Latest / The Art of Costume Podcast / Two People Exchanging Saliva with Directors Alexandre Singh & Natalie Musteata | The Costume House with Spencer Williams

Transcript

Two People Exchanging Saliva with Directors Alexandre Singh & Natalie Musteata | The Costume House with Spencer Williams · The Art of Costume Podcast

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Detail that we've never talked to anyone about, but Melez has
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this little tote bag. And the tote bag is actually is
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like Disney fairy tale bag where it's Snow White and the Seven
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dwarfs. And in on the backside of it,
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she's actually kissing the the Prince, which obviously would be
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Les has covered it with stickers.
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So you can't see it, but it's there underneath.
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And I mean, it's a detail, but absolutely, you know, I don't
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even know it's possible to see it in the film.
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But for us it was it was indicative of her character.
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Welcome to The Costume House with Spencer Williams, a podcast
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dedicated to the art and storytelling of costume design
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in film and television. I'm your host, Spencer Williams,
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and today marks the 1st for us here at The Art of Costume.
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We're stepping beyond costume design into a larger
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conversation about filmmaking itself, and I could not be more
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excited. Today I'm joined by directors
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and writers Alexandre Singh and Natalie Mustiata, the film
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makers behind the 2026 Academy Award nominated short film Two
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People Exchanging Saliva. Set in the surreal society where
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kissing is punishable by death and people pay for goods by
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receiving slaps to the face, the film follows Anjin, an unhappy
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woman who compulsively shops at the department store, where she
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becomes fascinated by a playful sales girl.
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Despite by the prohibition of intimacy, the two grow close,
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attracting the suspicion of a jealous colleague.
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One folds as an absurd, biting, darkly funny and perhaps a
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little too close to home. In our conversation, we explore
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the some surreal yet unsettingly realistic themes.
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It's metaphors about desire, identity, repression and social
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performance. Then of course, we dive into the
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visual storytelling, the production design, the
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inspirations and mood boards, and how costume design operates
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as a crucial storytelling device within this high end,
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meticulously crafted world. If you have not seen a short
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film yet, take a moment and find it LinkedIn, our show notes and
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watch on YouTube. I cannot recommend it enough.
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I am obsessed with this film. I've seen it twice already, and
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I feel a third one coming as soon as I am done editing this
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podcast. I'm so excited to watch it
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again. Really take the time.
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This one is sharp, strange, and wonderfully layered.
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So without further ado, let's step inside the costume house.
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I am so excited to be talking with you too.
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Ever since I heard your film, I saw your film, I've just been
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dying to talk to you. I just want to live inside your
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minds. Well, I mean, I guess not really
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because the world that you've created is a little bit bonkers,
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but I get to talk to you too at the tail end of this crazy thing
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we call award season. So I'm excited to just ask, I
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mean, how has this journey been now that we've got to see this
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hugely positive reception that the world has given you 2 at
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your film? And what has it been like with
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this Cami Award nomination? Everyone loving your film,
3:30
watching it, all the fan reception, the messages you've
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gone. What's it been like?
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I mean, it's been so amazing, so surreal.
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You know, you make something hoping that someone else will
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will fall in love with it the way that you have, the way you
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know, you know, you write all your characters, whether it's
3:48
your protagonist or antagonist, with so much love and affection.
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And you always have to see all of their different points of
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view. And then you hope, you know, you
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ask the question, like, will someone else feel this way, too?
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And so it's been so rewarding for the film to connect with
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audiences. And Alex has become a little bit
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too addicted to Letterbox. Need to cut the the cord there
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but but yeah. What we're just record what
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Natalie was saying. You make something at home, you
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write it and it moves you and you wonder if anyone else is
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going to feel the same thing. And we made this film not
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thinking very strategically. We just had this opportunity to
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shoot in this incredible location, the Galle Lafayette
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Department store, they suggested and maybe could do a little
4:38
small film and we thought we have to write a narrative story
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and take as much place as possible in this world.
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And the idea of the film came about in the first zoom, that
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people would pay for things by being slapped in the face.
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And we had an incredible journey and brought on an incredible
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cast and crew, including our costume designer, Rez Van
5:00
Farsigiani, and ended up with a film that was 36 minutes long
5:05
that no distributor would touch. It's because it's kind of one of
5:08
those settle I can. Watch it because by, by, you
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know, just by the virtue that it was over 30 minutes meant that
5:15
it was not eligible for more than half the film festivals
5:18
around the world. So all the distributors were
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like, well, sorry, we won't even watch this because we know it's
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going to be really hard to program and it's going to be
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really hard to win prizes. And, and you know, therefore,
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you know, our whole business model starts to crumble.
