Cannes pageant director Thierry Frémaux promised that this yr’s Un Sure Regard sidebar lineup could be extra pushed by narrative and style than years previous. Charlie Polinger‘s function directing debut “The Plague,” he wasn’t kidding.
This harrowing, 35mm-shot story of pubescent boys tormenting one another at a water polo summer time camp doubles as a coming-of-age drama and an adolescent, acne-scarred body-horror nightmare. The 12- and 13-year-olds populating its frames are all afraid of catching an imagined (or not?) contagion — let’s name it puberty — that turns their brains into “mush,” one says, and manifests with psoriasis-like lesions on their our bodies. However the phrases and virtually ritualistic humiliations they change (suppose the mocking of speech impediments and centipedes thrown into your mattress at night time) are much more wounding.
Polinger, an AFI Conservatory grad working with lots of his fellow alumni together with cinematographer Steven Breckon, based mostly this disturbing and private movie on his personal experiences as a child at an all-boys summer time sports activities camp, culling from his rediscovered journals to jot down the script. Millennials who got here of age within the aughts (“The Plague” is about in summer time 2003) will acknowledge the touchstones, from the interval music references to the Capri-Suns everybody appears to be slurping. “I used to be leaning into the Capri-Solar, into kind of this pre-internet or very early web age, with the sort of jokes that they make,” Polinger informed IndieWire.
Joel Edgerton, who stars because the boys’ beneficiant however out-of-his-depth coach by way of coping with unruly and poisonous boys, initially obtained the script from Polinger’s agent and needed to direct it. “I used to be like, ‘I actually should direct this one. It’s too particular to me.’ He was simply actually cool about it. We ended up getting on a name. He actually associated to the themes, the social dynamics of those youngsters, and bullying, and his personal experiences being a 12-year-old boy in Australia. He principally simply mentioned, look, I’m glad to supply the movie and act within the movie, and do something I can to assist get this made.”
Polinger and his casting director Rebecca Dealy (“Hereditary”) checked out 1000’s of tapes of children to forged the precise ensemble. They landed on “Griffin in Summer season” star Everett Blunck as Ben, the hero of this story if there’s one, and the seemingly harmless child via whose eyes we see the movie. The sort of child who will see together with his awkward, ruthlessly bullied peer who’s left alone on the cafeteria. They discovered Kayo Martin, who performs the camp’s freckled prime bully Jake who presides over the cool-kids desk with imperious authority, off social media. It’s a breakout efficiency for a younger star.
“He felt precisely like the kind of bully or character who messes together with your head in a method that I really feel like I haven’t seen represented in a film or TV present fairly often as a result of he’s at all times very understated,” Polinger mentioned. “You by no means know if he’s joking or not, and it actually sort of will get inside your head. He’s so comfy hanging out with adults on a regular basis and going round New York, going to all of the bagel retailers and all these locations [where Martin does social media pranks], and he does have a sure maturity degree that may really play very uncanny within the state of affairs with different boys.”
There are scenes in “The Plague” that pit the kid actors into grownup situations which might be, in actual life, possible acquainted to them. In a single scene, they share sexual fantasies and discuss masturbation from throughout one another’s bunk beds. Directing youngsters at all times comes with its personal set of challenges, even with dad and mom on set, however Polinger and his crew labored with an intimacy coordinator to burrow into these most uncomfortable (however relatable) moments.
“The primary day with the intimacy coordinator, all of us sat round and we have been speaking in regards to the scene, and she or he was coming at it very delicately: ‘Is that this one thing that you just guys learn about?’ And so they have been miles forward of her by way of what they already knew and the jokes that they have been making,” Polinger mentioned. “It was actually vital to me that we have been capturing that age in an actual method. [The actors] have been very fearless and simply excited to dive into it… They have been a lot extra mature than you’ll think about.”
By way of references for the movie’s extra horror-leaning later stretches, Polinger needed to mix the texture of Eighties and aughts coming-of-age teen films with a extra genre-oriented sensibility (comparisons to “Black Swan,” ultimately, are invited).
“I like these films about boys, although I typically really feel like lots of films about younger boys are both somewhat extra kind of broey hangout or somewhat extra nostalgic, sort of biking-around-the-suburbs sort of factor,” he mentioned. Films like Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” and Julia Ducournau’s “Uncooked,” he mentioned, “seize a social dread and vulnerability of your physique and one thing you don’t see as a lot with boys as a result of it requires a sure vulnerability to be an object of terror in that method… I used to be even some kind of dread-filled, ‘Shining’ daylight sorts of horror films, [with] large imposing areas.”
Films about army conditions, like Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Steel Jacket,” additionally got here to thoughts. Even Claire Denis’ “Beau Travail,” which is “such an unimaginable exploration of masculinity.”
Each rising indie filmmaker nowadays needs to shoot on movie — who doesn’t? — which is usually a large upfront non-negotiable from a first-time director. However “The Plague” advantages from that celluloid contact, making the film like a grainy reminiscence of a foul dream. “It was fairly difficult. We needed to discover some extra funds to do it. We bought lots of assist from Kodak. [It was] positively onerous, and particularly with youngsters and swimming pools and all the opposite variables that add extra time, and having tight days. The movie [aspect] simply added a complete different wrench into it,” Polinger mentioned, although “The Plague” did shoot throughout a sweltering summertime when the child actors have been out of faculty.
Taking pictures on movie, although, he mentioned, “simply made it really feel magical. We have been capturing one thing that felt timeless and, to me, there’s no comparability. It appears to be like so nice to shoot on movie, and these youngsters’ faces and closeups simply rendered in such an exquisite method.”
“The Plague” will search a distributor at Cannes, although Polinger already has wind in his sails with one other film lined up, and at A24: an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Pink Loss of life” starring Sydney Sweeney. “The Plague,” which Polinger needs to be seen in theaters, could be a sensible match for any distributor searching for a dangerous style providing, and one that provides no straightforward solutions in regards to the prickly (and, sure, pimply) perils of adolescence.
“The Plague” premieres at Cannes on Thursday, Might 16. It’s at the moment looking for U.S. distribution.