Tea time with Hillbrow
An interview with Nicolas Boone, director of Hillbrow
Hillbrow begins with an attack in the street where it seems that the person being attacked refuses to retaliate. Why did you decide to begin the film with this sequence?
To follow this person on his urban path gives a good overview of the Hillbrow neighborhood. We see guarded bus stops, churches, chickens, guys repairing their cars… the shot ends with the attack, and yes, once the victim is taken to the ground, he doesn’t move anymore, because the attacker is pressing hard on his larynx, which could cause unconsciousness, even death. It’s a combat technique!
After this sequence, Hillbrow continues with a very long travelling shot through the neighborhood. How did you contrive this? What system did you use from a technical point of view?
I wanted to work again with Chris Vermaak. I showed him drawings and photos that I had made of the route and we systematically visited the different places to consider the technical possibilities. We filmed everything with a camera, but one of his many talents is his mastery of the Steadicam.
One of my previous films, Les Dépossédés (2013), already consisted of sequence shots. For me, it is a solution to the editing problem, and I have to imagine the entire rhythm of the shot before filming. And I love it when the filming becomes a performance. It reminds me of my first films which were nothing but shooting.
During filming, there were 5 technicians (camera man, focus puller, key grip, sound engineer, sound assistant), 2 bad boys (provided by the mafia for protection in the neighborhood), 2 fixers, my loyal assistant Roman Flizot, and me.
Each sequence begins and ends with a static shot. During editing, Philippe Rouy and I combined the sequences. We found the right connections between the shots which gave sense to the global structure of the film.
Where did the desire to shoot in Johannesburg come from?
In September 2012, I conducted a workshop called Eat My Dust, which is a film workshop for young people, based in the Kliptown township in Soweto. To make a sequence shot, we called on “Steadicamer” Chris Vermaak. It was a decisive encounter for what followed.
During that first visit, I had the time to discover several neighborhoods in Johannesburg. For a day, I walked through Hillbrow and felt it had cinematic potential: the labyrinthine structure and the density of the place inspired me. The aspect of movement in the neighborhood too. This was confirmed during filming: with every identical shot, the street was different.
The houses in Hillbrow seem to connect to each other across endless arcades… Did you discover this maze by chance while strolling through the neighborhood, or did you use a map or a guide the explore it?
During the scouting of the neighborhood, I walked a lot and was accompanied by young people from the neighborhood, and I tried to see all I could. I asked them to take me on the roofs of buildings, in cellars, in the squatter settlements. I wanted to get to the heart of the neighborhood, or try to exhaust the cinematic potential of the area. I found a large number of labyrinths. The scouting experience is very similar to that of the filming.
When you were planning Hillbrow, did you interview the inhabitants? Why didn’t you make their voices heard?
In Johannesburg, I met Marcus Mabusela, who directs theater shows with the junkies and prostitutes in Hillbrow, and he became one of the fixers (guides that enable access to the neighborhood) of the film. Together, we visited the squatting settlement from the film and spoke to the inhabitants. The choice was quickly made not to direct them. The less I said to them about the film, the better it was. The screenplay doesn’t include any dialogue, but they all started speaking at once, it was good.
In Hillbrow, we see certain young people getting rich at the expense of their fellow citizens. Where are those children from? Why don’t they have parents? Why aren’t they supported by the city or the country?
In the Hillbrow neighborhood, there is a street where all the children sleep. I moved that place to the unfinished house. At night, they go to bed. Where do they come from? We don’t know, it’s off-camera. Perhaps they’re returning from work?
In all the scenes, the characters, the places, the action, the accessories are slightly amplified, projected into a more dreamlike/fictive universe. The actors, the neighborhood inhabitants, are directed very little. Theirs is a floating interpretation in which their costumes also play an important role.
Sometimes, the action moves to a different place. For example, the many stories we collected about hold-ups during the scouting of the film are transposed into cinema. The accessories, at times excessive, help the actors to find a position of interpretation and allow the scene to develop. The architecture circulates the natural light and increases the smothering feeling that the characters seem to suffer from.
The skaters overplay their roles, emptying stolen bags of their content: the cigarettes they light and the money they stick in their pockets, before finding refuge in a boxing club. The thief at the grocery store, given his muscular physique, doesn’t seem to be starving even though he is stealing cans of food. He seems more like a player who takes pleasure in observing the people who are chasing him. In a parking garage, a guy comes to pick up a yellow plastic bag hidden in a basement with an almost lunar appearance. The guy checks the contents of the bag before disappearing in a stairway. A situation that can be found in many action films becomes the pretext for a cosmic journey. In the cinema, the “ushers” are replaced by robbers.
In the stadium, the old man holds onto his gun like a patriarch holds his baton, and with all the energy he has left, he looks for a place to die, to collapse. and he climbs one last staircase to hide away.
This stadium, a symbol of effort, of fair play, and of a space intended for youth seems forgotten like a distant castle in a fairy tale. It seems abandoned. Did you stage this or did you find it this way?
It is the stadium that was built for the 2010 World Cup, but it is already dilapidated! From the top of the stadium, we have a nice view of Hillbrow.
In Hillbrow, we see an abandoned parking lot full of ruins. It seems to have collapsed? What is the story behind this building?
This building is the Ponte Tower. We see the tower from outside three times in the film. It was built in the 1980s,. It was an architectural dream that never worked. It contains 400 apartments. Today, it is partially a squatting settlement. This hollow tower is built on a large rock, and inside, you really have the impression of being inside a modern cave.
In your street scenes, we see white people, but in the action, only blacks appear on the screen. Why did you decide this? Is it an activist choice?
The population of Hillbrow is 100% black. There are no more whites.
As you climb towards the rooftops, the attitudes of your characters become more disturbing and unacceptable. Hillbrow gives the impression that the higher we climb, the more we descend in our respect for our fellow man, until the point where there is none at all. Did you intend this effect?
Yes, a transverse vision even. Every shot is a stroke that ends up painting a picture, or a imprint of the neighborhood. The lines follow the relief of the rough terrain and the levels of architecture… curves, hallways, stairways, spirals, zigzags are made… the film constantly climbs and descends.
Finally, Hillbrow is a French production. In your opinion, what does French short film production have that the others don’t?
Hillbrow was produced by Tournage 3000, who have produced all my films up to now, and who provide me with complete freedom in the both the writing and making of my films.