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So it's really that kind of rag to riches story in terms of this
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film that we began in. I think we nearly finished by
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June, July of 2024 with a film that people liked, that they
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weren't sure about and that nobody knew whether it would
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play in any festivals, let alone be nominated for an Oscar.
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Yeah, So it's it's been beyond magical already.
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After our third Film Festival, we thought, well, if this is the
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end, it's been such a beautiful journey.
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And here we are over a year later and we're still on the
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festival circuit and the film is still speaking to audiences.
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And it's, it's so nice. What's so magical about the
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Oscar nomination is that it is a bigger platform.
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And the fact that the film is playing in like 4 or 500 cinemas
6:20
around the US is incredible. You know, just that people are
6:24
coming to it. And that's very moving for us.
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The our our team is very female led.
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I think it's not just the majority of departments.
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I think every department from first AD was a female led
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department, including Grip, electrical, the kind of
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departments that are not expected to be female and so
6:45
many incredibly talented crew members who haven't yet done a
6:49
feature because it's you. No one trusts them yet.
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It's always really hard to get your first feature under your
6:56
belt and to see their work being appreciated and loved because it
7:01
is a film that and we're gonna talk about costume, but it's a
7:04
film in which production design is very important.
7:07
Cinematography is very important.
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Costume tells the story. Hair and makeup isn't just there
7:12
to make people look good. It's part of the storytelling,
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right? And so it's really moving for us
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that our teams work is being appreciated, appreciated by
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obviously a great public, but a lot of members of the Academy
7:27
are experts in those fields and they're appreciating it and
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that's really fantastic. Yeah, I was very fascinated with
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the world building, which I'm very excited to get into into
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that with you all later. But I just, I'm so excited just
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how large this film feels. I mean, after the film, me and
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my friends, we just sat in the parking lot and had a debrief
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after almost longer than the actual film was itself.
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I mean, we're in a parking lot for 45 minutes talking about
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this film. Like what is it that we just
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watched? So let's get into just the
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themes of this film just for a little bit before we get into
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the visual aspects, which obviously which is why I'm here.
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But at first glance, this film just feels so absurd and
8:06
ridiculous, right? But the more I sat with it, just
8:10
for the past couple days, the haunting thing about it to me is
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actually doesn't feel that absurd and ridiculous the more I
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think about it, because our own world is actually pretty damn
8:20
absurd and ridiculous the more I think about it.
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So can we just talk about that thin veil for a little bit?
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The veil between satire and reality?
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Yeah. I mean, I think that we, we did
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think about this film as a sort of reflection of our own world
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and as a way to sort of like twist the the rules of our world
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to reflect it back. Because, I mean, for one, we are
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living in really ridiculous times.
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But even if we weren't, even if, you know, even if it was 10
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years ago, actually like just just our societal rules that
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govern our everyday lives are themselves absurd.
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Like, like one of the things that we touch upon in the film
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is signifiers of wealth. And how no matter what a
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signifier of wealth is, whether it's a, you know, a luxury
9:10
handbag or, or you know, an orange tan or whatever, it is
9:16
like it's going to be mimicked by people you know across.
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And distort people's behavior. Yeah, yeah.
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And so there were a lot of, you know, no matter how ridiculous
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the roles of the world that we've created might appear at
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first sight, the way that the characters behave in those
9:35
worlds is very true. And the that's Natalie's evoking
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the if listeners don't know in this universe or in this
9:44
society, people pay for things by being slapped in the face.
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That's that's the semblance of an economic system.
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And the the other rule that's evident in this film very
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quickly is that people in this society really do not like
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kissing. Kissing is forbidden.
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People who kiss are kidnapped by by workers and overalls, taped
10:08
into a cardboard box, driven in a very ordinary white van to a
10:12
ravine and thrown over the edge. A kind of a chilling kind of
10:19
banality that is been mirrored today by the way that ICE is
10:24
taking people off the streets because because they think that
10:29
they for their immigration status.
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Sometimes it's just because of the color skin, and sometimes
10:35
it's because of their accents. I don't know if you saw that
10:37
video of Border Patrol agents saying, hey, I'm going to take
10:41
you in because you don't have the same accent as me, but the
10:44
kind of, yeah. But obviously when we were
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writing this, like this was pre pre the ice events of the last
10:50
few months. But it was a reflection on like
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the way that our country was moving.
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And also like the world, there's a rise of autocracy around the
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world. And I think there's always been
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a relationship between autocracies and repressive
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societies and absurdity, because the very act of repression is
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absurd and, and the sort of the way that it distorts our behave,
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our human behavior and the way that we treat one another is
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absurd. And I think that what film is
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really, really good at, and the beauty of film is that it's
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there to remind us that we're all the same.
