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REAL. IT’S EQUALLY FASCINATING AND TERRIFYING TO WATCH.”
UNDERSTANDING OF PARENTHOOD THAT MAKES BULLOCK’S PERFORMANCE FEEL
WE
ALL HOPE THAT WE’RE RAISING SMART, STRONG KIDS WHILE ALSO
“SANDRA BULLOCK COMMANDS THE SCREEN.”Peter TraversROLLING STONE
“BIRD BOX IS A TAUT THRILLER THAT KEEPS YOU HOOKED.”Kristen LopezZIMBIO
complete the trip blindfolded.
offer sanctuary. To make it, they’ll have to cover their eyes from the evil that chases themand
on a dangerous journey through the woods and down a river to find the one place that may
their worst fears. Searching for hope and a new beginning, a woman and her children embark
die. The survivors must now avoid coming face to face with an entity that takes the form of
When a mysterious force decimates the population, only one thing is certainif you see it, you
Disclaimer:
a fan preservation project; it was created
criticism, research, and is completely nonprofit; it falls under the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. section 107. To have this version, you must own the original, unaltered retail release.
the rights of the copyright holders and purchase a copy of the original release if you do not own one already. www.netflix.com 2018 | 2h 4m | Horror, Mystery 2737304 SPECIAL
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This is FILM FILM FeaturetBehind the MagicThe Visual Effects of Bird Box FeaturetCasting for Sandra Bullock Official Trailer BIRD BOX is currently available as a 4K Ultra HD stream via Netflix English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
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ALLOWING THEM TO EXPERIENCE THE JOYS OF CHILDHOOD; IT’S THAT INNATE
FILM
Bird Box director Susanne
Bier on defying typical female roles and bleak endings
Netflix’s new thriller takes unlikely turns, and the acclaimed Danish filmmaker has her reasons
By Matt Patches @misterpatches Dec 23, 2018
Acclaimed filmmaker Susanne Bier will tell you she comes from from two different worlds. A student of National Film School of Denmark, Bier quickly became a contemporary of names like Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, and in the early 2000s, experimented with their boiled-down-reality filmmaking movement known as Dogme 95.
But at the same time, Bier persisted through finding new angles and glimmers of hope in humanity. Over more than 20 years, she’s directed romantic comedies (1999’s The One and Only, 2012’s Love Is All You Need) and deep explorations of trauma and grief. 2002’s Open Hearts, 2004’s Brothers, and her 2007 English-language debut Things We Lost in the Fire). Occasionally she synthesizes every instinct into a single film; her heart-warming, heartbreaking film After the Wedding, starring Mads Mikkelsen as a man whose family comes rushing back into his life after years of absence (to put it gently), is a masterpiece.
After dabbling in Hollywood star vehicles like Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper’s Serena, as well as helming AMC’s John le Carré miniseries The Night Manager, Bier has turned her attention to a pulpier-but-piercing project: Bird Box, an apocalyptic thriller starring Sandra Bullock in which invisible monsters prey on those with clear vision.
On a call shortly before release, Bier spoke with Polygon about finding her way into Bird Box, and why the movie served the many interests she’s displayed over the years.
02 07
YOU ALSO RARELY SEE THE OLDER ACTRESS GET ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH A YOUNGER CHARACTER IN THE SAME WAY A LEADING MAN WOULD HIS COSTAR. AND IT FEELS TOTALLY NATURAL.
Bier: I agree, and it is totally natural. It’s just not depicted very often. I have to say that I do think, if we can do a movie like that and we can have a big audience where they are engaging and we can sort of seamlessly, positively move a few prejudices away. I think a lot is achieved.
HOW MUCH OF THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE MONSTER-FILLED WORLD WERE YOU NAVIGATING WHILE TELLING THIS STORY? WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER?
Bier: I think we pretty much discussed it all and what were we going to show and what were we not going to show. It’s a petty sort of precocious balance because you open up one avenue and then you possibly raise way more questions then answers. So you want it to move with confidence, but you don’t necessarily want to reveal everything.
THERE’S SO MUCH TRAGEDY OVER THE COURSE OF THE FILM, BUT THE ENDING IS QUITE HOPEFUL. WAS THAT ALWAYS THE PLAN? I KNOW THE BOOK ALSO HAS A POSITIVE ENDING.
