St Edward's Rhubarb Issue 5

ST EDWARD’S

F E A T U R E S

component of my development. If I’d made

a film when I was 23, it would have been

terrible. That early failure has helped me

hone my craft.

Theeb

was my sixth script. It’s

not a stable life in terms of work or income.

You have to be able to deal with pressure.

Speaking of pressure, it comes across

as an important theme in the film…

from the environment, from a name,

from a moral dilemma…Is it a

theme that interests you personally?

Naturally a lot of autobiographical stuff goes

into a film. There’s an incident with water in

the film which actually happened to me when

I was five. Themes of loss etcetera. We’re

going through a very difficult and pressured

time at the moment in the Middle East and

obviously that affects the choice of 1916, a

time of regional existential crisis. That kind of

thing is always going on in the subconscious.

It’s amazing what the subconscious does

actually. I noticed the other day that I’d

literally ripped off three shots from Peter

Weir’s

Master and Commander

. I had no idea

I’d done it until I saw the film again. I wonder

what else I’ve stolen…

Just one of your huge set of influences

and experiences.Are they a blessing

or a curse when trying to create an

original feature film?

The key is working with talented people. If

you rely on your own cinematic experiences,

you’re just going to regurgitate them. The

key thing on

Theeb

was working with the

Bedouin, because they’re untainted by

cinema and have never been to a film

before. The first film they saw was the film

we made. Spending a year living with them,

their storytelling, their poetry, their music,

their way of movement informed the film

and anything original comes from listening

to them and using their experiences. For

me, it was finding a subject matter I was

interested in, going out to expose myself

to those elements, and then bringing them

into the film. It’s a collaborative process with

the artists. When I started I tried to write

a Bedouin Western by myself, but it was a

rip-off of a Leone film – the names were

changed but everything else was the same.

It’s about life experience too – when

I was twenty I hadn’t lived and didn’t

have anything to say. The things I want

people to notice are my movie geek

references. There’s a certain sequence

that’s an homage to Straw Dogs that never

gets noticed…

Filming inWadi Rum, were you

conscious of the long shadow of David

Lean hanging over you?

I love David Lean, and

Lawrence of Arabia

I understand that for many people in the

West, that film is often their only reference

to that point of history, and that most people

only go to Wadi Rum because they’ve

seen the film. It isn’t a coincidence that the

films are set in the same period of time. In

the Middle East, that’s the most important

part of our history – all the conflicts and

everything you see today comes from the

redrawing of those maps and the Revolt.

How did you find life in the desert?

One of the big things I noticed was that when

you’re standing in the desert you have a vast

expanse around you, but at the same time

you are aware of the more minute details

of sound, people’s footsteps, or the brush

of a twig. It’s the juxtaposition between

something that’s vast visually and something

very, very intimate sonically. That contrast

informed the film, the micro vs the macro.

That’s the same for the setting of an intimate

counter-drama against the wider picture

of the Arab Revolt. These elements came

through in the process of making the film.

It’s very organic.

After about four months of living there,

I became arrogant and thought that I could

do what the Bedouin do. So I went out with

the Land Rover one day and got terribly lost.

But they know how to track and just before

sunset they found me. It makes you realise

how fragile you are in the fact that you really

don’t know what you’re doing. The desert is

not a game. I learnt respect for their talents

that day.

What’s next?

I hope to meet and work with George

Fenton (OSE) someday, he’s an amazing

composer.

I’m currently working on another

Jordanian film set in the period of history

after

Theeb

. That’s like my answer to

Zulu

Seven Samurai

. There’s also an English book

adaptation set in England and the Arctic

which we have the rights to. I miss London

so it would be interesting to do an English-

language project. Sooner or later one project

will appear as the frontrunner and take over.

In the meantime, you have to pursue the

projects you love, find stories you love to tell,

and then work hard on them.

Winner of Best Director at the Venice Film Festival 2015