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It's there to create empathy and to say like, like in our case,
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it's isn't this absurd like that, that we would ever other
11:34
one another or that we would, you know, abide by these very
11:39
unusual rules. But actually, like, you know,
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the rules of our world are also very absurd.
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And, and we become very accustomed to that very, very
11:48
quickly. I would say for us, I think
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there are when we, we've evoked the other ring of immigrants,
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but I think for us the, the, the most, the strong surface level
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metaphor is the oppression of queer love.
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Like the way that these characters talk about the act of
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kissing, They can't even say the word.
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The way that they, they're, they're kind of obsessed with
12:10
it. They talk about thinking about
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the bodily fluids. Is, is this paradox of the MAGA
12:14
movement is that there's these people who are so worried about
12:18
drag Queens or, you know, the, The Who goes into which bathroom
12:23
and athletes. They, they spend more time
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thinking about people's genitalia than anybody else.
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And there it's, it's we wanted to find it.
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The for us, the metaphor was, is laughable.
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It's silly, but at the same time they, they are so brutal about
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it that this silly met this silly and actually kind of
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becomes the the reality of these characters, which is that's what
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we're living through as well. So for example, like the scene
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at the the dinner party when what the character of to you
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says, well, why don't they just do it?
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In, in that time was we were very much thinking about the
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experience of gay men in the United Kingdom in the 40s,
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fifties and 60s where there was this sort of like, oh, it can't
13:08
happen in public. We can fire you, you know we
13:11
will. But maybe it's something that if
13:14
it happens in closed doors, it's kind of OK until it's not OK,
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cuz then if you want to bring someone down, then you go into
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that house and you take them down.
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So. Yeah, but there were so many
13:23
things that were sort of influencing the crazy world of
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our film. And certainly like I I think
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that we are living in a moment where things are so ridiculous
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that they are very difficult to satire.
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You know, like reflecting back reality is is hard because it it
13:43
is already so ridiculous. And we found that just by like
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sort of subverting these rules a little bit, that we were able
13:53
to, in our own way, speak to what it means to live in the
13:56
this version of the 21st century.
13:59
Yeah, no, I was definitely going to mention a queerness isn't
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technically a taboo in this film, but definitely feels like
14:05
it's certainly like a metaphor for where people are concealing
14:08
their own true identity or beliefs or sexuality in real
14:12
life. So I definitely was going to
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mention that as something that I definitely was attuned to
14:17
throughout this film throughout. So I definitely appreciate that
14:20
part of your film. We were certainly certainly the
14:23
final image for us which to give away the end of the film.
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It finishes with a dog. Should we give?
14:30
Away that. Everyone could see this film at
14:33
this time, it's on YouTube. That that for us, that image of
14:38
the door closing on the light and the on Jean's last breath
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happening as the the light closes and she's unfolding Into
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Darkness is really about that suppression and smothering of
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people's love. Because, I mean, that's really
14:56
what it's that ability to have a connection with another person.
15:02
Yeah. Well, I love to focus on the
15:04
visual storytelling of this film.
15:05
I know both of you have backgrounds in the visual arts
15:08
and I'm really excited to dive into that.
15:10
I was fascinated by the world building of this film.
15:13
Two people exchanging saliva in such a short runtime, I
15:18
generally feel like this world feels fully realized.
15:21
The same way you would look at like Blade Runner and it's Los
15:23
Angeles, right? Just looking at the posters on
15:26
the walls, or like you mentioned the makeup or the costumes, it
15:30
just feels fully realized between you.
15:32
Production design costumes. So the first, I was excited to
15:36
learn about your behind the scenes process and the pre
15:39
visualization process. I would love to hear about that
15:42
and the kinds of inspirations and research you turn to while
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mood boarding this world as you're getting into two people
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exchanging saliva. Yeah, I mean, we always start
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from the visuals and we actually go very early on, like when we
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have the inception of an idea to the picture library at the New
16:01
York Public Library on 42nd St. you know, the famous one with
16:05
the lions outside. There's this amazing resource of
16:08
like 2 million images cut out from magazines and books.
16:11
And it's sort of like a very analog way of approaching visual
16:16
research. And what one of the reasons that
16:19
we love it is because you find things very, in very unexpected
16:23
ways. Sometimes things are
16:25
miscatalogued or, or even if they're properly catalogued,
16:30
which most things are, you know, you just end up coming across
16:35
such a variety of images. And so we'll often, you know, be
16:39
inspired in the writing through these visuals.
