign place, right?
02:53 It's not my country and this is not my home.
02:55 And so it's that sense of,
02:59 of not belonging, you know,
03:05 that tension I think that also arises from,
03:09 I'm not only now working here, I'm also staying here.
03:13 And so I feel like that if anyone stayed
03:18 at anybody else's house at all, you know,
03:21 if you've been a guest of anyone at some point,
03:23 you feel that, that the pressure of no overstepping
03:28 and not, you know, being too evident
03:35 or not being too, like your presence,
03:38 not being felt too much.
03:40 And so, you know, that's, and like Miranda said,
03:45 we shot this in this house and we,
03:47 it really, I think, helped to build that sense of,
03:51 sauce to phobia and imprisonment.
03:57 So that's, I think that's what it's like for my character.
04:01 (dramatic music)
04:04 (speaking in foreign language)
04:08 - Nico, thank you for helping today.
04:13 I'm Marianne Barrett.
04:14 - Thanks for letting me come work here.
04:16 - Have you explained the rules?
04:18 Peter doesn't want anyone going into his office.
04:21 - Yes, he won't be any trouble.
04:22 - Dining window, open.
04:26 Atio door, open.
04:30 (phone ringing)
04:34 - Anna, why don't you and your son
04:35 just go in the guest bedroom?
04:36 The officers that came to the gate
04:44 work for immigration.
04:45 If you were to try to leave,
04:46 they're likely waiting for you out on the street.
04:49 We have a space in the basement,
04:51 but we need your cell phones to make sure they stay off.
04:55 (speaking in foreign language)
05:01 - And that's built into the environment.
05:03 Obviously, Lauren's room is her own thing.
05:05 The office is its own thing.
05:06 In the basement, it's its own thing.
05:08 Can you talk about when you were writing it,
05:10 were you looking at a specific
05:12 sort of puzzle structure with the house?
05:15 And how did that build into how you created
05:18 the individual scenes and how they played?
05:20 - We knew that the story, since it feels like,
05:24 almost like a contemporary Anne Frank story
05:26 in which characters are hiding from the police
05:29 inside of another family's house.
05:32 Conceptually, the story is gonna take place
05:35 mostly at this one location,
05:38 but we wanted the story to evolve
05:40 in terms of the way the audience experiences it
05:43 and the characters experience it.
05:45 So we wanted them, the spaces in the house,
05:49 the basement, the first floor, the second floor
05:52 to be revealed at different times in the story,
05:54 not all at once.
05:55 So the beginning of the film,
05:58 we take place mostly on that first floor.
06:00 And then as the film progresses,
06:03 we're trapped in the basement with this family
06:05 as they're hiding.
06:06 But as they start to become suspicious and paranoid,
06:10 they start to venture into the second floor.
06:12 And that's when the movie begins to really pick up steam.
06:15 - It's about, it's interesting,
06:17 the ideas of understanding versus acceptance.
06:19 Lauren may understand, she may accept,
06:23 but she maybe doesn't know the breadth
06:24 of what she's dealing with in terms of these bigger themes.
06:28 Could you sort of talk about that?
06:30 Because there's so much heavy stuff going on.
06:32 There's a dread that goes through this film on purpose.
06:35 Can you talk about that and seeing those different
06:37 sort of layers and notes of the film?
06:40 - Yeah, well, specifically with Lauren,
06:42 she has this ignorance and this innocence.
06:47 She grew up in a very privileged way
06:51 in her little sheltered bubble.
06:53 And we kind of watched this bubble dissipate
06:56 throughout the film as she has a greater perspective
07:01 on what's going on and what's going on in the world.
07:03 Kind of pops that bubble for her.
07:05 And she kind of sees like,
07:06 oh, the world doesn't really revolve around me.
07:08 There's a lot more going on.
07:10 There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of suffering.
07:12 And she has to figure out how to reconcile that.
07:15 You know what I mean?
07:17 'Cause she's just never experienced
07:18 or seen anything like this.
07:20 So that's really seen in her relationship with Nico.
07:23 And as they get closer, he kind of confides in her,
07:27 that bubble goes away.
07:29 And she has this innate,
07:31 you can see she has this innate empathy and compassion
07:34 that kind of comes out.
07:35 She wants to understand.
07:37 And I think that's very sweet,
07:38 but then it kind of makes her resent her mother
07:41 because she resents her mother's ignorance,
07:43 even though she's ignorant herself too.
07:45 So that's kind of interesting.
07:46 But all very purposeful throughout the film.
07:48 I think Nico kind of needed her to understand.
07:51 He needed somebody to talk to.
07:53 (speaking in foreign language)
07:55 (phone ringing)
07:58 - Ana, open the door.
08:02 (speaking in foreign language)
08:06 - Ms. Vares?
08:15 Is the police?
08:21 (phone ringing)
08:22 - What do they want?
08:23 - Oh, I don't know.
08:24 - Where's Peter?
08:26 - I think he's upstairs.
08:28 - Peter?
08:30 Peter?
08:33 The police are outside.
08:35 (phone ringing)
08:36 - Why?
08:37 (phone ringing)
08:37 - The police, that they're at the gate.
08:40 (phone ringing)
08:42 - What do you mean the police?
08:44 - The police, police, they're at the gate.
08:46 - What do they want?
08:47 - I mean, a lot with these things is environment.
