Debuting director Miroslav Ondruš on his new psychological thriller Vendeta
In this week’s Arts my guest is a new film director Miroslav Ondruš whose debut feature film Vendeta is now in Czech cinemas. The film, as the name suggests, is a psychological thriller with revenge at its dark heart. It stars an intense Ondřej Vetchý as a father who loses a loved one and is already being described as one of his finest performances.
“Vendeta is a genre movie and there were some people in the beginning who thought it was bullsh*t to try and do this kind of film in a Czech context because there is no tradition for this kind of film in the Czech Republic. For me though this is a debut and I wanted to make a film that was not just for us, not just for Czechs but could be appreciated by a broader audience. And after seeing the movie, others said that it really didn’t feel like a Czech film. And I am happy that we did something different.”
So that was a feel that you were going for from the very beginning...
“Yes.”
Would you say that Czech film really shuns genre? I know in the past a lot of detective movies were shot, for example, maybe just not in the last 20 years...
“Well I think the problem is that our films are screened largely only in Czech cinemas. You get some that go on to festivals but that’s it. And because producers of course want to make money it is difficult to try something new, that hasn’t been done: they are very risk-averse. I hope this will change and that things will be better in the future because now I don’t think many people can name a good Czech thriller.”
If you couldn’t look to the Czech tradition where did you look? To Hollywood? Or elsewhere?
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – would that be something you enjoy?
“That’s closer to Hollywood. I like the very early films of Lars Von Trier: in his films you can see a ‘touch’ of the country, strong people, amazing faces... French films too have great films, great characters.”
So these are some elements that are important or were important for you when you began writing the script, because you also wrote the script: setting, character – those were important starting points.
“Yes. You know for me the number one thing is Vendeta is the loss of a loved one and what that does to the main character. I wanted to examine what would happen in a situation where someone loses a friend or a mother or daughter and what you might do.”
And this is the situation that the lead actor Ondřej Vetchý finds himself in?
“He loses someone who is very close to him and he has to do ‘something’ or risk going crazy.”
In the trailer you can see that the film opens in an unusual setting: it’s the middle of a forest.
Where was the location where the film was shot?
“It was shot at a location near Prague – which was important because a lot of the actors had theatre plays in the evening, so they needed to be able to get back to the city. We shot in March and so we had daylight until about four pm. My inspiration for the location was the film The Road (John Hillcoat’s film based on Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel). It was an amazing location for us.”
The person who finds Vetchý is played by well-known Czech actor Oldřich Kaiser: what is their relationship?
“The thing about Vendeta is that you know nothing about the characters they just appear and as a viewer you have to accept it or not. At the start Vetchý is found lying on the ground and in the first situation Kaiser thinks that Vetchý is ‘innocent’. But the perception changes over time. There is little time though to think about who the characters were ‘before’ there is so much action.”
“Vendeta is a very physical film and it wasn’t easy for Kaiser and Vetchý. For Ondřej I think there was an added burden: as an actor he ‘becomes’ the character he is portraying. So for the rest of us the shoot always ended on the day but he went home “as the character”. For me as a director it was great, though: my character came to life.”
What was the most difficult scene, do you think, to shot, either for you or for them?
“Ondřej told me that every scene was tough because he had to think about the bad things that happen in the film, you know. For me the toughest scene was the second-last one in the film that I needed to capture in one long shot. We used a stuntman and it was cold but it turned out well and I think that audiences will enjoy it.”
I wanted to talk a little bit about Igor Chmela: I’ve been watching him as an actor for several years now and I first noticed him doing stand-up on HBO (a skit about being a perfectionist) and he was very funny. Because he’s a very surprising actor, isn’t he? An actor with many facets.
Since you are talking about writing, the transition from being a scriptwriter to director is a big one. How did you find this division of labour?
“Well I want to make original movies. I like people like Petr Zelenka or others because they write their own scripts and then they go and film. For me it’s a bit of a help: you create your characters and they became like your kids and you know them really well and it helps on the set. For me it wasn’t so hard, when I write I ‘see it’. And I was writing a project that was ultimately a low-budget movie.
"It wouldn’t be hard to write a scene with a thousand elephants or some nonsense, for a different project. But in the Czech Republic there are no budgets for that kind of thing, so the idea was to make a low-budget psychological thriller. I tried to keep the script in real locations with a few characters and a strong story. That is how you can make a film in 20 days.”
