"Are you ready to see a masterpiece?" This is how Orestis Andreadakis, artistic director of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, presented Alexander Payne's latest film, The Holdovers. "This is not a movie: it is a seductive whisper, a redemptive prayer," he said, inviting the Greek-American director on stage.
Alexander Payne welcomed the audience in Greek. "I have so many memories of this festival since 1996. The Festival supported me from the very start, in my first film Citizen Ruth. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me in the first steps of my career. I think almost all my films were screened in this Festival. I've served twice as a jury member of the Festival and it was also a wonderful experience," he said.
"In 1996 a lot of people were here, I met Bernardo Bertolucci, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the wonderful Iranian director and I had lunch with Isabelle Huppert," he added. He then thanked Tanweer, the distribution company, as well as Focus, reiterating that he is delighted to be back to his beloved Festival. He finally thanked his family and friends who were present at the Olympion theater. This was followed by the screening of his new film The Holdovers.
Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa star in the film written by David Hemingson. The film, a journey of self-discovery, interspersed with the tender touch and familiar subtle humour of Alexander Payne, takes us to a distinguished American boarding school during the Christmas holidays in the 1970s. A wayward professor is forced to remain on the boarding school campus, charged with the task of looking after the few students, who will spend the holidays all alone, away from their families. In this setting of isolation, where cold and snow swallow everything, the teacher develops an unlikely relationship with an unruly but brilliant student who comes from an unstable family environment, as well as with the boarding school's chef, who is grieving the loss of her son in the Vietnam War. The three seemingly mismatched characters, deeply wounded, will come together. Drawing stylistic and aesthetic elements from the American cinema of the 70s, Alexander Payne unfolds a plot of reconciliation and coexistence, which balances between drama and comedy, reminding us that contact and redemption can grow even in the most barren soil, in the most unsuspecting moments.
The screening was followed by a discussion with the audience.
Referring to the young protagonist, Dominic Sessa, Alexander Payne said that this film marked his cinema debut: "This fantastic Burton Academy consists of five boarding schools in the US. We contacted the theatre groups of these five academies and auditioned hundreds of young men for the roles. That's how we found Dominic. In fact, Paul Giamati, with whom we wanted to work once again after Sideways, gave his young co-star many useful tips. On the third day of the film’s shooting, Dominic was ready" he added.
As for Da’Vine Joy Randolph, in the role of the boarding school’s cook, he had spotted her in an Eddie Murphy comedy, realising that she would be perfect for the role. He also referred to the choice of setting the film in the 70s: "The boarding school had to be for boys and this is not the case nowadays. I didn't want to go back to the 40s. The 50s were used by Peter Weir in Dead Poets Society and that's how we settled on the 70s. The threat of the Vietnam War and the political and social deadlocks of the time hung like a sword of Damocles over the students, creating the right atmosphere," he said. "I had never made a period film in my life," he continued. "I feel that in these films the atmosphere of each era is rushed and the production planning is excessive, like watching a cartoon. In this film, the directing instruction was simple: we are not shooting a period film, but we pretend to live in the 70s, yet making a modern film," he said.
"We tried hard to find cars of that time and 150 boys with a specific haircut, all at a relatively low budget by American standards. For example, it took almost 40 man-hours to find the old-fashion rowing machines you see in the movie. Eventually we found them stacked in a Harvard warehouse. All this trouble was for nothing more than a short three-second scene," he said, referring to the importance in detail.
"I feel like the script of the film is quite conventional and old-fashioned – the grumpy professor who gets sweeter towards the end and the little brat who ends up liking his professor. I enjoyed the challenge of making a conventional film, though I had to find the proper way to do it. I tried to avoid clichés like a salmon swimming against the current," he replied, adding that he is not the first to attempt it since we see such evidence in Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon.
Asked on whether his Greek origin constitutes a structural element in his work, he replied that the element of joyful sorrow retains a prominent place in his film, almost like the Ancient Greek mask where comedy and tragedy are intertwined and coexist.
*The Holdovers will be released on January 25, 2024, by Tanweer.
