The magnificence of writer-director Ben Rivers’ latest offering, Mare’s Nest, is entirely in its willingness to hope. In this delightful fable, childhood becomes a universe unto itself, where the greatest hopes of the best of us are met with open arms, even in the oftentimes feared setting of a post-modern “dystopia.”
Mare’s Nest follows the darlingly peculiar Moon (a sparkling debut for Moon Guo Barker) as she explores the fascinating imagined future of a post-apocalyptic, child-only society. The audience accompanies Moon on an episodic journey: we peek with her over doorframes to eavesdrop on children in an abandoned shipyard, speaking a language unfamiliar to her; we follow her into black and white as she meets a fellow child heralded as an old sage; we watch her debate the meaning of humanity with a cynic. Best of all, we accompany her into a collection of magnificent caverns, where she meets the real source of relief and magic within a dystopia: community.
The tender, spectacular now of the child actors’ performances — mixed with philosophical musings on humanity inspired by writer Don DeLillo — creates a colorful, magnetic, and deeply thought-provoking snapshot of a multiversal future where the youth are all right when left alone.
I had the immense pleasure of speaking to Mare’s Nest writer and director Ben Rivers about creating abstract media in an episodic format, blending the innocent with the heavily philosophical, and the curation of a surprisingly hopeful dystopia.
Bella Vega: In an abstract film with the use of various languages, mediums, color scales, and cinematography, how did you find a cohesive way to say all that you needed to? How did you decide on the act structure and the specific cinematography nods for each section? Is each act a fable in and of itself, or does it contribute to the larger holistic meaning?
Ben Rivers: Right from the start, I wanted to make an episodic film, where the protagonist navigates you through this strange, uncertain world made up of discrete episodes which ultimately have to work together as a whole. This partly comes from a love of literature that does this, like Candide or The Palm-Wine Drinkard. It was also made in episodes for practical reasons. When I began the film, I was very impatient to make it and didn’t want to wait for all the budget to come together, so I made each episode when I had a small pot of money to do so, as well as having to work around school holidays.
There were times during the making of it where I wondered if it would all fit together as a coherent world, but I had to trust that the combination of my eye and [the performance of] Moon would be enough to make it work. When I’m filming, I like to trust my feelings for the scene in the location with the actors, without doing storyboards. I spend time working out the choreography of the scene and where to place the camera, allowing for improvisation and surprises to happen, which is exciting when working with children as they come up with unexpected things. It’s all shot on Super 16, and I made decisions about when to use black and white based on the idea that those two scenes are somewhat outside Moon’s journey. They’re talking about the collective past — or our present — whereas the rest of the film is very much in her present.
BV: Compared to other works of adult-absent dystopia — most notably Lord Of The Flies — this version of a dystopian setting seemed beautiful and deeply moving in a quiet way. Instead of resorting to violence, it almost seems like the children connect with more intrinsic, warm, raw parts of themselves when left to their own devices. Why was it important to you, in cultivating the messaging of the film, that we see these children create a better world for themselves, enforcing the concept that humanity, at its core, is good?
BR: It was important to me to avoid most of the cliches of post-collapse, because I think we are now living in quite exceptionally troubled times. There is an abundance of this kind of post-apocalyptic imagery and scenarios where everything is even worse — where people will inevitably resort to conflict, probably because it seems quite believable. Lord of the Flies is a great book, but I thought it would be better to be more hopeful, to imagine for a moment the opposite of Lord of the Flies, a world where people don’t have to end up being greedy and violent. The situation in the film has an underlying sense of uncertainty — and even possible dangers — but these children are trying to re-invent the world, to work it out, and they’re getting along. They also believe in creativity, like early humans, who lived for thousands of years with a more symbiotic relationship to the natural world.
BV: The highly existentialist dialogue of the film, spoken with a child’s voice, has a deeply moving effect. Was there any specific metaphorical resonance, for you, to hear this high-brow dialogue out of a child’s mouth? What was the decision behind having a child-only cast?
BR: There was never any consideration of having adults in the film, apart from the dead statues in the underworld. I wanted the children to be completely free from any kind of relationship with adults so it would never seem like a coming-of-age tale. They are, in a sense, already of age in relation to the world of the film. So when I came across the Don DeLillo play [The Word for Snow], I thought it could be really powerful being spoken by children. [I thought it] would add another layer to the words because these words are about so many current anxieties, and it is the children who will inherit what we have created. It became a core of the film, and I could then build Moon’s journey onto either side of the play. All three actors in this part live in London but are from different ethnic backgrounds, which to me was important in thinking about a future that has hope, especially while we are in a time when there is so much vocal opposition to immigration — [opposition] which I disagree with on a fundamental level.
BV: What was the most surprising part of making this film for you?
BR: Working with children was amazing. There’s always talk that it is difficult to work with kids in film, but I didn’t have a single difficult moment with any of the people in the film. Whether it was highly scripted scenes or much looser improvised scenes, they were concentrated and took it seriously, but also had fun. I also tried different ways to include them in the process, showing them the technical side of shooting on film and its preciousness, and doing workshops with the costume designers and actors so the performers were involved in making their own clothes. When you work with children, their minds are more fluid, less stuck in what they have learnt, so surprises happen all the time. One particular favorite [story] is a girl called Abril telling a short poem-like story about fire and rabbits and lions by the fire, completely off the top of her head. We were all amazed, and it’s in the film.
BV: In your own imagination, where do you think Moon comes from? What act created the circumstances for the world of Mare’s Nest to be? Who are your favorite characters that Moon runs into throughout the film?
BR: I have my ideas, but in a way, I prefer not to say. I really wanted it open so the audience can imagine for themselves why these children are living alone in the world. And I couldn’t pick favorites — I really love them all! Though some characters came late: children I met by chance and wrote scenes for because they were so great, like Gene, who sings Moon a song (written by himself), or Derek, who gives her a car at the end, who we only met the day before in a cafe in the desert. I immediately had to include him!
BV: If you had to choose one scene to show to a stranger, which would you choose?
BR: Moon writing the title on the chalkboard at the beginning. Then I’d ask them to watch the rest.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