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They're images that are the vast majority not available on the
16:46
Internet. They're cut out of books,
16:49
magazines, periodicals, from probably the 20s and 30s up
16:53
until the present day. And in an age where so much
16:58
visual research sadly is happening, either through AI or
17:03
people going on Google and getting back the same 10 images
17:07
that anyone else gets back, it's nice to really go back to
17:10
specificity and also say parenthetically, that costume.
17:17
This section is enormous. It isn't such an incredible
17:20
resource, and it's very specific.
17:22
For some point, yeah, it'll be like 1910, like 1920s police
17:27
costumes in France, you know, like, OK, I mean, just they
17:33
don't have everything, but you'd be surprised like that.
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It's very. Yeah, it's a very detailed and
17:41
incredible like resource and. That's, Natalie says.
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It's nice for obviously character and story leads that
17:48
leads the writing process, but to come across an image of a
17:52
location or a person or a costume and to allow that to
17:57
inspire the storytelling so it's not just something that you come
18:00
to afterwards, but that it's woven in to the conception of
18:03
the story is really. Yeah, and because we don't come,
18:08
we didn't go to film school and we don't come from the film
18:11
industry. I mean, one with this
18:14
opportunity, we were like, OK, let's make the biggest thing
18:16
that anyone will possibly let us make.
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But we also, I mean, I think that we do revel in the details.
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And so we, we really, I mean, we don't, we don't answer all the
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questions, but we know the answers to all the questions.
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And we, we have backstories for all the characters.
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And the world is really like, you know, we know why this world
18:39
has these crazy roles which like, you know, like, we don't
18:41
reveal, but. And and then in terms of the
18:44
visual approach, we love films that you can watch 2345 times
18:49
and still discover little things.
18:51
And I think it's helpful for the actors in terms of their being
18:55
immersed in the world. It's certainly fun for us and
18:58
for all our team to invent. For example, in the store, the
19:03
character of Bitch and Lance sprays herself in the face with
19:06
perfume. We invented 12 different
19:09
perfumes of nasty smells that. I mean, the camera never has
19:13
time to show you the. I mean, we captured on on, yeah,
19:17
we captured out in the camera, but we just never, it just
19:21
didn't, yeah. It didn't need to be in the
19:23
film. So we we took out anything that
19:26
was sort of extraneous. But it's all about.
19:28
It's very important to, when you make a film, to suggest things
19:31
and to suggest a larger world that exists beyond the frame,
19:34
because I think that allows the audience to really project
19:37
themselves into the story. Yeah, and I mean, on the
19:40
surface, the rules of this world are ridiculous.
19:43
So like, it was really important for us that the world felt
19:47
sounded and real, you know, even though, you know, at first it
19:52
might seem facile. Right.
19:55
Yeah, It still has that sinister quality belt too, at the same
19:59
time. But on top of all that, though,
20:01
this is a film that's so focused on opulence and luxury and
20:06
shine. There's like a shine to
20:07
everything, especially in the department store.
20:09
So then I was curious though then why the decision to do this
20:13
film in black and white though too, if everything has such a
20:16
shine and a focus on the opulence of it though too?
20:20
Yeah, I mean, it was a really early dissension for us, and it
20:23
was like one that we never questioned.
20:25
It felt essential to the film. I think in part, Alex once
20:28
described this film not as black and white, but as hues of
20:31
silver. And, and so, you know, and part
20:38
of that is because there's a lot of mirrors in the store.
20:41
So everything is reflected. And we're often seeing, we're
20:46
often seeing our characters through a mirror, through a
20:50
reflection as a sort of like, because it's a place of
20:53
voyeurism. And it's also a story in which
20:55
there's so much surveillance. We're in a world where people
20:59
are watching one another. See the character?
21:01
Either you're looking at a character through a mirror which
21:03
creates this foreground and background and feels unnerving
21:07
because you feel like it feels voyeuristic.
21:10
Or a character is themselves looking in a mirror and in a
21:12
sense is vulnerable because they look at themselves instead of
21:15
looking around. And mirrors and metals which are
21:19
in the store are very much shiny surfaces.
21:21
And the black and white made so much sense because black and
21:24
white strips out color information and it accentuates
21:27
lines and geometry. So in this store that in reality
21:31
is a little bit of a cacophony in terms of sound and and color,
21:36
it becomes much more authoritarian and rigid.
21:39
And when it comes to the characters and their
21:42
silhouettes, they become much more graphic and their faces
21:46
kind of become very luminous and kind of stand out.
21:48
So as Rezvan was thinking or costumes on a Rezvan was
21:52
thinking about the costumes in particular in black and white.
21:55
We were thinking very much about texture, silhouettes and then
22:00
sometimes reflexivity because there's jeans, shiny jacket.
