Love, Narcissism, and Self-Annihilation: Richard Caeiro Interviews Samuel Lawrence

By Richard Caeiro

Flying Monkey revolves around a young man who chooses to confess to a crime he didn’t commit to protect someone. What drew you to this idea of love turning into self-destruction?

Well love makes people do crazy things. Also beautiful things. But also crazy things. Love can warp our view of the world and ourselves. I’ve seen it happen to people around me over the years where a person becomes at the mercy of their partner and vice versa because they get meaning and purpose through the other person and eventually they end up eating each other. I suppose they feel that what they’re doing is completely normal but from the outside it’s truly terrifying. Our leading man loves and adores Alice, but he’s annihilating himself by being with her. 

The film unfolds entirely in real time, which creates a suffocating immediacy. When you were writing it, how did you approach pacing within such a compressed six-minute structure?

My producer Rakan and I always knew this was going to be a super short fast-paced film. We often pitched the experience of watching the film as a five minute panic attack. I knew the film had to be lean with zero fat and just belt you around the head and grab you by the collar and drag you on a journey into hell. This is all sounds very horrible. But I just knew it had to have the engine of a super taught thriller. With regards to the writing and structure though, I do feel that the film is experimental in this sense. Essentially the film is like the third act of a much longer film where you would have gotten much more insight into Connor and Alice’s lives and their twisted complex relationship. But instead we just drop the audience into the film and pepper morsels of backstory here and there but you are forced to catch-up. I think this makes for a very engaging and active viewing experience as on first viewing I get the impression people are really thinking hard and trying to figure out what is going on. I find people enjoy watching the film more than once because it’s so fast paced and the information comes at you so quick that when you go back the experience of watching it is so rich as you peel back the many layers and learn more about our lead characters and the toxic evil situation they’ve dug themselves into. 

Much of the tension comes from what we don’t see, especially the fact that Alice is physically present in the apartment during the interrogation. How did you structure the script so that the audience would feel the danger of this proximity without the detective being aware of it?

For the first few minutes of this film I’m playing around with mystery and when we reveal Alice hiding in the room, it’s a shock for the audience and it sort of re-contextualises the whole film. And a lot of this is to do with irony. What people do and do not know. The detective is kind of ironically clueless to what’s happening which makes for exciting drama. Irony is so important to short films I feel. It’s a dance of what the audience and characters do and do not know in such a short space of time to tell a story. 

Connor is both frightening and fragile, a troubled young man with a violent past. How did you navigate that line so viewers could feel uneasy about him, yet still understand how he became trapped?

I think a lot of this complexity and meaning coming across to the audience is to do with the brilliant performances from our two lead actors. Andrew and Saffron completely own and embody their characters and are able to “feel” every emotion and thought. It feels like we’re watching two real people, not watching anyone “act.” Connor is many things but above all he is a true idiot, but still complex. And it’s up to each individual audience member to decide whether or not they feel any sympathy for him or like him or hate him. As you watch the film, it gradually becomes clear that he’s trapped and you understand that through him coming out of prison with nothing, you can understand how Alice was able to exploit his need for meaning and purpose. Who knows whether that was conscious or subconscious on her part. Or whether narcissists know the damage their causing. We could talk about this psychology for hours. 

Alice is never simply a victim in the traditional sense. What was important to you in shaping her psychology and agency within the story?

Exactly, Alice is whatever you want her to be. Like the other characters in this film and any character in any film. Whatever she is or whatever she makes you feel is different for every audience member. But yes I think she has tremendous agency, she is the engine at the heart of the story that keeps everything powering forward at extremely high velocity. I don’t think she’s a villain or an antagonist, I think she just is who she is and that happens to be a narcissist. The film is short and mysterious and takes a kind of objective view of the central relationship and situation. We don’t tell the audience how to feel about her so it’s really up to the audience to decide. But I don’t think she’s a villain and I don’t think Connor is a hero. But of course when you make a film, the genre or form itself can’t help but push an audience into taking a certain viewpoint, like when we introduce Alice with extremely foreboding music. So in this sense I understand why someone would think of her as the villain. But she isn’t! However, we don’t know much about her past or her future, so whether she is “evil” is still to be determined.

