Bobo's Wake is a horror film but also an experimental art film. I wrote the script about a year before finally getting the chance to make it. The script and concept was a reaction/response to my friend and collaborator Nathan Armstrong's film "Oh, Hi Ken"
I was really taken by the energy, violence, nihilistic humor and visceral kick of his film and I wanted to make a film like it. The film got a great audience response, groans, inward breaths and satisfied laughs, and I wanted to experience a similar reaction to one of my films. I have always liked the plays and style of playwright Samuel Beckett (particularly the great Channel 4 series that filmed the entire Beckett canon) and combined this aesthetic with Nathan's viscerally charged template.
The clown look is purely my interest in the Clown aesthetic, but always with a dark, twisted bent. It is also possibly influenced by having seen the film "Carnival of Souls" The make up was designed by a make up artist in Canberra who had worked with my cinematographer before and her designs were fabulous:
The costumes each had a difference influence: Fran's look was meant to be film noir femme fatale inspired, something like Kim Novak in "Vertigo"; Pearl's look was designed to be sensual with a Roman-styled dress, and Robyn was designed to look like a tight, clenched business type or perhaps a preppy, private school girl. Bobo's look was meant to be like a leather clad biker, sort of "Rebel Without a Cause" or "The Wild One"
Essentially the film was designed to be a kind of horror rollercoaster, with a series of disgusting set pieces (stomach blood, eye pus, putrid amniotic water etc), a morbid, unsettling tone and scant storyline (but an implied back story). The film was meant to be a sensory experience rather than an intellectual or narrative based one.
The narrative as such, is this: a rouge, masculine, misogynist clown, Bobo, enters the lives of three female clowns, a mother, Fran, and her two daughters, Pearl and Robyn. Bobo romances Fran, has a domestic dispute with her where Fran's right eye is punctured, moves onto Pearl and gets her pregnant, then goes off and contracts a fatal venereal disease from a clown prostitute before returning to Robyn, infecting her and taking her as his fiance. Bobo then dies from the venereal disease and the women hold a wake in his memory. During this wake memories of sensual moments with Bobo are played out, jealousies come to the surface, Robyn vomits blood, Fran ingests pus from her wounded eye which seems to have a calming effect on her and Robyn gives birth to Bobo Jnr. Fran and Robyn have made a pact, unbeknowst to Pearl, to kill the child. Fran restrains Pearl while Robyn clubs Bobo Jnr. to death with a baseball bat before promptly dying herself from the venereal disease she contracted from Bobo.
I believe narrative can be overrated and I have always reacted against conventional, commerce driven mainstream cinema (Of which I consider the "Transformers" and "Fast and The Furious" franchises to be prime examples of), or the supposed realism and kitchen sink drama of "Neighbors", a show which unfortunately a lot of the actors I've worked with aspire to and still value as a form way above my surreal tastes. Most of the film students I worked with also favored the conventional over the obscure; they all wanted to make films in the style of the TV series "The Walking Dead" or "Oblivion". I don't consider there to be anything wrong with the aforementioned TV series and film, they are both well scripted and executed, it's just frustrating knowing that your peers are buying into the same tired shit that everyone else is making, that they are reinforcing the status quo, that they will be producing films that make short film festivals that much more dull and flavorless (and no doubt taking out top prizes with their unimaginative, cookie cutter films with exquisite camera work, FX and production values and fuck-all interesting in the way of story, character or visual aesthetics), they will be making it that much harder for anyone to make arthouse films and finally that they have no interest in the films you enjoy.
The film was originally meant to be shot rough and ready on the balcony of my unit, with a very short turnaround in terms in getting the actresses on board, setting up the shots, executing, editing etc. That never eventuated because the actresses simply couldn't commit with such short notice. Bobo was also never meant to meant to feature on screen except as a photo, but he crept back in to augment the action with the women.
I eventually resurrected the film a year later, partly as a way to showcase the talents of a beautiful young Indian actress I hadn't been able to work with earlier, partly as a way of working with a cinematographer who wanted to collaborate with me, and I guess largely because I hate material going to waste and having unrealised dreams in my drawer.
The script went through several phases at the prompting of my cinematographer, who wasn't comfortable working on a project with no discernible narrative, but it didn't really work in that form and so I eventually brought it back to the abstract structure. The set I chose was an area close to my place of work as a Security Guard. It is a strange, grassed park sandwiched between decommissioned public service buildings, and the area has always looked very evocative and dark at night. With filming it's always better to go with a location you are familiar with and perhaps have some level of control over (apart from the building's air conditioning vents and inclement weather). I always saw this film as being played out in the open and at night, in an unconventional or surprising setting, a strange wake held by strange characters.