22:04
And also, we made a very conscious decision not to have
22:08
any patterns in any of the other people's costumes in the entire
22:12
film. So that the black and white
22:14
dress really stood out as being almost like.
22:18
Which is actually there's a very big restraint pattern is very
22:21
important, right Of what you think.
22:23
Well, let's move into costume. Actually, that was going to be
22:25
my next question. Obviously I'm a big costume
22:28
nerd. That's my background.
22:29
So let's let's take the black and white dress and just put
22:32
that aside because that's going to be its own topic of comedy
22:34
conversation. Tell me about your conversations
22:37
with costume designer Rezvan. And just tell me about how
22:41
costume design was used as a storytelling device in two
22:45
people exchanging saliva. Because obviously this takes
22:47
place in the department store. So we know like already the
22:50
costumes are going to help tell a story.
22:52
But as your characters move through the store throughout the
22:56
10 days that they're in there, you could kind of kind of tell
23:00
that this is kind of helping tell the story.
23:02
And I just was very interested as as they move through it.
23:05
So I would love to hear how you approach that.
23:08
Yeah, I mean, we, we talked a lot with Russ Vaughan about the
23:11
the sort of Arc of on Sheen, our main, like in some ways the main
23:15
character of the film and how, you know, at the beginning of
23:18
the film all of her clothing is very, it's almost like
23:21
straitjacketing her. It's very restrictive,
23:25
Restrictive. Very high shoulders.
23:27
Yeah, very formal, geometric and that slowly over the course of
23:32
the film, she starts to sort of like, yeah, become a little more
23:36
playful. She starts to show more skin as
23:39
she starts to literally open herself up as she starts to fall
23:43
in love with our other main character, Molez and.
23:48
Yeah, she wears that the the shiny Chanel jacket and yeah,
23:51
she's sort of like letting herself go unconsciously and,
23:57
yeah, opening herself up through the wardrobe and.
24:01
And, and I mean, we should also say that so Rizvan, like several
24:06
members of our team, is from Iran.
24:10
And she actually came on board right right around the time that
24:14
we started working with Tsar Amir.
24:16
So we, we had written the film a little bit in response to the,
24:20
the women's movement in Iran, the woman life freedom movement,
24:24
which was also happening, you know, in early 2023.
24:27
And the idea that all of these young people were being shot at
24:30
for demanding very basic civil rights felt very absurd to us.
24:34
And, and so we wrote the film a little bit with Czar in mind.
24:38
And when she said yes, we met her at her office and Rezvan was
24:43
there. And we, we so much like, you
24:45
know, got along and had very similar ideas about costume.
24:49
And she actually is a specialist.
24:51
She had written her dissertation on gloves and, and, and, and so
24:57
she thought that we hired her because there are quite a lot of
25:00
gloves in our film. And the gloves actually have a
25:02
symbolic purpose in the film. They're, they're sort of an
25:05
Easter egg, like a lot of things in our film.
25:08
It's not a detail that you need to understand, but there is a
25:11
logic behind the gloves. Which is that the in the world
25:16
people pay for things by being slapped in the face.
25:18
But if you're wearing a glove, the value goes to whoever owns
25:22
that glove. So in the store when they make a
25:25
transaction, they slide on this beautiful white glove with the
25:27
little rhinestones in the cheap supermarket she puts on a night
25:32
trial glove. The taxi driver who drives the
25:37
character of Angie into the ravine at the end is wearing one
25:39
driving glove, and so that's gloves.
25:42
And the whereas the drug dealer that Melez buys toothpaste from
25:47
is, you know, working for himself and he wears no gloves.
25:50
So like this is like, you know, like, again, as I was saying,
25:53
like we know the logic of this world.
25:55
It doesn't matter if the audience really understands it.
25:57
It is a parable where we're not making a sci-fi film where we're
26:01
saying that in five years time we'll all be paying for things
26:05
with slaps to the face, but there.
26:08
But Rosman was convinced that we had, you know, like that we knew
26:12
all about her glove fascination and that that was the reason
26:16
that we hired her. And then like on Jeans, arc as a
26:21
character is expressed through her clothing and her arc is can
26:26
be compared to that of Malaz, the young woman who she meets at
26:30
the beginning of the film and whose love story is the engine
26:34
of the film, and Malaz. Malaz, This is a detail that
26:37
we've never talked to anyone about, but Malaz has this little
26:40
tote bag and the tote bag is actually this Disney a fairy
26:46
tale bag where it's Snow White and the seven dwarves.
26:50
And in on the backside of it, she's actually kissing the the
26:55
Prince, which obviously would be and but Loanna, I mean, Loanna's
26:59
character Moles has covered it with stickers.
