There’s a trippy, meditative quality to filmmaker Michael Anthony Kratochvil’s sci-fi horror short Sweet Mary, Where Did You Go?, a film about an escaped convict lost in 1803 Australia who encounters two bewildering time travellers on a quest to understand mortality. It’s a quality achieved through the combination of the short’s wide anamorphic look, carefully deliberate pacing, and the haunting yet serene musical score. With all that said, attempting to describe the short definitely feels like a futile exercise as it is truly its own entity and a piece of pure artistic expression. We’re excited to share Kratochvil’s film on DN today accompanied by a fascinating conversation with the filmmaker about the creative rut that inspired the short, the challenges of shooting in the remote rural regions of Australia, and the task of fine-tuning the grade in order create a strong dissonance with the story’s darkest moments.
Sweet Mary, Where Did You Go? is such a hard film to pin down and categorise in terms of genre. Where does a project like this begin for you?
Sweet Mary, Where Did You Go? came out of a challenging time in my life, where I was going through a personal crisis. At the same time, I was stuck in script development on a variety of feature projects and hadn’t directed a short film in around seven years. I felt like I wasn’t where I wanted to be in my life and was disconnected from being a filmmaker. I wasn’t getting to see my ideas come to life and was getting tired of creating speculative worlds where I was stuck in my imagination, looking at words on the screen. I wanted to bring something to life that I could actually see. Something where I didn’t have to appease anyone else other than myself, and it could be as strange and peculiar as I wanted to be. So, I decided to self-finance and use my savings to make two films back to back that would showcase a different approach to horror, they became Sweet Mary, Where Did You Go? and I Call Upon Thee.
The idea for Sweet Mary, Where Did You Go? came out of a collection of images, and even a song, which you hear in the film. For many years, I had a random image pop into my mind of a pale man in a Jesus Christ pose standing in the Australian bush. I wondered who could find this strange being? That led to the character of Len Mortimer, who I imaged was a convict on the first failed settlement in Victoria at Sullivan Bay. I kept thinking about these character. In the shower, the melody and lyrics of Len’s song came into my mind. I recorded it on my phone and from there, everything else seemed to form out of those core elements. An image and a song.
I wanted to bring something to life that I could actually see. Something where I didn’t have to appease anyone else other than myself, and it could be as strange and peculiar as I wanted to be.
For want of a better word, I feel like it’s a vibes-heavy film. How did you develop the look and feel of the short during preproduction?
During pre-production, I worked closely with my design team to build the look and feel of the film. Myself and Cinematographer Mark Kenfield spoke a lot about the feel of the film, using the paintings of Frederick McCubbin as a core inspiration. A detailed lookbook was really helpful in ensuring that the whole team understood the look we were going for. I wanted the design of the film to feel appropriate to something you might see in an art installation. The costume design was a really important aspect of this.
Costume Designer Holly Preston and her assistant went through a variety of different looks until we settled on the look you see in the film of Dum and Dee. My brief to them was something like: body bag-chic meets religious wear meets avant-garde runway design. Holly was very detailed in ensuring Len’s costume would be period accurate to his era. Elena Lyons-Dawson, our production designer did fantastic work in creating the weapons of Dum and Dee, which both reflected each of their personalities and also the home of Len, which needed to be a triangular design. This triangular motif was an important thread that we carried across both films in a number of places.
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What was the process of collaboration like with your actors Darcy Halliday and Eliza Baker? There’s so much unsaid in the short but then there’s also singing.
I worked closely with actors Darcy Halliday and Eliza Baker in workshopping the characters of Dum & Dee, including their particular ritualistic movements I had in mind. That was a really fun time, building something that felt right to these characters. I was really lucky that both Eliza and Darcy could sing. I’ll never forget the moment I first heard them perform Len’s song; it was a very emotional moment for me. Suddenly hearing them both sing it, was a moment where I could feel this project coming to life.
