The Making of Four Films International Directors Discuss Their Latest Works by Ky N. Nguyen Scottish actress Tilda Swinton ("Adaptation," "The Deep End") and writer-director David Mackenzieóthe proud father of a 4-day-old daughterótalked with The Washington Diplomat about their film, "Young Adam," which was adapted from Alexander Trocciís novel. Mackenzie recalled, "I immediately tuned into the resonances of the sort of existential Scottish character and the kind of industrial world, with the central metaphor of the canal. It was a nice kind of subversion of some of the narratives of a film noir. I really like the antihero character. Thereís a kind of dry poeticism ... a world with a slightly disaffected eye." Swinton said the movie follows the book "very closely." Mackenzie added, "The main exception is the book is an internal first-person narration. Thereís a slightly different vibe as a result of not hearing this unreliable kind of narration that runs through it. I tried to find ways of externalizing things that are very internal." "Trocci was very influenced by cinema," Swinton explained. "Having written the novel, he spent a lot of his life trying to write a screenplay that wo uld be made into a film." "Iíve never seen it," Mackenzie said of the Trocci novel. "Copies are in some university library. Iíd love to read it sometime. I wonder how different it would be." Reflecting on the comparison of the book to Albert Camusís "The Stranger," Mackenzie commented, "I think itís viable to talk about the potential influenceóor confluence." Swinton chimed in, "Well, Trocci was an existentialist living in Parisóknew Camus in fact Ö and Sartre. He was writing for the Olympia Press, writing porn in order to run his literary magazine in Berlin. He was in the soup." Mackenzie noted that Trocci "was very keen on making international work, breaking down the national boundaries between countries. He and William Burroughs talked about the stateless novel. I was looking for a project that would be Scottish at the same time as being international or universalist." "Scotland in a profound way is independent and always has been," Swinton declared. "My joke is: Itís not Scotland that needs to have its independence declared. Itís England. Thereís such a different feel to the culture in Scotlandósuch a different, sort of existentialist position. The cinema thatís beginning to come out of Scotland is much more internationalist, much more allied to a European sensibility, much less obsessed with class, and much less reliant on the theater and a literary tradition. Itís much more poetic and more adult in a way." South Korean Kim Paints ëSpringí Prolific yet iconoclastic South Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk said he has been accustomed to a life "quite different from other filmmakers." After primary school, Kim worked in a factory until his military service. Discovering a passion for painting, he then studied fine arts in Paris and lived as a street painter in the south of France. Speaking little French, he found that his interactions with people were more honest without the pretense of words. Kim applies that lesson to his visually striking films, including "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring." "One day, I woke to discover the world of cinema, and jumped into it." Kimís work explores "the borderline where the painfully real and the hopefully imaginative meet." About his current film, Kim said, "Hopefully, people will look at the journey depicted in the filmógoing through happiness, sadness, pain and maturity throughout a lifetimeóand see the beauty of their own life. It doesnít matter how famous you are, or how ordinary you are, everybody carries his/her own stone." Journey Into the Past For veteran French filmmaker Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a child of the Nazi occupation, his latest work, "Bon Voyage," is an intensely personal project despite its sweeping scope. Rappeneau described his film as a "vessel for a quantity of elements Iíve wanted to center a film around for a long time. "I decided to return to the subject of World War II, a period of my life that left an indelible impression on my lifeófrom what I saw, heard and experienced to the confusion in the lives of the adults all around me. As I filmed these characters, this period, these costumes, Iíve often felt as though I was filming my own family. "Everything is connected to me," Rappeneau continued, "either to my family history, to my childhood, or to what has shaped me over the yearsómy taste in books, my love of the theater, of American and French cinema, my passion for history, plus other things even more intimate." The director concluded, "I love the Howard Hawks phrase, ëGive me a good drama, and Iíll make good comedy.í It seems to me like this is my most successful work." Salvatores Reinvents Loss of Innocence Italian director Gabriele Salvatores (whose 1992 "Mediterraneo" won 1992ís Best Foreign Language Film Oscar) first chatted with The Washington Diplomat about the cherry blossoms, having just visited Japan. Eventually, we get to his latest film, "Iím Not Scared," a unique amalgamation of cinematic norms. Salvatore noted, "I always like to mix things up. I was a musician, and then I got to theater. Then I merged theater and cinema together." Of "Iím Not Scared," Salvatore said, "I like to tell the story about loss of innocence as if itís a thriller. In reality, if you think about it, itís very scary. "Originally, the material was not intended for a book, but for a short story or a movie. The writing is already cinematic-like. I asked [NiccolÚ Ammaniti, the writer] to rework the scenes where a child is not present. I wanted the story to be revealed through the eyes of a child," said the director. Preparing for the movie, I studied child psychology. I used primary colors like the drawings of children. I used very large lenses as I read like children have trouble focusing on one item. If they want to see one thing, they get very close." When I noted that the cameraís low angle reminds me of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, Salvatores added: "I spoke a lot about him when I was in Tokyo. Heís one of my reference points. I also got the idea of shooting from this level from cartoons in the 1950s. I donít know if you remember ëTom and Jerry,í where the heads are cut off." Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.