Bier: The movie is slightly more positive. The movie is, in many aspects, different from the book, but it’s also very rooted in the book. The book also has a kind of positive ending and I would not have wanted to do an apocalyptic movie that didn’t have a hopeful ending. In a way, pretty much everything I’ve done has had some sort of a hopeful ending. I’m not particularly interested for the audience to leave, from the cinema or their own screen, with a kind of completely bleak point of view. That’s not really what I believe in. And so for me it was key and, and part of what made me interested in it, was that that if this scary, dystopian story, which actually has a hopeful undercurrent ... there is a hopefulness in trust. That is a hopefulness in love. There is a hopeful note in certain values that I really appreciate it. And I thought that was hugely important.
YOU CAME UP AT A TIME IN DANISH CINEMA THAT WAS KNOW MORE FOR BRUTALITY AND HARSH HONESTY THAN HOPEFULNESS.
Bier: My movies always had a kind of hopefulness. I think that was a reason why I, in Denmark at least, was considered a bit too mainstream because there was this sort of element of hope which didn’t quite suit with the more social realistic, brutal-minded Danish [film].
SOUNDS LIKE YOU AND LARS VON TRIER WERE WORKING IN SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT MODES.
Bier: That’s right!
06 03
note: this interview contains spoilers for Bird Box]
POLYGON: BIRD BOX BEGAN DEVELOPMENT AT UNIVERSAL, THEN FOUND ITS WAY TO NETFLIX. AS SOMEONE WHO HAS STEADILY WORKED IN BOTH THE DANISH AND AMERICAN FILM SINCE THE 1990S, BUT HASN’T DIPPED TOO DEEP A TOE IN HOLLYWOOD, HOW DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED?
Susanne Bier: So I got told that I should read the script relatively fast because it was something which could happen pretty fast, and Sandra Bullock was interested in starring. She and I met a few times and talked about working together. I got very interested in it. There was something really compelling about her playing that sort of woman who is not particularly accessible. She’s brutal, she’s harsh, she doesn’t talk nicely to the kids, but she wants to then to survive at any price, and I felt that her playing that part would just be really interesting. So I read it and expressed my interest and then at the same time it kind of moved from one of the studios to Netflix and then it happened very fast.
DID THE POPULARITY OF A QUIET PLACE HELP NUDGE THE MOVIE INTO PRODUCTION?
Bier: No, no, no. We were shooting [in April 2018] when we had heard of A Quiet Place and we were almost finished editing when it came out. I think also what is one of the reasons why it keeps being compared to is ... yes, they are post-apocalyptic thrillers, both of them, but more relevant is that they both have female protagonists, and so few movies with female protagonists. And mothers. So they kind of tend to be compared. I think A Quiet Place is a great movie, but they’re very different.
BASED ON VISUALS ALONE, I THINK ANYONE WOULD AGREE. HOW DID YOU LAND ON THE LOOK OF THE FILM?
Bier: I think we all had this notion that they are blindfolded, they can’t see, but the landscape they’re moving in, even if hostile, could be really beautiful. And so that was sort of the notion concerning the river and that whole part of the film. It had to have a kind of vastness and epic beauty. I’ve love those ’70s and ’80s river movies, and I want to say those inspired me more than post-apocalyptic movies.
YOU MENTIONED THE FRESHNESS OF TELLING A STORY LIKE THIS FROM A FEMALE PERSPECTIVE. DO YOU THINK BIRD BOX IS UNIQUELY FEMININE UNDER THE SURFACE?
Bier: I think it’s just describing a woman describing a mother from a different point of view than the conventional male point of view. For hundreds of years we have seen mothers described by men and I think there’s a kind of passiveness to that image; it’s sort of a gentle, it’s kind, it’s automatically loving, but it’s not really, when it comes down to it, it’s not really forceful and or really capable of protecting the kids. And that’s what she does. She’s a survivor. Those kids are going to survive and she’s going to do it at any price. I think that story is really compelling and yes, that might be very feminine, but it’s certainly not traditional feminine.
I CHEERED WHEN SANDRA AND TREVANTE RHODES’ CHARACTER HOOKED UP —
Ed.
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