by Lorna McDowell // Oct. 3, 2023
The work of Saskia Boddeke—multimedia artist and stage, opera and film-director—is infused with an immersive quality that involves lavish lighting and Baroque elements. Her installations employ virtual environments, projections, sounds, light and sometimes even scent, creating a sensorially rich experience for the viewer. This richness is present in Boddeke’s 2022 documentary film ‘Inside My Heart’ (or ‘Het zit in mijn hart’), which was awarded the Grand Prize at Le FIFA (International Festival of Films on Art) in March 2023, and received an IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) special mention in 2022 in the category Best Dutch Film. The film is a collaboration between Boddeke and the Dutch theatre ensemble Kamak—a group of professional actors with intellectual disabilities—that presents their rehearsals and performing of the Baroque theatre play ‘Furia,’ written by Oscar Wagenmans. There’s a free-flowing quality to the film’s narrative and a blurring of fiction and reality, as scenes drift between verse recited in candid rehearsals and highly-stylised moments on stage. We are drawn into intimate conversations and tender everyday, moments of sadness, joy, frivolity and mutual support among the cast members, as well as a love triangle and scenes that are sexually-charged.
When on stage, everything is luxurious and vivid, the opulence of powdered wigs, white robes and bold make up complemented by lighting, sound and dramatic scenery—exquisite gardens, the ballroom, the dining hall—with saturated colour and compositions that evoke classical painting. This contrasts with, but at times merges into, the plain and everyday scenes in Kamak’s rehearsal studio. These aesthetic decisions, as well as the unsentimental nature of both Boddeke and Wagenmans’ approaches, highlight the power and strengths of the Kamak cast members and enable us to lose ourselves in their shifting identities. We spoke to Boddeke about the making of ‘Inside My Heart,’ which will be shown as part of the ‘DOKUARTS: Visual Alterity’ film festival program this October in Berlin.
Saskia Boddeke: ‘Inside My Heart,’ 2022, film still // © Saskia Boddeke
Lorna McDowell: How did this project with the theatre group Kamak come about?
Saskia Boddeke: Well, I’ve known the group for 15 years. A friend of mine [Wagenmans] was the director of the group and he invited me to see their performances, and I was immediately totally taken by what he did with them and the professionalism of the actors, and what being a theatre group did to the actors. So my dream was to do something with them—awhile ago I did another project and invited one of the actors to take part and because I did I became even closer to the group. They are very much involved in one another’s excitement, life and everything. I kept visiting them. When I saw this performance called ‘Furia’ about the seven deadly sins, it fell into place and I thought “ah, yeah, this is the project I can do something with.” What they do on stage is so in conflict with how their real life is, and their freedom in real life. The conflict between their stage experience and their real lives was, for me, fascinating. And then the idea was born to make a documentary feature film about this stage play.
LM: Could you speak a little about your experience with the ensemble and the writer of ‘Furia’ while shooting the film?
SB: Oscar Wagenmanns was not part of the film as he retired, but the group is as it is because he did not have a “sweet sweet” or sentimental relationship with them. He took them very seriously and he had a touch of sarcasm in him, and hard jokes. He really writes for the actors and one of the reasons why the play is so successful is because he puts the right words in the mouths of the right actors. He knows that Patrick ten Arve, who plays the lover Adonis, can do the rhyme, and that he can do a lot of text, so he’ll write that text for him. And he knows the strengths and limitations of Marian Janssen, who plays Furia. How Wagenmans built things created a warm bath for me to come into. So the foundation to build this film was excellent. And it was actually quite nice that he handed it over to me and said “do your thing.” I had complete freedom. It was very unique.
LM: What was the thinking behind your use of light, sound and colour in the film?
SB: When I saw the performance it was already this Baroque design. That had been chosen for the play so the wigs were there, the costumes were there. We did change a bit, but I built on what was already there because I felt that the cast looked absolutely stunning in it and it gave them a lot of power. So the dream was born out of a desire to really go to the extreme—if I make a film with them, why not make it a costume drama and really embrace the Baroque feeling?
We put them in this magic light and magic surroundings, as much as the budget allowed us to, and tried to give them, as much as possible, a full feature film experience. I also liked the ugly light of the studio where they were rehearsing and that combination. I chose a very direct, frontal style of feeling with the feature film part and, for the documentary part, we filmed over-the-shoulder, which was a good way of playing with these different styles. This automatically gave me the ingredients to mix the film back the way I did. Also, the Baroque idea and this lighting is very much present and a big element in my other work.
Saskia Boddeke: ‘Inside My Heart,’ 2022, film still // © Saskia Boddeke
LM: Were there any considerations you had to make while filming to allow the narrative to play out so naturally on screen and without any interference?
SB: I think the most simple answer is that the cast are just people like us, same hormones, same feelings, same chemistry, same anxiety, the same love stories. I think the difference is that I had to take care of them a bit more. They are people with special needs, so they find it more difficult to set their boundaries, but we built up so much trust with one another. I think in the beginning when I went into it I had more anxiety about that. I felt like I really must watch their boundaries and be sure that we do not cross any lines. But then the experience gave me such a mirror, there was so much awareness of everything. Especially with Patrick, the lead actor, the lover—he is much more socially skilled than I am and was looking after his colleagues and handling the situation. As such, he became a bigger part of the documentary because it was so clear that he understood it all so much better than I did. So, I really went for [highlighting] their own power. It was not so important that people from outside would guide that. With each other, they are a very strong group.
LM: As a multimedia artist who creates immersive installations, how do you think your general creative approach has played into the immersive quality of ‘Inside My Heart’?
SB: It’s interesting that you say that, because I feel that this is a problem with film, that it cannot be immersive. But I think the reason why you can feel my art installations in the film is because the work approach for me is almost the same: how I layer my film with the light, with the sound and also how I take things out of realism when I make the edit of the film. I also feel that, in my installations, I give people the choice to make their own story. Maybe the layering of the film still gives that possibility, that people can have different experiences when they look at the film, but I do find it an issue. I would have loved it, if we could have cut it up and made an installation out of it and if people could be inside of it. It would be fascinating, actually.
Festival Info
Dokuarts
Saskia Boddeke: ‘Inside My Heart’
Screenings: Oct. 8, 2023; 5pm & Oct. 10, 2023; 8pm
Admission: € 9 (reduced € 7)
doku-arts.de
Kino in der Kulturbrauerei, Schönhauser Allee 36, 10435 Berlin, click here for map
KLICK Kino, Windscheidstraße 19, 10627 Berlin, click here for map
