Austin stalwarts kick off a week at AFS with Q’s and A’s.
Damsel leads the race for this year’s Oscar in the category of “Best Film Featuring a Miniature Horse,” but there’s plenty to love in this off-kilter western from long-time Austin filmmakers Nathan and David Zellner.
The brothers are giving Q&As for several screenings this week at the Austin Film Society Cinema, and opening night was good for some truths about the movie-making process as well as a few laughs.
Despite featuring star power from leads Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska, David said it was a miracle the film ever got made.
“It was very hard. It aged us a lot,” he said. “Brutal and exhausting.”
Both brothers are credited with directing and writing Damsel, but they also acted in the film, with David appearing for the majority of movie’s screen time. This is nothing new for them; they’re used to wearing multiple hats.
Local music group The Octopus Project scored the film, and the result is beautiful. They’ve worked with the Zellners before and are able to forego the use of temps (temporary songs that are use to show composers what the music should sound like) in favor of original compositions inspired by a rough cut of the movie.
The brothers have wanted to do a western for along time but weren’t interested in treading old ground. They have favorites in the genre but didn’t want to ape them.
The end result is a very non-standard western, though it plays with many of the tropes of that genre. Wasikowska goes from being the typical “damsel in distress” to something very different.
The geography of the movie was described as something a foreigner would imagine for a western. The action moves from red desert to ocean to Aspen Rockies in the blink of an eye.
After premiering at Sundance and playing SXSW, Damsel finally has its wide release, and fans of independent cinema and westerns alike will love this quirky number.
Damsel is in theaters now, including at the AFS Cinema through July 5th.