It was an honour to talk to Jonas Akerlund, Lords of Chaos Director and I must start by saying I loved his vision, the imagery, cinematography, emotion, complexity and depth – it was an amazing film to experience. I started off sceptical before watching the film, but afterwards I had been so drawn in and started thinking about things differently. It was insightful and not at all what I expected.
Cautiously I tread dangerous waters and mention there has been some talk amongst metalheads online worrying about how metalheads and certain characters are portrayed. I ask Jonas if he took that into account or if it was something he had even thought about and he replied:
“No, not really, the film is not really about Metal or Black Metal or music at all, it is a movie about the relationship between these three boys, the metal is there but it could have been something else, it could have been kids in the favelas of brazil, kids in the suburbs of London or countryside of Australia, it’s the kind of story we’ve seen before but this time it happens to be with the backdrop of Norway and they happen to play black metal music. Obviously for black metal fans they are emotionally attached to it because we love these characters but that’s a big part of their fascination, but my focus was more the relationship between these three boys than anything else.”
That is quite interesting; I think some people might have preconceptions going in expecting a film on the origins of True Norwegian Black Metal, so it would be good to keep in mind that is really not what the film is about. It is a good response and I hope it does make people think when they do watch the film. Jonas added, “I have to say though, both in social media and also being in the audience at festivals and for Q&A’s I think the expectations has been on my side for this film coz a lot people think they are going to see one thing and then it actually turns out to be something else and to the better. I think that has really helped people to watch this movie.”
Portrayed are two extremes with one all talk and it is purely image and marketing and the other so desperate to prove he isn’t a poseur he takes action on the extreme talk. I wonder if this movie will strengthen the association of Black Metal with Satan and violence or show insight into the scene, showing it is mostly normal people a fancy towards the darker side of life. Jonas captured the humanity and the struggle of the two sides, to that he said, “I think it will have the opposite effect I think the audiences are a lot smarter than that and I think you can look at this and know is a real life story and this happened a really long time ago is sad and the outcome is very sad and I think there is nothing cool about it, nothing glamorised about it in the film either, it portrays a really sad story.
They were very young kids having fun in the first act of the movie is a part where I feel like a lot of people who are into metal or whatever you’re into you can identify with that part of your life where you are trying to find your sound and where you are trying to figure shit out and colouring your hair or whatever it is you are doing or you are awkward around girls and you have your garden parties and you’re trying to figure yourself out and then you meet some people and you make some bad decisions in your life and I think a lot of people can identify with, either when you are young or even if you are older when you were once there, I certainly can.”
I sure felt it provoked empathy for that reason, I could definitely relate to the struggling to find your place and feeling the need to prove yourself to others and maybe even yourself, it is definitely something that I think a lot of people will be able to relate to in one way or another.
The term poseur is thrown around a lot in elitist black metal circles, Lords of Chaos seems to acknowledge the bullying and struggle to make it in an underground field of art. I question Jonas if this was a theme he had thought about or think deserves thinking about, especially considering it raises the issue of depression and suicide.
“Pelle’s [Dead’s] depression was well known even before he committed suicide”, says Jonas. “He tried a few times before so it was well known he was struggling with his mental health, it is a big part of his life, death, family, but in a weird way I believe that none of these other things would have happened if Pelle’s suicide hadn’t happened, the effect of it was always huge, a total of 4 people dying because of this super sad event and you know young people stop thinking as individuals and start thinking as a group and just losing their minds, it’s a sad story you know.”
It is a very sad story that does acknowledge what can happen when mental health is ignored or left untreated. It is a hard topic to look into without causing fresh wounds for the still living. But moving away from that dark topic, I wanted to know: what was the biggest struggle with the film, other than trouble getting it off the ground?