A week before the shoot, the actor we had for Len the convict dropped out. So we had to find a replacement whilst in the middle of production on I Call Upon Thee. Paul de Freitas, who played The Grim Pope in I Call Upon Thee, stepped in, which ended up being a blessing. He had next to no time to rehearse but completely immersed himself in the character.
You were shooting in a remote, rural location. What challenges did you face during production?
We made Sweet Mary, Where Did You Go? along with I Call Upon Thee back-to-back, during the early months of Covid, when the world was seemingly crumbling around us. We had no idea Covid would eventuate when we started pre-production. We had to reschedule our planned shoot due to a lockdown. Just as the lockdown ended, we saw a window of time and decided to go for it. At this time, the production could have still been shut down at any moment with the government and authorities still in the process of creating rules to contain the virus. It was a now or never moment to shoot the film. It was both exhilarating and incredibly stressful. Thankfully, I had assembled a great core team, who were committed to bringing the vision to life.
It was a very challenging shoot, filming in a remote location and having to cart gear into the Australian bush and shooting day and night in all exterior locations. We only had three days to shoot, and a lot to do, including very challenging makeup effects, which Stephanie Elkington and her hair and makeup team did an amazing job of bringing to life.
What kit did you use to achieve that wide, expansive look?
We shot the film on the Alexa Mini with Hawk C Series anamorphic lenses, which helped us with creating the painterly look we had in mind. Shooting anamorphic was something that was very important to the static compositions in the film. Mark Kenfield and I worked intensively on the grade of the film, using a subtle grain to try and create the filmic look we had in mind, and trying to get the right feel in the colours. The beach sequence took us the most time in the grade, to settle on the right look and colour, to create the bright pastel look and feel of the 1920s that would feel dissonant with the bloodshed on the screen.
Shooting anamorphic was something that was very important to the static compositions in the film.
I mentioned before about the musical aspects of the short, how much tweaking around both the score and the music came during post and how long were you in post for?
Post-production lasted around six months of editing and doing an intensive sound design with Sean Kelly, which we hoped to immerse the viewer in the strange logic of the film. I was very lucky to get Benedikt Schiefer on board as a composer. I loved his music in the Brazilian film Invisible Life, and reached out to him, not expecting a reply. Thankfully he agreed to score the film. His music took the film to a whole new level. When I heard the first music he did, I couldn’t quite get my head around it, it was so alien. Then I listened again and put it into the edit, and I was totally struck by the brilliance of it. He totally exceeded what I asked for, and went beyond anything I could imagine.
By establishing a sense of calmness, we were able to go somewhere dynamically, when Dum and Dee emerge and the sense of solitude is brutally interrupted.
I put a lot of myself into making both these short films and it became a cathartic experience for me. I took a low point in my life and was able to use that experience to push through it and transform it into something positive. The film exceeded my expectations, with over 30 selections at festivals worldwide and numerous awards and has led to some exciting opportunities for feature projects.
The film is mostly shot through slow, static compositions, what drew you to tell the story this way?
I wanted the film to begin with a meditative feel, that felt like we were inside a historical painting. It felt like the best way to achieve this was to keep the camera static and give time to feel like you are there. This helped create the immersive feeling I had in mind. By establishing a sense of calmness, we were able to go somewhere dynamically, when Dum and Dee emerge and the sense of solitude is brutally interrupted. I love working with stark contrasts in cinema.
What’s the road ahead looking like for your filmmaking?
I’m aiming to make the feature film of I Call Upon Thee next year, which I’ve been working on developing for the last three years. There’s also another feature film called Service that I’m hoping can happen as well, which is a horror film set in the culinary world. I have also been working on a drama called Uncovered which will be set between Yorkshire in the UK and Vietnam, which is something totally different from what I’ve done before. And a sci-fi horror film called Militans which is set on a live telethon broadcast which I’m excited about as well. There’s also a feature adaptation of Sweet Mary which I’m finishing the script on, which takes the story into the present day. I can’t wait to venture into making feature films, which I’ve been dreaming about since I was a child. I feel like I’m finally ready to start the next stage of my career and I’m excited to see what I can achieve.
