Andreas Horvath: 'The landscape of the American continent is juxtaposed with the landscape of Lillian’s body'

LILLIAN - CERCAMON

CLAPPER: Where did the genesis of LILLIAN begin?

Andreas Horvath: It was in the fall of 2004. I was presenting a film at a festival in Montreal. I had a few days between two of my own screenings, and so one rainy night I decided to sneak out and take the six hour train ride to Toronto to visit friends. My friends proposed that someone join us for dinner. It turned out to be a writer who had just spent a few months at a retreat somewhere up north in the Yukon. He told the true story of Lillian Alling, the woman who walked from New York City back to Russia in the 1920’s. So it was really a chain of random coincidences that brought me to Lillian. That same night I was hooked. But I never intended to make this a biopic. My first impulse was to shoot this without a script in present-day America.

Lillian, being an immigrant lost in America, adds quite a socially relevant degree to your feature with what is happening in present-day America. Did you do much research into the current perils of US immigration?

No, I was more interested in the timeless aspects of this story. 

As an outsider yourself – being Austrian – how much did you find you connected with Lillian?

Very much so. I spent a high school year in Iowa in 1984/85. Since then I came back numerous times for various projects. I am particularly fond of the midwest, the fly-over states, rural America. In 1991 I traveled extensively during the summer months to work on a black and white photo series which later was published as a book. It was all very low-key: I mostly slept in an old car which a friend lent me. Like Lillian in the film I used to wash at gas stations, looked for secluded places to spend the night where I was unlikely to be detected by locals: in factory ruins or deserted farmhouses. But I also know what it’s like when the local sheriff tracks you down and regards you as a suspect trespassing on his neck of the woods. And like Lillian in the film I also experienced splendid moments of solitude at the most spectacular nature spots or was welcomed and hosted by Native Americans after I had inadvertently crashed their Pow Wow.

We find Lillian in quite a harrowing position at the beginning of the film with no context of how or why she is in the predicament she is, did you write it specifically that way to be ambiguous?

Yes. I wanted the journey itself to take over the story and tried to eliminate everything I felt might distract from that. The film starts with a scene that sets everything else in motion. No explanations given.

Patrycja Planik is nothing short of phenomenal as the titular character, how did her casting come about?

The producer Ulrich Seidl and I both preferred a non-actress who had never been to the United States before. We were casting for more than a year, also placing ads in papers and on social media. I had looked at the applications of several hundred women from all over Europe — also many actresses. Patrycja is a non-actress. I agree that she is phenomenal as Lillian. Her appearance is multi-faceted. That makes her hard to decipher. You are never sure whether she is tough or fragile, content, happy or sad. She remains a mystery, which keeps the interest going. But she also had the right attitude for this kind of project. She was a real trooper, totally devoted.

Did she have input into the backstory and life Lillian had lived before the story catches up with her in New York?

We discussed possible backgrounds of the character, but when we were shooting, it was always like: here and now. She was not thinking: who is Lillian and why would she act like this? She just did it. I think when viewers of the film identify with her journey it is exactly because we don’t really know anything about her past. Lillian is like a mirror or an open canvas for the viewers onto which they can project their own version of the story.

For the entirety of the film, Patrycja Planik's character is mute, what is the decision behind this?

To be precise, she says one word at the beginning of the film. It was important for me to show that she could talk if she wanted to. 

From what we know, it seems the real Lillian Alling did not care to communicate much either. I think that’s understandable. If you want to accomplish such an unusual goal, you try to stay under the radar. At one point Lillian Alling was sent to jail on the grounds of vagrancy by a well-meaning sheriff who wanted to keep her out of harm’s way during the winter months. Maybe he also hoped she might reconsider her plans. But as soon as she was released she continued her trip. So to her this episode must have been just an annoying hold-up which jeopardized her goal. 

As a filmmaker the choice of a mute protagonist forced me to be more active: not to rely on dialog, but to constantly look for visual clues to tell the story. The same is true for the audience. I think it helps viewers to engage more in the story, be more empathetic, if the protagonist does not talk. It makes the experience more profound.

LILLIAN has a magnificent balance of showing socially relevant themes and the internal power of a human being, was this natural or a conscious element you explore?

The film is as much about the North American continent as it is about Lillian and her heroic journey. I think the balance is derived from this dichotomy. If Lillian is the protagonist, the North American continent is the antagonist. I wanted to keep the premise as simple and emblematic as a children’s book. 

The film shows Lillian's journey in an honest, as well as a harsh, atmosphere of misogyny and racial tensity at times; how far did you want to travel down that path?

If you are a lonesome woman who attempts to walk across North America on foot I think you are bound to encounter situations in which you become, let’s say, a person of interest. So I definitely thought this theme should be addressed in the film, but I did not intend for it to become a leitmotif. 

I realize that some people would view even the fetish pornography at the beginning as misogynist. But that’s certainly something entirely different from, say, the “Highway of Tears“ in British Columbia where a lot of predominantly native women disappeared over the years and the local authorities are accused of being reluctant to investigate. 