The interrogation takes place over a video call, which is a format many of us associate with everyday life. How did you turn something so familiar and restricted into something so cinematic?

On a practical level, I wanted to make a one room chamber piece thriller because frankly we didn’t have much money to play with and this is not the type of film that gets funding from short film funders. And I knew I wanted a Detective involved despite this one room setting. So that was the challenge: to make a zoom cinematic. We filmed the actors performing at the same time. They were acting with each other over zoom on laptops in two rooms in one house and we had a camera and lights on each of them. Then we used VFX to make the image look like a webcam camera and used sound editing to muffle their voices slightly. And then cutting out into the real world and back in and vice versa helps create a really cinematic effect. The incredible score also helps. 

You mention the 5.1 surround sound design as a key element. Can you discuss how sound contributed to creating the feeling of confinement and emotional pressure?

The sound design and mix was completely crucial and a huge amount of time and effort went into nailing it. I was lucky to have a great sound editor and mixer in one in the form of the supremely talented, Greg Veryard. I wanted this film to feel like the really loud action and thriller films we go and see at the cinema. And these films at the cinema feel so loud and epic today. So I wanted to do that. To scare people with the sound. So that was how we mixed it. And having an incredible eery score also helped create an intense terror. But before mixing, Greg had to carefully edit the sound to create a difference in sound between the real world and zoom calls and the third act was a massive challenge because we had to record ADR for the police officers and layer them in along with footsteps and door banging sounds to create the impression that the police are storming the property. The sound deign and mix took months but I’m really proud of it. I think it’s incredibly immersive. 

You've described the film as deeply personal. How did drawing from lived experience shape the authenticity of the characters without making the story feel literal?

As I mentioned before, I have seen the dynamic present in this film before, that of the Flying Monkey and Narcissist. I’ve seen the damage and trauma it inflicts upon those directly involved and how it affects people peripherally around them. It’s truly terrifying and damaging and completely warps your perception of reality. However, I do think I’ve been able to process that experience through making this film.

The ending offers us no catharsis, letting us collapsing under the weight of the characters' choices. What message did you want to convey about the nature of justice and emotional manipulation with this outcome, resisting a more "conventional" sense of justice?

Well there is no catharsis and there is no justice. It’s an unhappy ending. The kind of human psychology we’re presenting on screen is often destructive and can ruin people’s lives. 

Despite its short runtime, Flying Monkey feels designed for the big screen. When you’re making a short film, what makes you decide it deserves a theatrical experience? Do you intend to expand this universe into a feature film after its positive reception?

Leading on from my previous answer, Flying Monkey has an unhappy ending so despite how well it’s been received, spending more time developing and elongating the story into a feature doesn’t sound fun because the world and characters of the film are so insipid and poisonous. I think this story is most effective in this current form, in the shape of a six minute adrenaline fuelled thrill ride. And part of experiencing the film is seeing it on a huge screen with extra loud sound. It transports you. It’s far less impactful watching it on Vimeo on your phone. 

Your earlier short Foreign Land explores identity and intolerance in a very different historical setting. Meanwhile, Flying Monkey deals with themes of emotional bigotry and secrets. Is there a thematic connection between these projects?

Honestly, I have no idea what connects any of my films. No idea. I do know that there’s always a kiss in my films. Love is all around us. 

After this exploration of psychological tension and toxic devotion, where do you feel your storytelling is heading next? Are you drawn to expand this thematic terrain, or do you want to challenge yourself in a new direction?

I’m trying to do something different with each short film, so the next one is a comedy. It still has a lot of depth I hope but has a much more loose, fun and playful tone…I hope! We’re hoping to shoot later this year. However, I have no doubt I’ll return to the psychological thriller genre at some point in the future…most likely in the form of a feature film.