Susan Seidelman is an independent director with a particular take on things, an individualistic view reflected in her films — an offbeat, gently comic approach that has little in common with mainstream Hollywood’s crass humour or big-budget effects blockbusters.
Her new movie, Gaudà Afternoon, is a light, witty comedy, in which Judy Davis plays an American in Barcelona who gets drawn into a complex and unconventional family situation, one fraught with deception and misdirection, and discovers something about herself in the process.
I spoke to Seidelman and to scriptwriter James Myhre, an American now resident in South Africa, about the genesis of the project.
“About five years ago,” says Seidelman, “James sent me the script and it took us about three years to get it started, because it’s not a typical Hollywood movie and it’s set in a foreign country. Right now in Hollywood character has taken a back seat to special effects.” And special effects appeal to the central audience of males in their teens and early 20s. “But,” she says, “that leaves space for independent movies, movies with a different demographic.”
Myhre had studied film at the London International Film School and worked in Hollywood in studio-based management. After several years he set up his own company to develop projects. Having bought the rights to Barbara Wilson’s novel Gaudà Afternoon, he set about trying to get it off the ground as a project for one former client, but found Hollywood unresponsive. “In the first year, we had about 40 companies passing on it. A movie with a transsexual, a transvestite, three lesbians, and a kidnapped child … and it’s a comedy! You could see the doors slamming just like that.”
Myhre wrote the script (he had worked on rewrites before, but this was his first he’d written from start to finish) and sent the first draft to Seidelman. He says he knew he wanted to work with a female director on it and “she was really the only one who came to mind. I sent it to her, and she got back to me in two days and she jumped on immediately.”
“One of the reasons I liked the script,” says Seidelman, “is that I like female protagonists and it gave me six leading ladies, all of whom were different types. And I like romps or farces with some social content. I don’t do it for political reasons, just for my personal interest. There’s a certain quirky female character I know I can bring to life.”
Financing took a while. Says Myhre: “This is still considered a gay genre movie, and it has been doing well at festivals, but it’s hard for companies to work out how to market it. With the failure of lots of gay movies, it’s hard to make any significant box office.”
Eventually the money came from Lolafilms in Spain, which was riding high at that point with the success of Belle Epoque. Myhre laughs at the fact that the producer told him Gaudà Afternoon was the “best thriller I’ve read all year”. Myhre had to tell him, “Well, actually, it’s a comedy.”
The movie has an easy, freewheeling feel, but Seidelman stuck closely to the script, which she had revised with Myhre. “I find in this kind of movie if you don’t know where you’re going, if the pieces of the puzzle don’t fit, you can get lost. You have to be precise.”
She is filled with praise for lead Davis, whom one does not often see in a comic role: “She’s very funny because she tries not to be. She’s not trying to act funny.”
Gaudà Afternoon balances its concerns neatly, smuggling issues such as motherhood and commitment into the form of a slightly skewed comedy. “It’s a light film, it’s a goof,” says Myhre.
And it’s very much a Seidelman film. As she says, “Like Desperately Seeking Susan, Gaudà Afternoon has a female protagonist who’s a little lost, and she meets someone who leads her on an adventure and gets her to loosen up a little.”