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A few weeks after the end of World War II, before Mother Teresa founded her own congregation, the Missionaries of Charity. In Calcutta, in 1948. Time is running out. Mother Teresa must prepare the convent for her imminent departure and appoint her successor. She has chosen the only candidate she considers suitable : Sister Agnieszka. But very quickly, Agnieszka confesses that she must refuse this proposal because she is pregnant as a result of a brief romantic relationship. Agnieszka wants to have an abortion and, for her, only Mother Teresa can help her. Torn between her beliefs and her compassion, will Mother Teresa be able to bear this heavy secret ?
What makes a good biopic for you ?
Virginie Saint-Martin : Biopics aren’t really my thing. I rarely see them in theaters, and the few examples that come to mind often seem too didactic to me. Just recently, I was offered a biopic series, and I admit I wasn’t thrilled. If anything, I’d rather make a documentary than a fictionalized portrayal of a real person. But for me, Mother doesn’t fit into the biopic category.
The film is based on a loose interpretation of the character of Mother Teresa. For example, there is no tour de force on the part of the actress to resemble her in every detail, or to have physically and psychologically immersed herself in the role... With this film, Teona offers her own vision, built on reality and historical context, but which I think emphasizes feelings and atmosphere over authenticity. And then this film also comes after a documentary that we shot together 10 years ago in Calcutta, following in the footsteps of the real Mother Teresa. Interviews with the last sisters who had known her, places, atmospheres that eventually inspired us. I think this film is fed by this long journey, and by the work I have done with her on several projects since Mother [this is the fourth film the two women have shot together].
How did the film come together ?
VSM : As with every new project, a lot of preparation and research with Teona. I am very proud of this film, especially when you consider the challenge it represented as a script. To do this, a key decision was made to group almost all the interior sets in the Namur region, using a large abandoned building (a former convent, now a nursing home) that was going to be completely renovated. With the help of the production designer, Vuk Mitevski, who is also Teona’s brother, we were able to film everything that takes place indoors. The location already had its own patina, or floors, which we filmed. Certain details were enhanced with pigment paint, as is used in India. The Mother Superior’s office, for example, looked very prosaically onto a parking lot. With a window recreated in polystyrene and patinated, a few props... What I love about this family team (the director’s sister is herself a producer and actress) is this “anything is possible” attitude...
How many days of filming ?
VSM : Twelve days in Belgium and ten days in India for a budget of €2.3 million. I’m starting to become an expert in films shot in 20 days ! Seriously, while the Belgian part of the shoot allowed us to bring everything together in this kind of natural studio, the schedule in India was much more complicated to manage, given the number of different sets. What’s more, we suddenly found ourselves with an extremely large crew, which required a lot of adaptation given our more direct and straightforward approach to filmmaking. Fortunately, everything is going very well, with no tension and always with a smile.
The film follows an inexorable urge to escape, from darkness to light...
VSM : The idea was to convey on screen the feeling of confinement that the protagonist feels in the convent. Hence her desire to leave it, to spend more time in the city, with the people she could help. That’s why there is hardly any light in each room, why the sun doesn’t touch her, or dies just beside. Except perhaps for the garden, each room is really very isolated from the outside. For example, I remember that a batch of green wooden blinds was sent specially from India to cover the windows and block the view... a bit of DIY, but it creates a link between Belgium and India !
And then there’s the seven-day countdown. That rhythm was naturally in our heads during filming, even if it was the editing that finalized things in the film, propelling the whole story towards that open ending in the middle of the slums. In any case, Teona is a director who does very few takes, almost always building her editing on sequence shots. When you start a shot with her, it will inevitably last until the end of the scene. Almost never any inserts, and masters that never start or end in the same place. As for the lighting, it was difficult to envisage treating these seven days differently. The light in India is very harsh, with little variation at this time of year. And Teona really wanted to capture the sun outdoors and convey this feeling of heat on screen. So I decided instead to work on the colors, often combining several color temperatures in the image but without necessarily seeking to reflect the time of day. I also made good use of shadows, for example in Agnieszka’s bedroom, which is a setting that comes up quite often to move the story along, particularly when her pregnancy is revealed.
So you work more on the scale of each scene ?
VSM : Most of the ideas are decided during the preparation stage, when I do what I call a “psychological” breakdown sheet with the director. Each scene is then associated with a feeling, which is then translated into images. Teona likes to associate colors with each part of the film. Not that everything will be red or blue at any given moment... But these colors help her communicate the mood, the feeling she wants to convey at that moment in the film. That’s really how I see my role as director of photography. Translating that feeling so that the director and her actors are in the right mood. And since everything is filmed with Teona in a series of master shots in sequence, I can’t really set anything up. Only black sheets on the ceiling or external light sources help me create areas of shadow and light that best serve the set design and the feeling of the scene.
But the sequence of scenes is also a factor in these decisions. Alternating from one mood to another creates a visual rhythm.
There is no film about nuns without a confessional scene...
