His & Hers is a touching and softly spoken documentary about the relationships women from the Irish midlands have with men. Interviewing 70 women ranging from children to grandmothers the film creates intricately emotive moments in the ordinary and mundane day-to-day lives of couples and families. Director Ken Wardrop sat down with LWLies recently to talk about his inspirations, his mother and the extraordinary in the ordinary.
LWLies: What informed your decision to document the cycle of women’s relationships with men?
Wardrop: It’s a difficult one to explain, I was at that stage in life when I was single for a considerable period of time – around 11 years – I’d had fleeting relationships, you know. Anyway to cut a long story short my best mate who was living with me went off to create a home in Barcelona and create a family and raise his kids and I just started questioning where I stood in regards to sharing life’s journey and considering whether my future was going to be a lonely one. Why was I so cynical about my friends who chose to live this life? I was always quite suspicious as to why my friends were doing this. You could have much more fun and enjoy life in a different way. So it kind of sprung out of that, but also it came from the fact that I’d been making some short documentaries. I wanted to explore the ordinary to try to get something extraordinary from it, each persons life is made up of these little moments; there are extremes that happen to us all and problems, but in the vast majority of cases it’s the everyday things that we connect with people in our lives.
How much did you control what was shot?
I wanted to see whether I could build a film with vignettes, I wanted to make a constructed creative documentary rather than fly on the wall, I wanted to impose my idea on it and therefore I looked for a structure which might allow a natural narrative – something with a beginning, a middle and an end – and so I decided to do a life and try to create the film with lots of people at lots of different stages in their life. Then I looked to my mother’s life, her relationship with my father was a real love story, it was very simple and they came from a modest, rural-ish background and nothing that eventful happened. So I used that and I thought ‘I’m getting somewhere’, because I’m trying to make a film that has no drama in it, it’s essentially a love story there’s no villain, everybody gets on, will the arc of going with a life be enough?
So I just kept on pushing it, but still remaining in this constructive structure that I was controlling. Even when I went into the ladies houses, I knew Maria was eight and after her was Maria who was 10 and I knew I needed a link. So if I ended with maria talking about her father playing football I would play pass the parcel in little ordinary themes. But the bigger theme was relationship with men, with sharing life’s journey eventually because once they got to 18 fathers were put to one side and boyfriends came into the scenario. It came out of wanting to make a film from lots of vignettes.
Do you think there could be a comparison drawn between your style and Mike Leigh’s style of filmmaking?
I have to say if I was ever to make drama Mike Leigh would be one of my major inspirations. I love ordinary people, I’m never going to make a film about a serial killer because I have no experience with serial killers. I have a genuine interest in every day people, I would sit in the kitchen listening to my mum laugh and rant with her friends and I found it thoroughly enjoyable. I remember someone when they saw the film – I suppose because it is very Irish, people see their aunt or their mother – they said ‘watching the film is like coming home and sitting in your kitchen, I’m in a family and this is what life means.’ And I hope this really want translated in the film.
Would you say the film was about the universal maternal perspective of women?
When we went to cast the film, obviously we honed in on a particular area where my mum is from in the midlands, so we allowed ourselves 50 kilometers radius around the area she’s from to do the casting. One of the researchers that was working on it was a friend of my mum’s, so our casting brief was people who would be my mum’s friend or a cousin, so we just generally found people who I would automatically be drawn to. Maybe that’s the maternal thing. My mother having had four kids and investing a lot of her time and energy into us that comes out a lot in her personality, she’s a carer by nature, so I was drawn to that kind of character. Modern Ireland is totally diverse and multi-cultural, but with this I was more particular.
Your next feature is allegedly going to be a fictional piece?
Well, yes, I’m doing a lot of workshop as I’m using a lot of non actors from the area I need to concentrate on. I suppose for me I wanted to cast people who were fresh, coming from a documentary making background I’m not a writer and I need help with the writing! The world I was setting it in – again the Irish midlands – there were very few actors from that area. I wanted it to remain authentic, I didn’t want Dubliners coming in and the people in the area are a very specific type of character. The only real practical way to do it was through workshops, these people don’t think they are actors but they translate perfectly to screen, there’s something in them which brings a richness and powerfully grounded reality and honesty to the film.
How did the community in the Irish midlands react?
Very well. To be honest they talked throughout the whole thing but they really embraced it, they’ve all seen it at least three times, they bring busloads of their friends. Very positive reactions other than one person who’s changed her phone number and we cannot get in touch with her at all. Such a shame. Perhaps she’s running from the fame.
What do you think the future holds for Irish cinema?
God only knows. Irish cinema is at the most exciting stage it’s ever been at. There are filmmakers who are being given a voice because of the very supportive Irish film board and Simon Perry – an Englishman, of course – who heads that up. I think that we need to encourage Irish people to get into the cinemas to see the quality of the product, there isn’t a language barrier however we are, as always, competing with the powerhouse that is Hollywood.
Who would you advise to look out for in terms of Irish filmmakers?
Let me think… Lance Daley, John Carney, Ian Power, Tom Holt, Carmel Winters… there are so many! Juanita Wilson’s As If I’m Not There is a stunning piece of work about Bosnia. Everyone should just go to the cinema and see them.
Ken Wardrop (text) by Dominic Radcliffe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