27:02
So you can't see it, but it's there underneath.
27:05
And I mean, it's a detail that absolutely, you know, I don't
27:09
even know it's possible to see it in the film.
27:11
But for us it was it was indicative of her character,
27:14
which is someone that he's very open and doesn't really believe
27:19
in the rules of the world or at least hasn't come to accept them
27:23
like the other characters have. And she's obviously much more
27:30
free spirited and like on Jean, you know, is is, I mean, she's a
27:35
more youthful character. And So what she wears, which is
27:39
sort of very young with her Converse sneakers, doesn't
27:42
really change. And the story, apart from the
27:44
one scene where she hopes that Andre will come to her on her
27:47
birthday and then she kind of dresses up with this very
27:50
silvery, reflective dress. Yeah, but in one of the in one
27:54
of her outfits, it's, you know, she has her coat on.
27:57
It's winter time, but you know, it is slightly open.
28:00
So if you were paying attention, it's all of these eyes and it's
28:04
like the Persian eye, which is also a, you know, indicative of
28:09
the woman like freedom movement. And then there was one more
28:13
thing that we have talked about a little bit in a few interviews
28:18
is, is the black and white dress, which originally for us
28:22
was, you know, we were thinking a lot about the conformist.
28:27
And there's a black and white dress in that film.
28:30
And Alex and I, we, we, we even thought maybe we should just
28:34
like replicate it as a sort of nod to the film.
28:36
I mean that the the thematics of that film and the thematics of
28:40
ours are very similar in the sense of like the sort of way
28:43
that one can become accustomed to to an autocratic regime and
28:48
even find conform to 1. And find a place in society
28:52
within it and be tempted to to act within the authoritarian
28:56
state. Yeah, and Rezvan was like, you
29:00
know, challenged us. And she said the the this dress
29:03
shouldn't mean something. It shouldn't just be a replica.
29:06
It shouldn't just be a cinematic wink, but it should mean
29:09
something for our our characters and also for our team.
29:13
And you know, and so we she must have designed like 300 dresses.
29:20
So Rezvant said it would be great if the the the the dress
29:25
meant something. And we thought, oh, wouldn't it
29:27
be great if the the dress was itself a message?
29:30
I had created a work of art IN2000789 which was a a gothic
29:37
novella about the founder of Adidas, Adidasla, and for this
29:41
project created a language made out of a grid of 8 by 8 black
29:45
and white squares. And I've written a dictionary
29:47
that Natalie has where it's a Dictionary of 1000 pages with
29:51
each of these words and their meaning.
29:53
And we thought it would be great if we take the words for woman,
29:56
life, freedom from this dictionary and then abstract it
29:59
and rearrange it to create this stress, which was something that
30:02
we did, I mean. For ourselves, talk about an
30:04
Easter egg that no one will be able to decide for.
30:07
But yeah, it was an Easter egg for our own team where it was a
30:10
symbol for our own team. It was something it was, yeah.
30:13
That was, you know, indebted to, to to all of these people in
30:20
Iran, that whose, whose lives were, you know, being destroyed
30:26
by this very, very autocratic regime.
30:31
And so Resmond and worked on, I don't know, like 100 to 120
30:36
different designs well, within the last few days before
30:39
principal photography began. And I think we finished it a
30:44
day, yeah. Before there was a time where we
30:46
thought about doing like a barcode like that would be the
30:49
black and white pattern so that technically maybe someone like
30:54
holding up their phone to the screen could like could then get
30:59
to the message. But at the end of the day, we
31:01
decided that it was for us anyways, It was for the team
31:05
that it, it didn't need to like literally be something that was
31:09
read. And well, I I really like the,
31:12
the, the, the, the white is life.
31:16
And I think the freedom is the the structure that looks like
31:21
crosses on the back of the dress.
31:23
I really love that moment when the character of my last zips up
31:26
the dress for the first time and these crosses kind of knit
31:29
together almost like a zip. It's It's funny because the
31:32
dress is quite. Austere and the more that like,
31:35
you know, because like I want to avoid any like religious
31:38
connotations, but like I think that more like a spine, you
31:43
know, rather than. Cross, it's almost like she's
31:45
giving life to her in a way. And I do think it's, it's just
31:50
gorgeous. It's it's one of the defining
31:52
images of the film. And.
31:53
And there's something so beautiful about Angie and
31:56
wearing it at the end of the film, too, to go find Malice at
32:00
the end, in that final moment, too, where she decides to wear
32:03
that dress at the end of the film.
