Michael GLAWOGGER: I need to know everything about the soul of the hero
The Ukrainian premieres of the films by renowned Austrian film director Michael Glawogger Workingman’s Death (2005) and Whore’s Glory (2011). The first film is dedicated to workers from different countries (one episode was shot in the Donbas, it tells about our miners in illegal coal mines), whereas Whore’s Glory is triptych about prostitution, a cruel and at the same time humane artistic research of this phenomenon performed by the director in Thailand, Bangladesh, and Mexico. After the screening of the second film the director met with journalists and the audience.
Why did you take up the topic such as sex industry, which is much discussed these days?
“I tried to shoot Whore’s Glory as if I knew nothing of prostitution. Take into consideration that everyone knows something about it. There are people who have hired prostitutes, and there are those who have never used their services, or those who think they did. A wonderful Russian documentary film director Viktor Kossakovsky said once, ‘If you want to save the world, put your camera aside, don’t make movies.’ This film does not lecture on prostitution, it will rather tell more about your personal sexuality, your mind, and your attitude to the phenomenon.”
Will prostitution exist forever?
“Yes, this is an everlasting business. Prostitution cannot be stopped either morally, or financially. Nothing will do. The only way is not to pay for sex. So it will never stop.”
The heroines in Whore’s Glory are so natural that it is hard to believe they did not play. How did you achieve this effect?
“Probably, the reason is that prostitutes are actresses. This is their job. The main thing in my part is communication. It is easy to communicate like you and I are doing now: if we like each other, the camera won’t be a hindrance. Of course, they don’t need a report: they will get into trouble if it appears next day on the Internet or in a newspaper. But if it is a film, if they have gotten accustomed to the camera in the course of the shooting, there is no problem anymore. Actually, the girls want to be treated like humans. If there is such attitude, everything is fine. Because if somebody comes to them saying that they are victims, that this is a great sorrow, they will reply: ‘Go to hell,’ because they are human and they want to be treated suchlike. So, when I come with a camera and talk to them face-to-face, as a person to a person, they are simple and easy-going.”
Still, how did you establish the contact, taking into consideration the language barrier?
“The thing is indeed about the methods of my work. I hate interviews. They are enemy of documentary films. Putting you near a wall and starting to ask questions like, ‘Oh, we have prostitution. Tell us about it,’ is total bullshit. In fact when I have an intention to work specifically with you, I will find out everything about you: what kind of person you are, what your surrounding is, your friends and parents. If you want to go to the world and find a confirmation of what you already know, by asking a question you will get a response you expect. I could ask, ‘Were you forced? Are you doing this against your will?’ Of course, she would say yes. But if you want to go to the root, you need to know everything about her soul and heart, about her friends and relations with her mother, in order to ask the question you need. The worst documentaries are made with an intention to say something global. In fact we show concrete heroes, their individual lives, their personality characteristics.”
What caused the structure of the film?
“That was a lengthy process. I had thought about many countries, but I chose Thailand, Bangladesh, and Mexico, because I wanted to make a religious triptych. I started with Buddhism, continued with Islam, and ended with severe Catholic culture. Everywhere the perception of sex differs. I believe that Whore’s Glory is not about prostitution, rather about the relation between sexuality and religion. I frequently hear questions like, ‘Why don’t you shoot in Europe, round the corner? You can find everything there, too.’ Maybe I can find in Vienna suburbs things no less exotic than in Thailand. But I think the world should not be so Europe-centric. It was interesting for me to show these three religions, three cultures, three different social statuses, which enabled me to show sexuality in a more eloquent way.”
What difference did you see in the attitude to body in these countries?
“Above all, this is the question of culture. I showed the film in Mexico and the girls admitted they really disliked Thailand. They couldn’t even imagine how one can sit behind the glass like Thai girls and respond to numbers, they would not know how to establish the contact with the client. In Mexico they need to feel the client’s heart, and there’s no such thing when you sit behind the glass. In Bangladesh the girls don’t talk with the client. Yes, their views on the body greatly differ. In continuation of the topic of glass, our physics teacher showed us the following example: he put two glasses, with cold and hot water. If you put your hand into the cold water, the hot water will seem much hotter than in reality. I am presenting the same effect. If you take a black-and-white scene first, a colored one will seem to you much brighter than usually.”
In Workingman’s Death you were shooting Donetsk miners. What things do they have in common with the workers from other countries and why are they different?
“I think they have nothing in common with the rest. This is a unique situation. When I hear a question where you should go I reply, ‘You can’t miss Africa and Donetsk.’ The reason is that namely in Donetsk region the miners used to enjoy the highest status, they were the most respected category of the working class, and their current situation is terrible. It seems to me that even the European Union does not know what to do with them. I shot Workingman’s Death many years go, but I am more than sure that nothing has changed ever since.”
In Workingman’s Death you show the hard working conditions, a real exploitation. Is there room for solidarity and human dignity?
“I am not the person who can answer this question. I am not a politician and I have no intention to change the world with my films. But when they ask, ‘Why the hell should the workers pull brimstone in baskets in the 21st century?’ the answer is obvious for me: because it is cheaper. Otherwise nothing of this kind would have happened. This is the basic question of capitalism. If it was cheaper to use some technologies they would have used them. This refers to everything that is going on in the world. There are megacorporations which fire people because of financial hardships and the people have nowhere to work. Until the corporation becomes profitable again, it won’t hire any new workers. And here the problem of big corporations is solved rather than that of the unemployed who can’t find a job, and there are many of them. Coming back to Ukraine, I will say: the problem with Donetsk is very simple. Whereas in American mines there is a crane as big as this hall and extracts coal, it is cheaper to do it this way, but in Ukraine it is cheaper when a miner extracts the coal with a spade in a small illegal mine.”
What question is more important for you, the social or the political one?
“I don’t think documentaries aim at changing the world. When Michael Moore shows for another time how stupid George Bush is, this is no art. I am very irritated by such creative work, because many people say today that documentary cinema can only take interest in politics, NGOs, etc. Movies show problems rather than people. For me documentary cinema is making films, and making films is art. Kossakovsky shoots one scene in Petersburg, where he shows ice breaking on the river in spring – and it is like the ice breaks around your soul. My inner state changes when I see this. Dziga Vertov, who authors Man with a Movie Camera, is one of the greatest documentary film directors in the history of humankind not because he was a communist, but because he was a poet. And people will remember him not for his beliefs, but because of his artistic vision, because nobody has been able to do the same things he did in cinema.”
