Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.11.2018, Page 38

Something
Malevolent
This Way Comes
Olaf de Fleur on adventure and exploration
in the world of film
Words: Mulan Photo: Press Kit
Movie
Available on Netflix
Icelandic film director, script-
writer and producer, Olaf de Fleur
Johannesson, enters the interna-
tional Hollywood scene with Ma-
levolent, which launched on Net-
flix October 5th. Set in Glasgow
during the 80s, the film follows
Angela (Florence Pugh) and Jack-
son (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) in the
lead as a scam-artist sibling duo
who have an unusual way of con-
ning people: through the faking of
paranormal encounters.
Olaf ’s foray into filmmak-
ing began in his twenties. “Very
simply, I was depressed,” he ex-
plains.“Then I saw a 14-year-old
girl on television who won a dance
competition. She was asked, ‘How
did you win this dance competi-
tion?’ And she said, ‘Well, I just
trained and decided to do it.’
When I heard that, I was like, I
want to do movies. How can I do
that? I called the television sta-
tion, asked them to show me how
to record, how to edit movies, how
to do all of it.”
Just as Malevolent takes the au-
dience on a journey, Olaf is con-
tinuing on his very own adventure
of growth as a director. His 2011
self-labelled “Nordic noir” genre
film, City State, launched the self-
taught, Búðardalur-born director
from Iceland into the
world of Hollywood.
“[City State] had some
feel to it, which trans-
lated to a manager
from Los Angeles,”
he explains. Through
his 2011 film, Olaf was
invited to read the
script for Malevolent and give his
take on it. The rest is history.
Asked where he draws inspi-
ration from, Olaf smiles and de-
scribes how he imagines his ar-
tistic voice contributing a single
tone, like a key on the piano, with-
in an infinite orchestra of crea-
tions. The vivacity of life, with
its ups and downs, comes across
in the director‘s view on not just
his artistic ventures but also in
his every day outlook. “Life is an
adventure,” he confides. “That is
my tone. I wake up every day and
think, life is an adventure. Just
remembering that I‘m here to rep-
resent that one piano note. That‘s
the inspiration. And under that
inspiration is music, and in the
end is always family and friends.
That‘s why you do it.”
A Universal Theme
Presented with the opportunity
to discuss his emergence as Ice-
land‘s first-ever director of a Net-
flix horror film, it soon becomes
apparent that underlying the grim
genre of the movie, Olaf‘s work
follows a much more grounded
theme than the paranormal ele-
ments of the film would have you
believe at first glance. “On the
other the end of adventure, the
big part of any adventure, is that
life breaks your heart. It’s sup-
posed to do it,” Olaf explains. As
such, although we are being told a
metaphysical story, it is still very
much a human story
about tragedy.
Exploration
As to what’s next af-
ter Malevolent, the
director admits with
a shrug, “I never know
what I’m going to do. But it's going
to be a lot of fun. Pure fun.” Ulti-
mately, Olaf’s way forward is to
go on his own adventure, inviting
his curious audience to join him.
“It is about honouring that thing
that you’ve got so that when you
look back, even when you weren’t
aware of it, it becomes fascinat-
ing,” he describes. “It becomes an
exploration.”
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FILM
“I wake up
every day
and think,
life is an ad-
venture.”
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The film is a harrowing single-shot journey through a tragic massacre