08:49 I mean, obviously with the rehearsal process,
08:51 it's about, you know, I like the fact,
08:53 he was telling me that he was doing some blocking,
08:56 but not a whole lot to let you guys keep free.
08:59 But it was also the fact, I think Miranda said,
09:01 you had to think of the place as a prison
09:03 and how would you operate in a prison,
09:05 even though it's your own family?
09:07 Could you talk about that
09:09 from just sort of a movement perspective, Noah?
09:11 And how it's almost primal.
09:13 It's almost primal the way he's moving
09:15 and it's primal the way that Nico's moving
09:17 in certain ways, prowling around the house.
09:19 Was that part of it?
09:20 Is any of that-
09:21 - Well, first I wanna come to the fact
09:23 that I came into this assuming that my experience
09:26 would put me as one of the larger brains on set.
09:29 And that's just pure hubris.
09:30 Because I got there, first I realized
09:32 I was the oldest guy around and by like,
09:33 not by like five years, but like 20 years.
09:36 Secondly, that these young people were so sophisticated
09:40 and knowledgeable about the filmmaking process
09:42 that there was really,
09:43 everything was so specifically chosen
09:46 that it wasn't a lot of room for interpretation.
09:50 You know, Augie says that he didn't block those scenes,
09:52 but he and the DP knew how they wanted to photograph them
09:55 and the photography limited the movement
09:58 or framed it in a very specific way
10:00 so that it was pre-thought out.
10:03 Whether we were making choices
10:06 that organically felt right to the performance,
10:08 they were making photographic choices
10:10 that framed it in the context of the piece.
10:12 And that is, again, I come back to,
10:14 that's a very sophisticated discipline
10:16 to get into for your first film.
10:17 - For you Ezekiel, sort of approaching that,
10:19 but approaching also the primality of his situation.
10:23 He's trying to survive,
10:25 but you see, it's also about the American dream.
10:28 It's about, you know, what people want to accomplish,
10:30 what holds them back and what pushes them forward,
10:33 you know, circumstances or not.
10:35 And obviously there's a very specific circumstance there.
10:38 - Yeah, you see Miko have a lot of like history
10:40 with his adversity throughout the movie.
10:43 And obviously that's not told in the movie,
10:45 but he's been through a lot.
10:47 And even moving in that house,
10:49 he has to be very careful 'cause it's not his,
10:51 but he's also trying to make sure his mom's okay.
10:53 So learning that's like a big experience
10:56 because every man has to go through that.
11:00 Either you've been through a lot of adversity
11:01 or you haven't, but at one point,
11:02 you're gonna have to step up to the plate
11:04 and become a man and Miko,
11:06 I don't wanna spoil anything, but you end up seeing that.
11:09 - It's in a way these guys are on cross trajectories.
11:12 You know, Miko's sort of coming into his masculinity
11:16 as Peter feels that his is waning.
11:18 And you know, his time as being sort of an alpha is passing
11:23 and his influence and sphere,
11:25 even over his own family seems to be diminishing.
11:28 And so it's one guy's looking to find
11:31 where he used to find footing
11:33 and the other guy's climbing the ladder.
11:35 (speaking in foreign language)
11:39 (speaking in foreign language)
11:43 (speaking in foreign language)
11:47 (speaking in foreign language)
11:50 - You've created a lot of dread within it,
12:16 which is, you know, on purpose.
12:18 But can you talk about that?
12:20 Because there's these ideas of understanding or acceptance,
12:24 which all the characters think they have in a certain way,
12:27 but they really don't.
12:28 They're sort of flying by the seat of their pants
12:30 on these elements.
12:31 Can you talk about that?
12:32 Because that notion is very interesting
12:35 because the way Lauren looks at Miko
12:37 is much different than how he sees her.
12:40 And same thing with Miranda and, you know,
12:43 with Vanessa's Anna.
12:44 Can you sort of talk about sort of those dynamics
12:46 and bringing out those metaphors in certain ways?
12:49 Obviously you have to keep it grounded,
12:51 but if you could talk about that.
12:52 - One thing that we were thinking of
12:54 is that all the characters in this movie
12:57 are trying to help other people in some way.
13:02 And since they're all trapped in this situation together,
13:05 they are going to try to help others.
13:08 Whether it be a mother who has decided to help her son
13:12 by bringing her to a new country
13:14 that she thinks is safer and has a better economy.
13:19 Or a mother who is trying to help her employees.
13:24 But I think one thing that we were thinking of
13:28 is when we help other people, where is that coming from?
13:33 Is it coming from a place where we want to help them
13:38 because it's the right thing to do?
13:40 Or are we doing it to ease our own conscious
13:43 and make us feel better about ourselves?
13:46 And if that's the place where it's coming from,
13:48 that allyship can be corrupted and not feel very tense
13:53 and feel very dramatic.
13:56 (speaking in foreign language)
14:00 - Hey, were you and your former housekeeper close?
14:06 - She lived with us.
14:07 - What happened?
14:08 - My mom could be pretty demanding.
14:10 She'd end up quitting.
14:11 - And you're sorry again?
14:13 - No.
14:14 - What are you doing?
14:16 You could not come into my office.
14:18 - Nico, you can't just be up here like this.
14:20 - It's important that children see
14:22 when you treat people like you with respect.
14:24 (screaming)
14:26 (dramatic music)
14:29 (gunshots)
14:32 (upbeat music)