Fantastic Fest 2018 Interview: Co-Writer/Director Gustav Möller on THE GUILTY

One of the most intriguing and compelling films I had the pleasure of seeing during this year’s Fantastic Fest was Gustav Möller’s The Guilty, a thriller centered around a police officer (Jakob Cedergren) who is working at an emergency dispatch center and receives a frantic call from a woman who has been abducted. With time working against him, he must use all of his resources to try and rescue her before it’s too late.

While in Austin, Daily Dead had the opportunity to speak with Möller about The Guilty, and he discussed his unusual approach to crafting his intense thriller, defying the naysayers who said the film could never work how he envisioned it, his experiences working with Cedergren, and his feelings on The Guilty being Denmark’s pick for their Oscar submission for the year.

The Guilty arrives in select theaters on October 19th, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Great to speak with you today, Gustav. I have to really commend you because so much of this film relies on an aural experience, with no score, either. Everything plays out just by listening, and it is so damn compelling. I'd love to talk about what inspired you to take this approach for this story, and finding a way to engage viewers when you're basically listening to phone calls for most of the duration of the film.

Gustav Möller: Yeah, some people were in doubt when I pitched the idea the first time, but I always knew it would work because the original inspiration was when I stumbled across a real 911 call that I found on YouTube, which was similar in the way that it was a kidnapped woman calling 911 sitting next to her abductor speaking in codes, like in The Guilty. Number one, I was just gripped by it, but the second thing, the big thing for me was the fact that it felt like I was seeing this woman and I was seeing the car she was in and all these things, and I realized that everyone listening to the same call would see different images.

So, that was the original premise. It was trying to make a genre of film that would play out within and that would be a unique experience for everyone watching it. Like the experience you had, I bet no one else had the same experience watching the same film last night. That was the very simple, key vision with the film and that is what every other decision's been based upon, is trying to make that happen.

For you, was that a fun way to challenge yourself in order to illicit those reactions from viewers because you can't cut away to those things? It seems to me a very challenging but also satisfying way to push yourself as a storyteller.

Gustav Möller: Yeah, I think we could have cut away, but the film would feel much smaller if we did. Having watched the film, you know that there are some twists along the way that would be ruined if you would actually see what was going on, but the main thing is, I think as you were saying, that what you don't see and what's in your imagination will always be stronger than anything I can make for you. So, that was definitely a big part of the consideration.

When you work with self-imposed boundaries or with boundaries in general, it forces you to be extra creative. When you have a film with such a simple premise, one location, one character in the shot, everyone knows that they have to be really good to make this work.

I agree, and in certain ways it almost reminded me of Buried with Ryan Reynolds, because that movie is him very contained in this one area, and it's just him trying to work his way through that. Here, you have a character who's working in an office, but yet he can't leave until this is done. Can you talk about working with Jakob Cedergren, and finding those beats to round him out as a character in an organic way that doesn't feel forced?

Gustav Möller: I've always been a fan of his work. I think he's a great actor. Number one, he went out and did the same type of research as me and my co-writer [Emil Nygaard Albertsen], where he went to dispatch centers, and he also met with police officers that had been in a similar situation as Asger, his character. Again, it was a fun challenge writing the script, to give the audience just enough pieces of his backstory to make them fill in the blanks and get a full idea of who this guy is. We talked about it as a double detective story, where one detective story is "where is this woman going and who is she?" But also, the other detective story is "who is this guy we're looking at?", and keep the audience intrigued, too.

I would say it's two things. It's keeping the audience intrigued, wanting to know who this guy is, and working with a level of mystery when it comes to exposition with this character. But also, basically at the end of the day he's a person that definitely has some faults, and I think everyone can notice that or leave the film. But he has a good intention in the film. And even though he may have done bad things, he has a good intention, and I think everyone can relate to those good intentions.

Because the way you guys shot this, using this one locale, can you discuss trying to find a way to keep viewers engaged on a visual level, because that can be a really tough challenge when 90% of this movie is just us watching this character on the phone inside of an office.

Gustav Möller: There are two answers to that. One answer is that even though you're in one location initially, the sound takes you all over Denmark. So you do experience different locations, you just don't see them. Hopefully you see them within. So, that is definitely one thing. And we wanted the cinematography to help that by being there with the character and not getting too complex or too pretentious, in a way we wanted to keep it straightforward.

With that being said, we wanted visual developments throughout the film, but we wanted it to be organic. So, the film goes from a more static, long-length approach, to a much more wide-angled, steady cam handheld style. And the light changes also from very bright, to dark, with this red light, and it worked hand-in-hand with how the story develops. But, in regard to what you were saying, the main thing for me and the DOP [director of photography Jasper Spanning] was that it should all come from the main character. It's him deciding to move to another room because where he's at mentally. It's him turning down the blinds, making it even darker, and that's because where he's at mentally. And that's what we looked at. We'd analyzed the character and his state of mind, and that decided how we would shoot the scene and how we would light the scene.

I know this recently was picked up by Magnolia, but I also read how Denmark has chosen The Guilty as their official selection for the Oscars, which I'm guessing has to feel pretty good. Did you anticipate, when you were making this very intimate thriller, that this could potentially end up being part of one of the biggest nights in Hollywood?

Gustav Möller: I did not envision that at all. Basically, I made the film with the people I went to film school with, one year after we graduated and all we wanted to do was make a film that we wanted to watch. That was all we wanted to do. Everything that has happened started with us getting selected for Sundance, and all the great reception we had there. Then, we were picked up by Magnolia, and now it's been sold to basically the whole world and I didn't think that would happen at all. I was just engaged in making a film I wanted to watch. So, it's all been an overwhelming and fantastic surprise to me, and to the others who were involved in making this film. It’s an incredible feeling.

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