by Joey Guerra
Entertainment Editor
Director Lynne Stopkewich took on a big load for her first feature film, Kissed. Besides dealing with the not exactly commercially sound topic of necrophilia, the film took two years to complete and was largely supported by donations from friends and family of Stopkewich, co-producer Dean English and executive producer John Pozer.
One of the unexpected biggest challenges for the team, though, was coming up with a title for the movie, which is based on a short story by Barbara Gowdy.
"Initially, we were going to call it the name of the short story, which is We So Seldom Look On Love, but we had all these people who were friends who really loved the movie and were just like, 'We really like your movie, but what's that, you know, the Love, something Seldom, I'm not sure,'" said Stopkewich from her hotel room at the Wyndham Warwick Hotel during a March press tour. "People just couldn't remember the title, even though they really wanted to.
"Although I love that title because I think it says something really interesting about the story, we just thought it would be more pragmatic to come up with a single-word title," Stopkewich said. The process, though, was long and arduous.
"Believe me, we had the cheesiest titles going," said Stopkewich, referring to rejected stinkers like Love Beyond the Grave. "We had a list going for like a year. They all sounded like really bad Harlequin romance books or something, sort of with a twist."
Stopkewich finally selected Kissed by simply going through the screenplay at the very last minute and running through all the nouns and adjectives.
Despite preconceived notions of encountering a moody, pale-faced person swaddled in black clothing, Stopkewich actually seems pretty "normal," smiling often and excited about her project. So what would attract a seemingly well-adjusted person to a story about a young girl's ever-increasing sexual craving for the dead?
"Basically, I was working on a completely different screenplay of my own, like an original screenplay, and I was doing a bit of research into women's erotica," Stopkewich said. "I found this story in this book, I was just reading through it, and I was completely shocked when I read the story, immediately closed the book, put it away and continued working on this other screenplay."
Something, though, kept calling to Stopkewich during her work on the former screenplay, which she is still planning to film. She was fascinated by the character of Sandra, (played with strikingly hypnotic self-confidence by newcomer Molly Parker), and months later, when filming on the first movie was about to commence, Stopkewich phoned her partners and pitched the idea for Kissed.
Needless to say, they supported her decision 100 percent.
"I love the writing, I love the sense of humor in the writing, and I love the voice of the character, because in the short story it's all written in first person, so you have the benefit of being inside her head," Stopkewich said. Translating that into a film presented additional hurdles.
"So that was a real challenge for me, too, turning it into a film, because you have to externalize all those thoughts and emotions," Stopkewich said. "Given the nature of the film and the nature of the character and her preferences, that was really walking a fine line."
Along with giving the film a quiet, luminescent quality through lush cinematography and well-paced scenes, Stopkewich also choose to include past-tense narration by Sandra, the film's central character.
"I wanted to maintain that mood, absolutely," Stopkewich said. "Keeping some of the writing from the original story in the voice-over within the film captures kind of the essence of the story."
Indeed, Stopkewich does an excellent job of setting up Sandra as a woman obsessed, beginning with haunting scenes of Sandra as a young girl (Natasha Morley) burying dead animals and pets in a dense forest with a friend. Soon after, the girl returns to the graves, digs up the creatures and lovingly, almost erotically, rubs them all over her small body.
There was one change, though, Stopkewich felt was necessary for the translation - playing up the themes of spirituality and "crossing over," as Sandra describes in the film when she does the deed.
"I played that a little more because the character in the story is a little harder-edged than the character in the film. I softened her up a bit, just because you read a short story, and you engage with it for 20 minutes. It's like eight pages long," said Stopkewich, who had different ideas for the big screen.
"But to sit in a film and care about a character, you really have to build that up, especially when people come in and they're thinking 'necrophilia, necrophilia,' and they're looking for everything that's going to turn them off, right? So you really have to take them by the hand, and just take them slowly along and draw them in very carefully," Stopkewich said. "You just can't hit them over the head. Otherwise they'll be running out of the theater, freaking out."
Staying true to the original tone of We So Seldom Look On Love for Kissed not only included retaining the reasoning behind Sandra's obsession with the dead, but also complemented a long-standing ideal for the director.
"I'm really interested in strong female protagonists, and she's completely unapologetic about her sexuality," Stopkewich said. "She is who she is, and she follows her passion. That was a real drawing point for me.
"I wasn't trying to create a morality tale," added Stopkewich in reference to the film's taboo subject. "I wasn't trying to say this is wrong or this is right or pointing fingers or anything like that. I was just interested in exploring the character's world and trying to draw you into her mindset."
Stopkewich's brief but impressive history mirrors that fact. While Kissed is her first full-length film, Stopkewich has made two award-winning short films, $3 Wash & Set, which represented the most promising new Canadian filmmakers on the Canadian Independent Film Tour, and The Flipped Wig, which garnered awards at festivals in New York, San Francisco and Florida.
"When I was going to film school, the films that I made were centering around women's experiences or female protagonists, and they always say, 'Write what you know,' and given that this is my first feature and my experience in the world is as a woman, it just made sense to want to make a film about a female character or a movie character being a woman," Stopkewich said.
"That's not to say that I'm not going to only do films about women, but you have to be pragmatic on your first time out," added Stopkewich, who does not want to be pigeon holed into any specific category. "You're just learning the process."
The process, as mentioned, included a look at the subject of necrophilia not as a grotesque sickness, but as a sensual, even erotic obsession. Quite a tall order for a first-time filmmaker.
"The topic was never really nerve-wracking, I guess, because I was operating within a void for so long, you know," Stopkewich said. "Just kind of get together with your friends and your family and make this movie. Sit in your parents' basement for two years editing it with a dog sleeping at your feet."
While the aura evoked by Kissed is a dreamy, highly feminine world full of captivating imagery and flowery narration, Stopkewich isn't about to overestimate herself. "I'm not going to pretend I'm Martin Scorsese my first time out. I have a lot to learn, and so I want to take incremental steps in that learning process and just deal with stories that strike me."
One story that struck her was David Lynch's Blue Velvet, which Stopkewich said she looked towards in terms of tone, humor and quirkiness when making Kissed. Now her own film is causing a bit of a commotion, and Stopkewich still seems a bit surprised by it and genuinely enthused by the reception.
"It would be crazy to say that you make a film and don't care how its received," said Stopkewich, whose biggest hopes initially were to sell the film in Canada and then go for a European distribution. "The biggest surprise for me came with regards to the whole American distribution scene really embracing the film."
Now, Stopkewich has signed with William Morris and is getting scripts from major studios. Along with a soundtrack featuring Sarah McLachlan, the film has also generated an upcoming website, a CD-ROM, and a soon-to-be-launched nail polish, labeled "Kissed." Quite impressive for a first-time filmmaker.
"Crazy," said Stopkewich. "Who would've thought, you know? I go and write this really freaky movie, and people are really responding to it."
The challenge now is getting people to see the film, something Stopkewich hopes will be done by a word-of-mouth sort of campaign. If people put aside preconceived notions and open their minds to a truly unique experience, they won't be disappointed.