“I think getting the tone right was the important thing as this is such a heavy and dark story, and again it is so emotionally painful for a lot of people, for me to mix that with an entertaining movie and add some humour in there and find a tone between these important subject matters and at the same time make a movie that looks cool and entertains you at the same time and realise in that process that all of these ups and downs are very important. I didn’t know that when I was writing it and I certainly didn’t know that when I wanted to make this movie that was something that I figured out throughout the whole process. We call it tone, tone is like a volume control you can pull it up to 11 or put it down to whatever you want it to be and I didn’t know if the tone was right until I started to see it through the audience and the reaction of the audience and I think to me that was a big struggle other than the boring struggles to making movies, independent movies have, we shot the movie in 18 days which is a crazy schedule and like you said getting the movie off the ground was a pretty big accomplishment.”
It’s good to bring the story out into the public and see the story in a different perspective, it’s a lot more empathetic, instead of making them out to be terrible murderers, you see the human side and the raw struggle, which was amazing, and the tone came across really well and balanced a very tricky subject quite well. Now, on the opposite end, what was the most fun part of working on the film?
“It was working with these young actors and see how they became their characters and how they feel in love with their characters, learned their instruments and all that stuff it was amazing to see that. The biggest reward is all the festivals I’ve been too and I can sit in the audience and really feel the energy in the room where people are touched, are scared, they laugh – I feel that is a huge reward. And it was kinda fun to burn up the churches to.”
Both of us are laughing as I say that was going to be my next question, we laugh more and ask what more can he tell me about the church burnings? Tell us about the technical details, it was so beautifully done, the cinematography was powerful and it looked so real!
“It was all filmed fake, we actually built miniatures. We shot real churches some interiors and exteriors and then we burned down miniatures. You can’t fake fire, it becomes like Godzilla, so our miniatures were still quite big, the actual churches were about 40m high and our miniatures were still 20m high so they were pretty massive. And it was just a front, the back of it there was nothing there like a facade, but the first church, the white one, we bought from another production that had it that they’d built, we bought it 2 or 3 years before we shot the movie, we took a risk and put it in storage so that was a film church so it looked pretty good but it a typical film church with bad wood. We burned it down the old school way with gasoline and a match so they burned down quick, really fast.”
That would have been fun! The deaths and dead animals were so realistic as well, Jonas tells me he achieved that effect.
“The old school way too with rubber prosthetics and pumps, there was a hidden cable with a guy pumping blood somewhere behind the camera and you know it was all rubber knives and all that old school way of doing, there’s no CGI, none of that stuff you see today, which made it look really real, all that obviously with help from the actors acting it out well.”
That really helped make it, there was a stark realism, the blood wasn’t overdone or understated for the most part, it was raw and felt accurate towards the depictions. My favourite parts were the nightmare scenes, Jonas tells me the inspiration with all the flashes of the woods and the raven.
“It’s great that you bring it up coz a lot of people don’t so I’m happy to talk about it because it was the one things that came clear to me from my research and from Euonymus’ parents and other sources was that Pelle and Euonymus were really close, they lived together for a long period of time and they were really really close friends and my take on this is ok he found his dead and he took those horrible pictures which I wish he didn’t because it’s such a horrible thing to do but he was affected by it, he tried to be cool about it and he had an attitude about taking those pictures but I think in real life he must have been touched by his friends and I was trying to come up with a way to have Pele and the death haunt him through the movie and be part of Euronymus when he’s changing, he gets a gf, cuts his hair, starts listening to different type music and is on his way somewhere and Pele present and let go of him in his nightmares that have been haunting him became an important parallel story for me when I wrote the script so that’s why I had those nightmares and I’m sure he must have had dreams about him, he can’t just find his dead friend, unless you are a psychopath, I don’t think Euronymus was a saint, he bears a big responsibility for what happened, but I don’t think he was a psychopath, he must have felt something for his dead friend.”
Talking with Jonas gave me a good perspective on where he was coming from and what he was trying to achieve with Lords of Chaos, and I think it is worth a watch for not only the beautiful cinematography, but the different perspective. Remember this is not a film about Black Metal, it is about a group of young boys who were just trying to find their way and have fun and things go out of hand. It is a touching story that should be shared wide and far.
LORDS OF CHAOS will screen in cinemas across Australia & New Zealand for ONE NIGHT ONLY on Friday February 22nd.
For cinemas, ticketing and full details, visit the Monster Fest site.
www.monsterfest.com.au/loc-onenightonly-1