Bobo Jnr. was originally a watermelon, a symbol for a child rather then the puppet child it developed into. The original reference was meant to be comic (a common circus clown routine involves smashing a watermelon with a mallet) and economic - a cheap way to create splatter for effect while the actress screamed in grief for her child convincingly. However, after the first attempt to mount the film fell through, and by the time I came to mounting the film properly, a Canberra puppeteer posted in one of the many Canberra film making groups on Facebook with her project "Baz N Snags" and the quality of her puppets inspired me to change the watermelon to a puppet. I originally approached her to make the puppet, but due to time and budget constraints ended up making it myself.
I had to recast the actress for Pearl, as it was evident during rehearsals that she hadn't been putting any work towards her performance and simply had no screen presence alongside the other actresses. Pearl was always going to be a difficult role for an actress to bring strength to, as she is the seemingly passive, traditional (Let's say a 1950's woman) maternal role sandwiched between the angrier, more contemporary and masculine female roles of Fran and Robyn. Robyn even carries the phallic symbol of a baseball bat. Why are Fran and Robyn masculine and Pearl feminine? It probably has something to do with my desire to create unusual, dynamic and interesting roles for women and to create contrast between the characters and create certain rivalries. Incidentally, Fran, Robyn and Pearl are the names of my Mother, Aunty and Grandmother (nickname) respectively, though this didn't occur to me when I picked their names, they were simply the first names that came to mind. What this means in a Freudian, Jungian or psychological sense I haven't the slightest idea, if anything.
Why a baseball bat? Practically to kill the baby with, psychologically to suggest the aggression and prickliness of Robyn's character and because I had one and I think they're cool.
This was the first time I'd had to let an actress go, which was distressing as I am a polite person and don't enjoy telling people their acting is not up to snuff, but ultimately resulted in a better actress coming on board who helped the character come alive.
The production of this film was difficult, drawn out and grueling. The film had a lot of time to gestate and build, so it feels very "full" as an experience, which I like and makes me think of one of my favourite Rolf de Heer films "Bad Boy Bubby".
I did several practical effects tests for Bobo and designed the effects myself.
Our first night we shot for twelve hours, from 6pm to 6am. The second night it was a little less. The third night took forever to coordinate between all disparate parties and eventually happened about two-three months later. There was also a fourth night of pick ups. There are a number of reasons for this lengthy production period, partly my responsibility, partly shooting at night, but they're not interesting or necessary to go into here. I think I'm passionate about this film because it had such a difficult birth and still somehow made it into the world in good shape and won awards at a film festival.
I experimented with the post production program After Effects, designing a title sequence, visual effects (the opening and closing shots of Bobo's ghostly image in the picture frame) and end title sequence. I created a new opening title sequence when it was clear my original idea of having titles on screen that receded in scale with the tiered structure Bobo's photo sits on, wasn't going to work. I also wanted to explore After Effects and used the film as an opportunity to play.
Sound Design was done with a Canberra Tafe graduate, a regular of mine for a couple of films made in Canberra. He was top of his class and it always showed in his work. I wanted the sound design to be a mix of ethereal, comic and horrific sounds. The music was done by a young musician and film maker at the University of Canberra. It's fantastic, especially when placed alongside his usual bent which is much more upbeat and whimsical, and clearly demonstrates his adaptability.
It is also necessary to say at this point that I know the tone and make-up of this film, for better or worse, is influenced by my time spent studying Wicca with a witch in Canberra. I eventually parted from Wicca after reading up on the initiation ceremony which I believed to be more influenced by cult (e.g. Freemasons) than religion or spirituality. Wiccan folklore and aesthetics are rife in this film, though I did not intend for this to occur, from the unknowable dark figures of the women themselves to the occult nature of Bobo's ghostly visage in the photo frame. It actually takes the well known Wiccan creation story - of the three-fold Goddess who goes through three phases in her cyclic story (Maiden, Mother and Crone) and the Horned God who impregnates her with himself before dying to renew the harvest - and subverts it. In my film you have the figures of Mother, Maiden and Crone in the respective ages of the women, except in reverse order from left to right, with "Mother" (Pearl) carrying the Horned God's (Bobo's) child. The Horned God is already dead, but his seed will not go on to become him, as the Maiden takes the child and kills it. I can only guess this subversion and attempt to cease the renewal of the Wiccan legend is reflective of my struggles with Wicca, though I made the film several months after breaking ties with Wiccan and occult circles. I can't remember if I had started looking into Wicca when I originally wrote this script but it's possible - in any case I clearly hadn't resolved any of my mixed feelings with Wicca since that time.
As a final note, it must be said that the opening titles and end credit sequence owe their look and design to Gaspar Noe's film "Enter the Void", which I have reviewed in an earlier post. I simply love the unsettling, arresting neon aesthetic.
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