VSM : For this sequence, we were lucky enough to be able to rebuild a confessional based on a model we found in Calcutta during location scouting. Installed in a church in Brussels, we took advantage of this configuration with movable walls to place the camera exactly where we wanted it, and thus choose exactly the distance and pattern of the grille separating Teresa from the confessor. These sequences, like those in cars, are somewhat obligatory and don’t really thrill me. Either you want to be original and look for angles that don’t mean anything... or you always do the same thing ! In fact, the question with this scene was mainly about what point of view we were going to take. Logic would have dictated that we stay with Teresa’s point of view, as we did for most of the film. But Teona insisted that we switch to the father’s point of view. And that’s why we only have one shot through the grille, showing Noomi’s face. The reverse shot of him is filmed without the grille. I think it conveys well the feeling of confinement, the questions she is asking herself about abortion at that precise moment in the film. In the shot of her, my camera is in a place that would be absolutely impossible in reality. Impossible to achieve in a real confessional. But I think the effect serves the mood and the purpose of the scene very well. It’s also in this kind of context that you, as a cinematographer, really appreciate the presence of a great actress. Noomi knows exactly where to position herself in relation to the lens so that her eye appears through the wooden latticework. There’s no need to direct her, because she’s familiar with the camera and knows how to work with it. Filming becomes a kind of dance with her, and you rejoice with every take.
I really loved that, specially during those long continuing shots !
The film also has a somewhat timeless quality, especially in the night exterior scenes...
VSM : It’s something we were quite aware of. In fact, in Calcutta, there was really no way to control the city lights, except by placing pieces of cinefoil on each street lamp with the help of a small basket. The night scenes are therefore often based on contemporary street lighting, which is an anachronism given that the story is supposed to take place in the early 1950s. We decided to work with what we had, adjusting the white balance, color grading, and contrasts between colors. Look at the scene on the roof, when Agneszka tries to commit suicide... All in all, it’s quite modern in its discoveries. It was impossible to spend large sums of money on special effects to transform the background. So we accepted the natural lighting, sometimes trying to contrast it with blue in the background... We really decided to keep these anachronisms and integrate them into the film. Again, this is a way of affirming that we are not making a true biopic, but a free and sensitive evocation, sometimes straying from pure reconstruction.
And the work in India ?
VSM : Only seven projectors, but 37 people with them ! I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life. There were about six camera assistants surrounding me at all times. It was fascinating to see so many people and such iconoclastic equipment. 1950s heavy dimmers that I myself had never seen, even when I was starting out as an electrician, alongside with Astera lights. And then it was the first time all those guys met a female director of photography, with a lot of attention, especially when, like me, you ’re working handheld. I remember, for example, shooting the last shot, that long movement accompanying Noomi in the middle of the slum, shot from the front and then from the back in the sweltering heat. Everyone was concerned about my health with each new take...
What technical choices did you make ?
VSM : Due to budget constraints, I couldn’t get the Sony Venice 2 that I usually use. Next Shot facility suggested that we pick the new Burano camera, which was more affordable. After a series of tests, I used it in 5.8K, with an S35 sensor, in XOCN LT. Combined with a Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm T2.9 zoom lens, which I used very often, I was delighted with its compact and lightweight design. It almost felt like I was carrying a Betacam ! In addition, a 15mm Leica Summicron also allowed me to shoot wider shots indoors. On a few occasions, such as in the convent’s garden with the scarecrows, I also used a Lensbaby Movie Maker kit to give the scene a more surreal effect. For another fantasy scene, such as the discussion with the priest in the white setting with the cross formed on the floor by the tiles, we added this very graphic depth of field effect in post-production by blurring certain parts of the frame.
All the previous films you made with this director were shot in Macedonian, a foreign language for you. How different is it to shoot in English this time ?
VSM : This is indeed the first time on an english spoken show. And understanding the language inevitably changes the way you frame the shot, especially when shooting handheld. Even if you know what’s happening in each scene, this instinctive connection makes you interact and sometimes anticipate differently with the actors. From that point of view, we had to readjust together, and it was quite exciting... Because on this film, Teona’s choice of handheld shots and hesitation went hand in hand with Teresa’s trajectory. It was a way of illustrating the organic imperfection of the emotions experienced by this woman. Far indeed from the perfection of steady shots, drone shots, or ronin shots...
The film is also marked by unusual framing, often leaving a lot of space in asymmetrical compositions... More and more directors are taking advantage of the opportunities offered by today’s cameras to finalize the frame during editing. Was this the case on this film ?
VSM : No, Teona is very attached to the composition of the frame from the moment of shooting. With the exception of one shot in which there was a editing zoom effect, nothing was changed. In her cinema, nothing is left to chance... Everything is extremely structured and graphic, and Mother is no exception to this rule. Initially conceived as a square-format film according to her wishes, with a kind of abandonment and a desire to push the notion of off-center framing quite far. I admit that I wasn’t completely convinced by this square format idea, which reminded me a little too much of Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida [cinematography by Łukasz Żal, PSC], another film set in a convent. Nevertheless, we did all our preparation with the square format in mind, only to learn that the distributor didn’t agree. We then switched to 1.66 and then 1.85, even though Teona thought she would be able to impose her choice later on. It was even a bit of a headache during the first week of shooting, as she wanted to keep both the 1.33 frame with the mark and the 1.85 that had been imposed on her. But this strange balancing act quickly came to an end when we learned that the distributor had won the day... This brings me to emphasize the finality of things, which I want to be as close to as possible on set. Especially on an auteur film, we rarely have time to do much in post-production. For example, Mother was given only seven days of color grading. And offering a near-final image right from the rushes changes things. the way the film takes shape for example. Because I believe that losing the director in a technical maze has never had a good effect on a film.
Mother
Director : Teona Strugar Mitevska
Director of Photography : Virginie Saint-Martin, SBC
Set Design : Vuk Mitevski
Costumes : Claudine Tychon
Makeup : Linda Boije
