Director: Mark Cousins | Producer: Anita Oxburgh, Adam Dawtrey och Mary Bell | Cinematography: Christopher Doyle and Mark Cousins | Country: Sweden and UK (2016) | Language: English and Swedish (Swedish subtitles)
press photos courtesy of @stockholmmylove
STOCKHOLM MY LOVE is a poetic ode to the city of Stockholm. Mark Cousins makes his fiction debut directing the legendary Neneh Cherry in her film debut as Alva, an architect trying to come to terms with a crisis in her life. We follow Alva as she walks the city of Stockholm, revisiting places from her past and present in her quest to find solace.
Her wandering takes her from the architecturally spectacular Engelbrektskyrkan, to the modernist dream of Vällingby, to the pedestrian beauty of the skate park under the bridge at Rålambshovsparken. Stockholm itself is the co-star of the film, lyrically framed by star cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and accompanied by the music of three generations of Swedish composers: Franz Berwald, Benny Andersson and Neneh Cherry, herself.
KRULL got the chance to get on a bus tour to see the film’s locations and to talk to the director and star. Seeing the city through the eyes of the knowledgeable and ebullient Mark Cousins, still newly in love with Stockholm, made us want to be “nykär” too!
MARK COUSINS
Mark Cousins and Neneh Cherry. photo Andrea Davis Kronlund
Why Stockholm?
Because Stockholm is under-represented in cinema. To be honest, we can think of the great films about Paris, Berlin, New York, and Beijing but there aren’t many films about Stockholm as a central character. As we know some of the most famous filmmakers in Sweden went to the islands [archipelago] to make films, and you could argue generally that Swedish visual culture has been a landscape culture. The great paintings, the great films have been interested in the land. Understandably because it’s a big country and the land is a big essential attraction. So, I just think urbanism in Swedish culture hasn’t really captured the imagination quite as much as it should. It’s nice to try to make a film about something that is under-represented.
So, you’re being a groundbreaker?
I would never make a film about New York City, for example. Because it’s been so filmed and wherever you point your camera, it’s already there. There’s too much “imaginaries”. The great Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson has this phrase “a thousand colored pictures to the eyes” and in New York, everything is a picture already. Stockholm has not as much yet you know, so that’s a nice opportunity.
If you are a filmmaker and you point your camera at a city, you can see the ideas. You point your camera at Stockholm and you can see the ideas of the 18th and 19th centuries in Gamla Stan / Old Town, and you move your eyes and see the ideas of the 20th century in Slussen. You can see the dreams, the optimisms and what worked and what didn’t.
This is not the first film you’ve done about a city. What is your fascination with the city as a subject matter?
I think cities are very cinematic things. I love the diversity of cities. I love that you, we, can see other human beings, other lives, other emotions. Before cities, people didn’t have the opportunity to look at other ways of living. Cities, in the same moment, have got a past in the distant past, the recent past and the present past. All in the same moment. That’s what’s exciting. What’s not to love?
I read somewhere that you like happy accidents in filmmaking.
One of the things that limits creativity is the danger of being too literal or banal. Seamus Heaney, a great poet from Northern Ireland says, “inspiration is a ball kicked in from nowhere”. I love that! And that idea of nowhere, you want to bring that idea of nowhere into your art. I want to introduce things into my work that are beyond my imagination, beyond what I know or understand, because then they arrive like a meteor, or something, and that’s exciting.
How did you bring that into making Stockholm My Love?
I’ve been coming to Stockholm for 25 years. I would just go on a walk with my camera which I always have and film something. So, in summer and winter… in spring and autumn, I would stay with my friend Anita, who is the co-writer of the film, and I would just go walk all day. And not have any direction or path, just take a left here and a right there, and see something on the street. An unexpected street haiku, or an unexpected moment you could catch called a found portrait and then I’ll film it. Quite a lot of that is in the film, which you’ll see. Because I think there’s a danger in filmmaking. You’ve got the script. The script is the bible, and the script becomes too heavy a hand on the shoulder and everything’s too preconceived. You leave the door open for an unpredictable reality to come in. Even though it’s a fiction film, Neneh is playing a fictional character—it’s got quite a documentary impulse. Little moments of street life in Stockholm, that if I had been sitting writing it, I wouldn’t have thought [of] that, but I just find it in the street.
You’re using music from three generations?
I just love that combination, you know. I love films that ‘torque’. Without giving too much away, the film is very much about three parts and you’re gonna see Neneh Cherry use three very different voices so I wanted three moods of music. The classicism of Berwald.
Benny Andersson. It’s the Benny Andersson’s Orchestra, the folk music that they do. A piece called, Sorgmarsch / Funeral March. And three new songs that Neneh sings that I wrote the lyrics for and she and her musical team put together. I’m really interested identities that are not singular and non-universal, hence the three different musical styles, three different film styles almost. I think we all have multiple identities and so the music is very diverse.
NENEH CHERRY
Neneh Cherry. photo Andrea Davis Kronlund
This is the first time you’re acting…
I’ve been asked to do stuff before, but the right thing never really came up. I like new challenges, but I didn’t quite know if I would be able to believably get my head around acting, especially with learning lines and putting good expression into it. When Mark sent me this crazy email with fourteen reasons why I should be in this film, it was so compelling and contagious, and he was so definite. He said “If you’re not in it, I’m probably not going to make the film. You know this city. You love this city!”