32:05
I mean, I was in tears at the end when she decided to wear
32:08
that dress of all dresses. I was like, why that dress,
32:10
Angie, you know. Yeah, you got.
32:13
I know you have so much of a bigger wardrobe now.
32:15
Yeah. It's funny, the, the, the dress
32:21
almost had like it had a bigger role in the first draft of the
32:25
script that we wrote. It was almost like this magical
32:29
device. And for us, yeah, the fact that
32:32
she wears it at the end because her husband criticizes the dress
32:35
and finds it, you know, he's, yeah, too much, which is ironic
32:39
because he's he's all about the boxes.
32:42
It is a film that is so like has boxes upon boxes upon boxes.
32:46
The boxes obviously that are the coffins, the boxes within the
32:51
store, the sort of rigidity of the society and then obviously
32:56
of like of this dress and then but you know, but that dress is
33:02
also the the 1st. It's the meet cute.
33:05
It's how she meets Melez and so, yeah.
33:10
And just like a random note too, it sounds like you guys were
33:13
shooting at night between a store closing and opening,
33:16
right? That sounds like a very
33:17
complicated adventure. It was, I have to say, I was
33:22
like, I never wanna shoot in the middle of the night again.
33:26
It's just, yeah, I mean people do it.
33:29
It's but we were because we're a short film and we had a small
33:33
team and we're working like until the very last minute.
33:36
We went straight from, you know, working our days in pre
33:40
production to shooting at night. And so there was no transition.
33:44
We were just like, at one point we were just up for 24 hours and
33:48
you know, the hours are shorter because nighttime shoots are
33:51
shorter and because the the store is open like so much.
33:56
And so we would come in around like 10:00 PM and then have
33:59
camera up at midnight and then at 3:00 AM we would break for
34:03
lunch and, and then. Yeah, lunch.
34:08
And which was mandatory and then there would be a smoke break
34:12
around 4:30 AM and then like it was a wrap by 6 so that the
34:17
very. Little time, which is why you
34:20
invoked earlier why we did this pre visualization for the film.
34:23
We scanned every single location with our phones cuz it's a free
34:27
app called Polycam, which uses the Lidar sensor and photography
34:31
to build a fairly accurate 3D model of any space that you
34:35
want. And then we could block out the
34:37
actors and animate them very crudely, like very crude
34:41
marionettes. Although like our, you know,
34:43
there are parts of the film that were improvised and where we
34:46
took inspiration from the moment, but there are parts of
34:48
the film that are 1 to 1 replica.
34:50
And if you they're on our Instagram page, we have one for
34:54
the film. You can see like we've done a
34:56
little video mock up where we put side by side the animation
34:59
versus like the final scene. And it's it's one to one like
35:04
we, you know, the, the montage of the shopping montage right in
35:08
the middle with the Philip Glass music like that is unchanged.
35:13
And part of that was because, I mean, we were working in the
35:15
middle of the night. Part of it is that we were, you
35:18
know, we have very, very limited experience on set because we
35:23
didn't go to film school. And part of it is that, that
35:25
we're two people. So like, you know, we had to
35:27
have made a, a, a good amount of decisions beforehand so that we
35:32
weren't there on set trying to have, you know, one brain.
35:36
And it's, it's surprising. We do agree on most things, but,
35:40
you know, no two human beings can be 100% in agreement all the
35:44
time. So, you know, a lot of things
35:46
had to be decided beforehand. It is fun shooting in the middle
35:49
of night in a department store, a little bit like visiting a
35:52
museum after hours, because everything is there, you can
35:55
just take it and in some ways the.
35:57
Well, I mean like not stealing. No, but like.
35:59
It'll kill back, yeah. But it's only the these these
36:03
objects that one covets. I know they feel so devalued in
36:08
the middle of the night, like just there by themselves.
36:11
Yeah, yeah, they lose their aura.
36:15
It is strange and interesting when you're dressing the set
36:19
quote UN quote because you'll be shooting in an area.
36:22
For example, there's a moment when in the beginning of Chapter
36:26
2, Angene returns to the store and she doesn't know quite why.
36:29
Well, we know why because she's drawn.
36:32
She's drawn there and she's walking along the shoe area.
36:35
And this shoe area is, we shot there because it's very visually
36:39
interesting. That area is usually full of
36:43
sneakers. And so like almost every part of
36:46
the film, you arrive on your set and suddenly you'll take you're
36:49
just like moving over a couple of feet and like, oh, let's grab
36:52
these shoes, Let's grab these bits of clothing and kind of
36:55
rearranging the store to fit a much more majestic and coherent
37:00
vision that the. Which is also one of the reasons
37:02
why it's in black and white. I mean, in color at the store,
37:05
you know, it's not, it's not one aesthetic.
