The American filmmaker talks about her directorial debut, Appropriate Behaviour.
Having co-created, starred in and directed the short TV series The Slope (2010) – described, simply, as being about ‘Superficial, homophobic lesbians’ – American writer/director Desiree Akhavan has now made her feature filmmaking debut with Appropriate Behaviour (2014), the latest in a recent slew of comedies focusing on the travails and existential angsts felt by mid-twenty-something Brooklynites.
Akhavan stars as Shirin, a young woman struggling to balance her duties as a good Persian daughter with her unsettled bisexuality, all the while coming to terms with her place in the world.
We spoke to Akhavan about mining her life for inspiration, being confused with her fictional character, and whether her film can be categorised as ‘Queer Cinema’.
What’s the reactions to the film been like in America?
Positive! Everything that I’ve read so far has been incredibly positive, so we’ve been lucky in that respect.
I’ve read that a lot of the things you’ve been involved with film-wise have been based on experiences in your life. Why do you choose to use your life as inspiration?
It’s just the way I am, really. It’s a sickness. I think that people who make film and write things…It’s hard just to say ‘film’ now because it’s not specifically film anymore, it’s media, it’s anything; TV, web series, etc. People who choose to tell stories this way are usually really self-analytical and are fascinated by human behaviour and what motivates someone to do the things that they do and they way that they do it, so I love just to get in there and pick apart things that have happened to me in the past. With Appropriate Behaviour, I think there are a few things here and there sprinkled in that are based on truth, but for the most part my producer and I came up with stories that perfectly, and conveniently, illustrate what was happening in my life.
So as I was writing it I was dealing with the aftermath of a breakup, and I had recently come out to my family, but this wasn’t the exact way that all that happened. There’s a real art to taking personal experiences and avoiding making a diary entry, which I had no interest in doing. I love Mia Hansen-Løve’s work. She is this great example of someone who makes incredibly personal work that is also universal and touches broad audiences, and is very artfully done.
Where do you then develop the characters within these situations?
I think it’s picking absurd characteristics and personality traits that I observe around me, piece-mealing them together into different characters and then seeing who would be a convenient addition to the narrative that I’m building. Also taking absurd comedy and then, in the execution, finding an actor who can give a lot of truth and humanity to someone who otherwise could be a walking joke.
What are you specifically looking for in these situations you create? What are the observations that you are picking apart?
You know, just everyday things strike me in a weird way and usually evoke an emotion in me. So, if I find myself on the subway and start feeling things, then I start taking notes. I am, not unlike people who make films, a very emotional person, and things affect me in a crazy way. It’s funny; recently I’ve had a lot of really strange observations and interactions with homeless people in New York, so a lot of behaviours that I’ve been noticing and a lot of notes I’ve taken are enough to make a script based on homeless people. This is not a theme or political issue that I’m particularly interested in tackling at this moment in my life, but for some reason it’s just what I’ve been exposed to recently.
Do you think that’s a unique thing to New Yorkers? There’s so much comedy that comes out of there that tends to concentrate on these issues.
I don’t know. I used to live in Brooklyn, and I didn’t have any homeless people in my neighbourhood at all, but then I moved to the Upper West Side two years ago and it’s a completely different experience. In each neighbourhood, you have your local homeless person who you develop a rapport with. The same with the people on your subway line; I’m always on the same line all the time and share a dynamic with the other people who frequent that same train.
Shirin’s parents play a large part in the film. Do you think that the majority of people in your generation do a lot of things just to please their parents?
There is the distinction between myself and this character in that Shirin is highly judgemental and is constantly putting her stamp of disapproval on things, whereas she’s incredibly insecure and freaked out about her behaviour. I can’t place a judgement on what people do based on pleasing people or not. I can just say that a lot of my life and my behaviour has been specifically a result of displeasing others, and I think that that’s okay. I don’t know if it’s a message in the work, but I think that it’s okay to do things that are not appropriate. You may be going against what your family want for you, but if you believe in what you’re doing and you have a strong moral feeling for it then that’s okay.
The funny thing about having a lead character that you yourself play is that people think they are microphone to voice your opinions to the world, but I don’t think that’s so. I think Shirin is a very heightened version of my best and worst qualities, and some of my worst qualities are based on this whole judgement as a defence mechanism that she has in the film, because I’m so hyper aware of everything I do I just want to talk about it. I hope the film doesn’t show a disapproval of some of the lifestyles explored through the characters.
Have you found that audiences have found it hard to separate you and the character?
Sure, because everybody thinks the film is entirely autobiographical, which is understandable based on the way its presented and the fact that I star in it, but I have found that the majority of people have been too afraid to say it to my face, so it’s not like something I’m constantly talking about. I think most people think Shirin is me, and I need to build a body of work that illustrates the difference between these characters and myself.
Do you see yourself as more of a director or actress, or even writer/comedian?
I see myself as someone who fills the gaps where they need to be filled, so if it makes sense for me to star in the film like it did here then I’ll do that, and if a script comes my way and I feel the need to direct it, then that would be something that I do as well. It’s a matter of how we can best serve the story, and I do not have a preference over one. I love acting; I love writing, and I love directing. I probably have the most experience throughout my life as a writer, but it’s not something that I choose over the others.
Have you ever done any directing like Shirin does in the film with the class she teaches?
Yes, I was a teacher, and I taught filmmaking to kids on several occasions. It’s very difficult, and I was very bad at it. That’s another distinction though because my character was a lot better at it than I am! The programme I was in was great, and I had a great boss and colleagues, but I was the shitty one. We changed it for the film to make it conveniently funny. That’s another example of taking huge liberties with real life and accumulating all these absurd people to put around my character in the film. So that became another environment where we were able to do that. In my real life, I just wasn’t very good at teaching these very young, five-year-old children. I was a glorified nanny. I’ve been a straight-up nanny in the past, and I think I was okay at that, but to teach them about the mechanics of filmmaking was a challenge for me.
The film is non-linear. How did you shoot it?
We shot it however we were able to get our locations, so it was a short, fast and dirty 18-day shoot. We moved very fast, had minimal lighting, shot on the Red camera, and it was however we could manage to fit into a certain day as possible. It was never linear, and it was never according to what was convenient for the story. It was always a matter of how could we logistically cram it all in.