The film has a script, but there is no spoken word in it. It’s narrated, and more than anything though, I felt, especially after we met, that I could be open with him and kind of let go. Because I think ultimately if you’re going to do anything in a believable way, you just have to be able to surrender. Mark is so passionate, but he also knows how to get the best from people because he knows what he wants. So, I felt really safe.
It’s funny, in that email he said, “All you have to do is walk around Stockholm”. And I was like “Ok. That’s good. That’s basically what I’ve done the most of, because when we moved back, that was how I tried to lay roots in the city. Because I had an early connection to Stockholm from living here until I was four, and then never having really lived here. So, I kept going back to where we lived in Gamla Stan and then threading out from there.
So, your life was reflecting the life you were recording in the movie?
Yes, in a way. Alva, the character, has had quite a heavy experience. And after my mother died, that’s all I could just about get together was walking, and I guess I processed a lot, when I look back at it. And that’s kind of what Alva is doing. Of course, it’s another story, but I went inside to a place where I could draw from things that related to the story. That related to feelings I could recognize. That were sort of parallel to each other. But, I didn’t want to go in there and be me…it wasn’t about being me. That’s the whole point of being in a film and acting. I was like, great, I can be someone else for a while. I definitely noticed after every day, or when I took off Alva’s clothes, even with her clothes off, I still felt a bit like her.
Was it very therapeutic for you at the end of the filming, did you feel like you’d come to some kind of reconciliation?
I think it was interesting because I guess I was conscious of what I’d been through, even with these other eyes that I was trying to keep on. But also, I had just left Stockholm. When I got the email from Mark, I was still living in Krukmakargatan. When we filmed, I’d been living in London for maybe half a year. I actually missed Stockholm more than I thought I would when we moved back to London. So, in a funny sort of way, it was also beautiful coming back and then seeing this added side to Stockholm. These new places, through Mark’s experience, which is so contagious, but also so full of love, and knowledge. Like all the places that I’d taken for granted and new spots that I’d never been to. It was quite magical. It was like I was saying goodbye to Stockholm but meeting bits of it for the first time. Which is quite deep.
Did this affect the music that you made for the film?
I did the music with Cameron [McVey] and Ben Page did the actual music. He’s from the band RocketNumberNine. My last record I did was with him and his brother. The words were from Mark. The words were the poetry versions of what was going on in the film. There are three scenes in the film, and each scene has a piece of this music to set it off. It was interesting when we were doing it because I was getting to know the character and the feeling of what I was going to do.
I was really nervous too. Mark was very definite that we were going to do this, but I wasn’t. I was like “What if we get there, I’m the only person in the film and I’m shit? That would be really awful!” [laughter]
How did you get over that?
The first day, it was just us two and Mark’s little camera. That was great, because we had time to bond. And, I just kind of stayed with him. Most things were actually two, or three, or four takes. He knows when he’s got something.
He got it out of you, but how did you find it?
There is a scene where I’m standing in the place where Olof Palme got shot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme#Assassination) and I’m thinking deeply, Mark was actually reading the script in my ear. We did a lot of that. The first day he said to me “just be very blank.” Don’t get into trying to express or emote, just let it be. So, I tried to do that. Tried to think about what was going on in the story and try to tune in to what those feelings would be.
I love the scene in Gröna Lund on the roller coaster. You could see that you had to let go.
You can’t help it! You had to let it go. There is nothing you can do when you’re on a roller coaster. You go up, you go down, and the stuff just comes out. I’m so thankful that it happened and that Mark felt that I should do this.
Have you been bitten by the acting bug now? Are you going to do more films?
No. Because, I don’t think it’d be like that. It’d be a really awful thing to try, because I don’t think I’m a particularly good actress, I just think this was a really interesting and really great collaboration. I feel like it’s quite specific and I don’t know if it would suit me. I mean, I have problems remembering the lyrics to my own songs! [laughter)]
I think when I’m making music or collaborating with people, that to me has always been the most important element of creating. The collaborations. And I think it’s about the people that you meet and the exchange you have. With Mark, it was kind of love at first sight. I felt safe and trusting in his hands. And Christopher Doyle was amazing. He’s a magician! He’s like a Dickensian character, like Fagin. He’s quite a character, but as soon as he’s working, he’s so focused and has this amazing vision. You can’t see what he’s doing but you know that he’s seeing a whole other universe.
Neneh Cherry. photo Andrea Davis Kronlund
Stockholm My Love premiered last fall in London and was also shown at Stockholm Film Festival, and is back for a Swedish tour, starting at Bio Rio, Stockholm, this Friday evening.
See the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whhREqCD-Ro
Read more about the film: http://www.stockholmmylove.com
Follow the film on Facebook, Instagram och Twitter: @stockholmmylove
VISNINGAR på BIO RIO:
24 mars 17.30 Galapremiär. Innan filmen mingel med snittar och bubbel i Bio Rios foajé kl 17.00 . Efter filmen på fredagen följer ett samtal med Neneh Cherry och Mark Cousins som berättar mer om sin relation till Stockholm, varför han älskar att vandra i storstäder och hur det var att arbeta med två legendarer.
Biljetter 150:-
26 mars 16.30-18.30: Efter filmen samtal med Mark Cousins och filmkritikern och forskaren Malena Janson
Biljetter 115:-