37:08
It is a department store that has many different brands and
37:12
therefore many different colours and.
37:14
There's different styles you'll have off white next the Prada
37:18
next to come de Garzon. Like, yeah.
37:21
But it ends up there's a sort of like visual cacophony.
37:25
And so by reducing the color, you strip it down to like white,
37:29
greys and black and, and you end up with something that is
37:32
uniform and also others it so that you end up feeling like
37:37
we're in our world, but we're also not.
37:40
And and so I, I think that was really helpful for a film that
37:44
is like grounded and not at the same time.
37:47
I love that decision because you're just like in this like
37:50
tunnel of feeling when you're just like watching them like
37:52
really just kind of fall for each other as you're just
37:55
walking through all these. Like obviously all the shoes are
37:58
beautiful. And if I could see in color, I'm
37:59
sure I'd be like almost distracted by the shoes almost.
38:02
You're just kind of in that moment with them as you're just
38:06
lost in, like you said, the silvers and the blacks and the
38:08
whites. The the staff wear these
38:10
incredible jackets. Yeah, which are all by, I mean,
38:14
like, you know, there was a version of this film very early
38:18
on that was just like, you know, us buying things from Zara that
38:21
we would then have to return, which is I think how like most
38:24
short films, like, you know, like get their costumes and
38:28
then, you know, we realized we're in a luxury department
38:31
store. I mean, like, let's just take
38:32
some of this clothing and use it.
38:35
And so the the costumes, the the the uniforms of of the
38:40
salespeople of malaise and petulant are are by Balma and
38:45
you know. But underneath there, wearing a
38:47
red sweater, which in color looks so garish and so strange.
38:51
It works perfectly in the black and white image.
38:54
And we've gotten so used to watching the film in black and
38:57
white behind the scenes photographs, They're all in
39:00
black and white. But then very occasional we'll
39:01
watch a behind the scenes video of what it actually looked like.
39:04
And it's, it's shockingly garish, what it looked like,
39:07
it's like. What is that?
39:11
That's not our film. Well, as we wrap up, I'm so I'm
39:15
just in love with this conversation.
39:17
What do you hope audiences take away from this experience?
39:20
Whether it's the first time viewing the film, maybe a
39:23
rewatch or those long parking lot conversations, rewatching
39:27
the film for the third or fourth time.
39:28
What do you hope the audiences take away from seeing this film?
39:31
I mean, I always, one of the reasons that we love cinema is
39:35
for that, that moment, usually towards the end of a film of
39:39
catharsis. And it's what we seek out.
39:42
And we, we hoped that that there, we hope that there's an
39:46
element of catharsis in our film.
39:48
And you know, for us, even though we had so much fun
39:51
building this world and, and there are many, many Easter eggs
39:55
and many details to discover, at the end of the day, it's a story
39:59
of three characters and, and how their lives intersect and how
40:03
they respond to the repression of this world in different ways.
40:07
And so we hope that people fall in love with the characters and
40:10
that, you know, that they root for them and.
40:13
And yeah, what do you? I mean, even if the the end of
40:17
this story is quite tragic for us, the character of my last
40:21
represents the unsuppressible vitality of youth and love and
40:30
and yearning and desire and tenderness.
40:32
And that I think that that that is the response that will will
40:39
the plants that will grow and his roots will undercut the
40:43
foundation of like authoritarianism over time, like
40:46
it would just make it crumble. It's just human goodness.
40:49
And that's what she's full of. And I think it's it's sad
40:52
because the character of Anjin isn't brave enough in the
40:54
moment, but I think hopefully that that someone like Malares
40:59
and all people like that can can change the world.
41:02
Directors and writers Natalie Mustiana and Alexandre Singh,
41:06
thank you so much for joining me.
41:07
This has been such a pleasure. I, I just thank you so much for
41:10
joining me. I'm congratulations on Academy
41:13
Award nomination. I'm so happy for you.
41:16
But most of all, I'm just so excited to see what you do next.
41:18
I know I will be in the theaters for whether it's shorts, feature
41:21
films, whatever it is, I will be there.
41:24
It's been such a pleasure. So thank you so much for talking
41:26
with me about your film, the costumes, the visuals and
41:29
everything about it. I love this film, so it's been
41:32
such a pleasure. The Costume House with Spencer
41:38
Williams is a production of The Art of Costume.
41:41
This episode was hosted, produced and edited by Spencer
41:44
Williams. To discover more conversations
41:46
with the designer shaping film, television, and theatre, visit
41:50
theartofcostume.com or follow us on social media at The Art Of
41:54
Costume. And don't forget to connect with
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41:59
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