By Travis Johnson
In The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, Xavier Samuel plays the titular character, a man who experiences time in reverse, remembering the future and moving – at least in his perceptions – into the unknown past, while the world around ages and changes in what is generally understood to be the normal direction. Intellectually intriguing and tinged with a resonant melancholy, it opened the 2016 Melbourne International Film Festival and went on to garner a warm reception at CinefestOz in Busselton, Western Australia, and next week it features as part of the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival.
For writer and director, Cris Jones, the film is the culmination of a long and difficult road – one where time mercilessly flowed in only one direction. Graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2003, he went to make a string of acclaimed shorts but always kept his eye on the main prize – writing and directing a feature film. Interestingly, themes of time and perception have featured in his work since the very beginning.
Speaking at CinefestOz he explains, “My first student film was called The Heisenberg Principle. It involved quantum mechanics and the philosophical ramifications of Schrodinger’s Cat. I’m a very uncertain person in life, and I think that knowing that reality is uncertain on a subatomic level gives me a kind of comfort.”
Uncertainty is perhaps a valuable personal trait in the film industry, where done deals are few and far between and development is a long, hard road – at least you won’t be surprised when things break down. Jones’s first feature was intended to be a project with the working title Byzantium, an ambitious tale with an ambitious budget to match.
“Oh, it was huge,” he says. “It was gonna be a five million dollar project. And then the economy changed and the way that films are made changed, and it was not feasible for a first time director to make a film at that budget. So it became $2.6 [million], and we developed it for several years, and I think by the end even $2.6 million was a big budget for a first time director. It dealt with a lot of the same themes as this film, and Xavier was also attached to that one, and when that one fell through it was kind of a crossroads, so this project rose from the ashes of that other project.”
Executive producer, Jonathan Page (The Babadook, Mary and Max), picks up the thread. “Chris came up with something very quickly. It was a treatment, not even a script, maybe five or ten pages, but it was one of the best treatments I’d ever read, very moving, very emotional.”
As for star Xavier Samuel, he was determined to work with Jones no matter the project or budget. “Obviously you want to be involved in the most exciting films, and films that are compelling, but I think there’s probably a bit of a misconception about the luxury of decision, being able to just pick a film off the pile – it’s not like that for me. I’m often just grateful that things pop up. I think it’s less about having strict prerequisites about what you want to do and more about just being lucky. Chris has got such a unique sensibility, so anything that he writes is something I want to be involved with.”
The Death and Life of Otto Bloom plays at the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival on Monday, November 28. for tickets, head to the official site.
