Sundance springboard
CALLING Ariel Kleiman the “Sundance Kid” may be an apt description for the up-and-coming Melbourne filmmaker.
Sundance, the American film festival held annually in Utah since 1978, has provided a front seat to the
30-year-old’s rapid rise to film industry prominence.
At this year’s festival in January, Kleiman’s debut feature film Partisan premiered to enthusiastic reception, while earning a Grand Jury nomination for Dramatic World Cinema and winning the Special Jury Prize for Cinematography.
The Sundance fairytale started at the 2010 festival when Kleiman’s short film Young Love was awarded an Honourable Mention.
Kleiman’s subsequent short Deeper than Yesterday, which doubled as his Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) graduate film, was also warmly received by Sundance in 2011 and won the Grand Jury Prize for Short Filmmaking.
Besides offering a much-respected platform to show his productions, both small and large-scale, Kleiman praises Sundance for granting him the chance to workshop Partisan at its prestigious Director’s Lab during the film’s initial development.
“Sundance holds a special place in my heart,” Kleiman tells The AJN in the build-up to his film’s release on May 28.
“They were the first festival that chose one of my short films, Young Love, my second-year film at VCA. They believed in us – I guess they saw something in that weird little film that was only seven minutes long.
“There’s no doubt that without their support this movie wouldn’t have ever got to the place it has.”
Partisan, which was four years in the making and co-scripted by Kleiman with his long-time girlfriend Sarah Cyngler, stars renowned French actor Vincent Cassel (Black Swan) as Gregori, the charismatic figure who presides over a cult-like refuge for vulnerable woman and their children.
The taut drama shows Gregori training his adopted children as personal pint-sized assassins, with the central narrative revolving around 11-year-old Alexander (Jeremy Chabriel, also French) coming to terms with a clash between his own moral compass and Gregori’s unbending, authoritarian ways.
“It’s a dark story but there’s a lot of love and light in it,” says Kleiman. “Maybe that’s what makes it disturbing, that real kind of duality with the characters. I think there’s a bit of hope in there too; it’s not a totally bleak movie.”
Mainly filmed in Victoria, with the former Soviet republic of Georgia used for exterior shots of a decaying metropolis, the film in some way echoes Kleiman’s Deeper than Yesterday, which was set aboard a Russian submarine.
Both present claustrophobic worlds where three-dimensional characters hover between civility and barbarity under the threat of violence.
While it seems a far cry from Kleiman’s childhood in a middle-class Melbourne Jewish family, the Mount Scopus Memorial College 2003 graduate points to his mother’s penchant for Alfred Hitchcock and the subversive mainstream movies of the ’90s as major influences.
“As a young kid the first filmmaker that made me aware that there even was a director was Alfred Hitchcock,” he says. “My mum was a big Hitchcock fan and his films were often on in my house. He made a really big impression on me and, coincidentally, we studied Psycho in year 12 media.
“During the ’90s a lot of the films coming out of Hollywood were by directors like Spike Jonze, David Fincher, and these kind of guys making studio films that were trying to show the audience something new, something different,” he says.
“They don’t get made as much now, but they had a huge impact on me.”
Starting off his directorial career by “filming silly videos with my friends”, Kleiman must have needed to pinch himself after signing on Cassel as the lead in his 98-minute feature debut.
“It was a totally new experience for me, because all of my short films have first-time non-professional actors,” he says. “So not only is he an amazingly professional actor, he’s a huge star too.
“I don’t know if I just got lucky but he gave himself over 100 per cent to the movie and the vision. He has this amazing presence that raises the bar and intensity for everyone there.”
On the other side was Cassel’s co-star and first-time actor Chabriel, who shocked Kleiman with maturity beyond his years.
“In many ways I feel he was more mature than Vincent and I,” Kleiman says, laughing.
So did the experience of steering his first feature, from working with paid actors to managing an expensive set and an expansive staff, live up to expectations?
“Every day in filmmaking can have the highest highs and the lowest lows,” says Kleiman. “At times it’s very traumatic. But the mind has a pretty good ability of forgetting pain, so I’m really excited to start something new.”
There’s no telling if he can continue to thrive in the volatile filmmaking industry. But one thing is certain: Sundance is justified for believing in Ariel Kleiman.
Partisan is currently screening.
REPORT by Adam Blau
PHOTO: A tender moment between Vincent Cassel and young Jeremy Chabriel in Partisan.
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