Then there is the local sheriff at the bar who cracks some silly jokes. That’s again on an entirely different level from the pursuer in the cornfield. So these instances are really hard to compare. And I would not want the film to be viewed as a statement on misogyny. 

As for the racial tensities, I had planned to do something with indigenous people in Canada later in the film, when Lillian is already closer to Siberia. But then the uprising against the oil pipeline at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota suddenly blew up while we were shooting in South Dakota. It was impossible to dismiss. The powerful speech of the Elder could be right out of an old Western movie. It says so much about the history of the United States, issues that have never been solved.

You and Planik also go to great lengths to showcase female anatomy with an honest and open depiction, how integral was this? 

It’s about macrocosms and microcosms. The landscape of the American continent is juxtaposed with the landscape of Lillian’s body. The camera is as much interested in the American landscape as it is in the hair that grows back on Lillian’s body or a fly that feeds off her salty skin. And when Lillian almost dies of dehydration and exhaustion in the Badlands it is as if her sunburnt, dusty and blistered body merges into the arid and crusted rock formations and becomes one with the dry, million-years-old desert. These metaphysical aspects are an integral part of the film. 

Yourself and editor Michael Palm subtly cover a massive amount of time passing through the picture in Lillian's journey, how was undertaking shooting in multiple states and settings?

In many ways the shooting experience was unusual. Patrycja and I spent nine months in North America and actually drove all the way from New York City to Anchorage, Alaska. A small team of three additional people would be flown in for seven shooting blocks of two weeks each. In between shooting blocks we drove on and did research and location scouting for the next shooting block. As time went on and distances became greater, Patrycja and I started shooting more and more on our own. Over half an hour in the final film was shot just by the two of us. 

Since we did not have a script and about a year’s worth of footage, organizing the material was close to editing a documentary film at times. Michael Palm was perfect for that since he is experienced in both, documentary and fiction. I think there is an interesting distortion of time and space in the film which comes from the fact that a great amount of time and geography is condensed into two hours, yet the general pace of the film is slow, so it feels almost like a road movie in slow motion. 

Which state was your favourite to shoot in?

That would have to be Nebraska and South Dakota. I just love how the landscape changes  and civilization thins out west of the Missouri River. I am also fond of the Yukon. I made a documentary about modern day prospectors and gold miners there. But for LILLIAN we were there towards the end of our nine-month shoot and we did not have much time.

You leave it quite late to tell the audience that the journey of Lillian Alling inspires the tale in this feature, was this a conscious decision?

Of course. A lot of things happen intuitively, especially during the shooting and then you just have to work with it during the editing. But a decision like this is always conscious. First of all, I see this as a universal story. I didn’t want the viewers to constantly relate what they see to a story that actually happened and watch the entire film thinking: really, so a woman actually did this? Whoever wants to google Lillian Alling after watching the film can easily do so nowadays, but I didn’t want this to influence the cinematic experience. Especially since we take a lot of freedom with whatever is known about the original story. That said, I thought it would be appropriate to mention the person who inspired the film.

How much research did you undertake on Alling?

I think I read most of the books about her, but more out of a sincere personal interest in her story. I wouldn’t call this research. I always felt a strange affection for her without knowing much, or anything, about her personality. When I first heard her story in 2004 there was virtually no information out there. And I did not need to know more. My idea for this film was from the very beginning that I would only need the premise of a woman walking from NY home to Russia. The rest would fall into place on the road. 

You leave the viewer to watch a harrowing sequence of a whale being slaughtered in the films final few minutes, was this to showcase an alternative viewing of human survival compared to Lillian's journey?

I find images of factory farming much more harrowing to watch. LILLIAN starts in the confined windowless studio of a seedy porn producer in New York. Instead of real windows two computer monitors function as “windows“ to a bizarre world of fetish pornography. The sex industry is a phenomenon of a capitalistic society. 

After this claustrophobic first scene, Lillian’s story opens up more and more and the film ends on a glistening day at the Russian side of the Bering Strait. This part of the world is populated by the Chukchi people, indigenous whale hunters who live off the sea. We are doing exactly what we have been doing throughout the whole film: we are witnessing daily life along Lillian’s route. When the hunters come back with their catch, the whale is cut up right on the shore and divided among the gathered villagers. Every member of the group gets a piece. There is no exchange of money. This is a primordial society. The Chukchi people have lived like this for thousands of years. 

We’ve come a long way from the porn producer’s grotesque basement studio in New York: as the landscape becomes more spacious and Earth less inhabited, LILLIAN is not only a journey to “the edges“ of the world, but also a journey back in time.

You leave a small, subtle cue in the final frame to leave Lillian's fate open for discussion – do you think she conquered the travel or succumbed to nature?

I honestly don’t know. I think the odds were very much against her. But Patrycja has always been absolutely convinced that she made it. 

Lillian made its premiere at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival and is currently awaiting an international release. Read CLAPPER’s review.