Paul Risker
tion. Curiosity is the reason for many of my decisions. It’s why my films seem to be eclectic. They tell very different stories – period, contemporary, historical or psychological dramas, political films. So it is not that I have one subject. And if I must choose one, it would probably be a very existential subject of identity – what we are doing on this planet and who we are. Of course this is some kind of ontological or philosophical quest, which does not necessarily translate to the story itself in a simple way. PR: The prominence of the past in your cinema is apparent, as well as characters living under and trying to survive oppression. AH: Well the past is not the past to me, and what happened is a part of the present. Most of my historical films are as relevant as the contemporary ones – sometimes more relevant. Sometimes you need this distance from the current events to see the deeper truth. And I am not making these films about the distant past, I am making the films about human nature, and I don’t think this changes too much – it goes by waves. We can see now for example that the events from the thirties or the events from before the First World War have become very relevant. Everybody feels that there is some sort of a repetition and the same dangers we lived through in the twentieth century are rising again. So it is not only to remind people and to educate people about the past, it is to show what from the past is still present. And for me the Second World War never ended. What we are living now is a second stage of the Second World War, or maybe even the First World War. The main subject of humanity is the struggle inside of human nature. Humanity can be cruel and hateful, is easily self-destructive and the culture tries to fight those elements so deeply present inside human nature. It is some kind of eternal struggle between good
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Fig. 2: The “eternal struggle between good and evil” that Holland says “happens inside of man” is externalized in Burning Bush (2013).
and evil, and this struggle happens inside of man. It never ends (Fig. 2). PR: Over the course of your career, how has your perspective on the craft of filmmaking and storytelling itself changed? AH: I did change a bit, but also the perception of the cinema changed and the expectations about complexity of the storytelling did as well. When I started, the cinema was more open, experimental, and ambitious, freer in some way. The search for the new language, for the new narrative tools had been wider than today, and the audience responded largely. Today we practically have two quite opposite branches. One is commercial, following conventional rules and another is made more for the festivals than for the wider audience. The films of the middle, the kind of cinema which is allowed to touch complicated issues in an attractive and accessible way, practically disappeared. And it was the kind of cinema where I felt at home. So cinema changed, but one thing didn’t change for me. I am always doing my films thinking about the audience. I want to make some impact on the people and I need their feedback.
