Filmmaker Christian Tafdrup’s downbeat drama concerns a family vacation that goes catastrophically wrong.
It leads to a very fatal consequence in the end."
It’s a potential that pleases Tafdrup greatly.
Speak No Evil.Shudder/Courtesy Everett Collection
That’s not the premise of this film.
But it’s disturbing in a way you’re not expecting.
It’s not a horror film with a lot of jump scares or supernatural elements or blood or violence.
I think it’s more psychological and maybe more intimate because it deals with something we can all experience.
The film’s shoot was repeatedly interrupted for COVID-related reasons.
Tafdrup compares his travails to those endured byFrancis Ford CoppolaonApocalypse Now, which seems a reach.
“It wasmyApocalypse Now,” insists the director.
It felt like a nightmare making a nightmare.
I did not know if I could finish the film.
We were stopped four or five times it took a year to shoot it.
But it turned out to be a better film, because I had these breaks.
I had to rewrite stuff.
I became more clever.
So I think it turned out a better film, but I was exhausted afterwards."
Speak No Evilplayed at this year’s Sundance festival and was released in Denmark last March.
“Actually, they love it,” says the director.
“The funny thing is, I was in South Korea, and they were in shock.
They said, ‘How can you make a film where you mock another country?
If we tried to mock Malaysia or somewhere, we would get banned.'”
The key to Tafdrup’s skirting such headaches?
“I was very precise in my description of Dutch nature,” he says.
“People can see the irony and the humor.
So I didn’t get any death threats from Dutch people yet.
I think they’re too nice to do that.”
Speak No Evilis now playing in select theaters via IFC Midnight and streams exclusively onShudderfrom Sept. 15.
Watch the trailer forSpeak No Evilbelow.
