Tharun Mohan’s first feature movie, The Darkness (previously known as Dorcha) is now out, and the director chatted with Paul Simpson about its creation…

 

Has The Darkness achieved what you wanted to achieve?

It’s a good question because the whole of the experience for me was a learning curve in its own right because it’s my first feature film. The biggest challenge was of course to write something where we have some period stuff incorporated in it. With period comes big budget and we didn’t have that budget. So considering what we had access to, the people we had, the amazing people we worked with and the amount of time we gave ourselves to make this film, I think we really achieved what we should have.

Probably at some point I think I bit off more than I could chew but when I watch it, I just say “You know what? I did what I could have done” and I’m pretty happy with it.

As far as the story’s concerned, in part the viewers can think what happened was in fact supernatural or it wasn’t. It’s up to people to make that decision in their own head.

What was the original seed of the idea – the split time period or the changeling?

Funnily enough the changeling came first in the original script which I wrote for The Darkness. Almost everything was period – probably about 70% of the film was period. The original idea was completely changeling. It was a bit darker in the original and it had a little bit more to the sacrifices and the witchcraft so we changed that element and shifted it around.

How long ago did you write the original script?

The original script was in 2018 which was for a short film because I also make short films. The ending of the movie was the whole of the short film really. Then gradually that expanded into the feature script.

What made you want to expand it? Was it just simply that you felt there was more in the idea and you didn’t want to let it just be a short?

Yes, absolutely. I wanted to make a feature film and I was thinking “What time is the right time?” That’s one of those tough questions – it never is the right time so I might as well do it now.

Then my focus point was: what shall I write? At that point something that was close to my heart was the concept of this changeling and I thought, OK, let me make a version of that that I can adapt into a feature film.

I always loved this idea of dark revenge and of writing something that hovers around a theme of revenge that’s split by a century. If you mix that up with a little bit of a supernatural element then it could be even more thrilling.

What’s the attraction of changelings?

Funnily enough I was never aware of this concept of the changeling until 2008 when I was at university. because I was born in India and we have similar things but called different things. When someone says “changeling” it doesn’t appear to be daunting or related to ghosts or even mythology.

I came to know about it when I was in university and I was going to Durham on a coach. There was this amazing old lady who was telling me about mythology. She told me what changelings are: she was talking about her grandfather who had ten kids. Three of them passed away unfortunately but her grandmother used to say ‘They were taken by changelings’. I was like OK what’s a changeling?’

‘Oh you don’t know what a changeling is?’ She started telling me different stories about changelings – I was captivated by it.

I never knew such phenomena existed. There are differences in phenomena in every place you go, different names for things, but changeling was completely something new for me at that time.

The funny thing about the changeling is the core theme or purpose of a changeling can differ from people to people and person to person. Back in the day when kids went missing. or if one of your kids maybe had some issues mentally, people used to blame that on changelings saying ‘Oh it’s been taken by or replaced by a changeling’ – to the point where they would take drastic steps like killing their own children, thinking they’re changelings.

There was a far bigger fear of the devil in those days, and to an audience even 100 years ago the idea of something that was replaced by the devil, even amongst intelligent people, wasn’t just thrown away as a nonsense idea.

That’s true and the more you think about it, even now you can put that concept into anything and it would just work, it’s amazing.

What was the biggest challenge for you in the preparation for filming?

The location because every time I was writing this, the script just got bigger and bigger, and obviously we had such a small budget to work with so had to tailor make a few changes to adapt the script to the budget. Our budget would be similar to what a studio might pay for transportation fees!

We had to find a location that suits the film.  We kept travelling around location scouting and halfway through scripting, we found this house. I visited that house three or four times and some of the scenes were written in the house itself.

Luckily that had everything that was original and hadn’t really changed much. The biggest problem in many of those period houses is you go and they all have modern windows, the floor’s changed, everything’s changed. But I could actually go to this house and stay there overnight and some of the creepy scenes in the kitchen, I could actually write when I was there. which really helped me.

Is the script one that you could hand over to somebody else to direct? Would they be able to understand it?

I think this was one of those ideas that probably it’s easier for me to direct. So if I hand it over to somebody else the outcome might not be the same.

You’re saying fundamentally it would be different?

Yes, probably more when we get to the point where we discover more about what’s actually happening: towards the second half of the film when it’s quite fast paced and a lot of things are happening, a lot of revelations are being made and at the same time there are some isolated characters that are having their own little personal issues.

If someone else had directed it the viewpoint might have shifted, whereas I wanted to make sure my focal point stays with Lisa throughout the transformation. Everything happens around her, you don’t necessarily have to cast a lot of light on it. Lisa drags the movie with her: it starts off with everybody in it and then gradually towards the last twenty minutes it’s all her.

A role like that is obviously putting a lot of weight on the actor’s shoulders. Did you shoot it moderately chronologically to aid with that transformation or were you obliged to do it more standard ‘Right we’re shooting this block here, this block here, this block here’?

I originally wanted to do it chronologically but our AD said ‘We won’t be able to achieve what we want’ at least in the given space of time. So we had to do it the standard way.

However to make the life of Amelia who plays Lisa easier, what we did was we made a chart, a percentage index, saying to what percent she was possessed at any given page of the script. So she had that and she could act and she could say for instance ‘OK, now I’m 50% Niamh, then should I speak like this? Should my eyes be like this?’.

So she used to give me certain ways ‘This is me 0%, this is me 50% and this is me 100%’ and we went with it. Every time she has a call sheet she knows exactly what percentage of that possession she should be taking on board, so that really helped.

How much did it alter through shooting? Is it still fundamentally what it began as?

I think most of the stuff that changed was the bits where we needed VFX. When I initially wrote it I was thinking OK, we should be able to pull this off, but when we started making a schedule we realised some of these things might not happen. I probably compromised about 10% of that, that I could have potentially added with the use and aid of VFX.

Otherwise? I would say it’s almost true to the script. Luckily I had access to the location when I was writing it which really helped.

What about when you were editing?

I doubt we had to change a lot of things; however we did do a pickup, which is probably an extra five minute scene which really helped once the movie was completed.

Was that for exposition purposes or for atmosphere?

Atmosphere – and we thought we were not being fair to the characters who live in the period era, Brian and Niamh. We had to show a little element of personalisation, so that’s where we shot one of those scenes where David is in the woods doing his thing with an axe and Niamh walks in and they have the conversation. It ended up being in the trailer.

Looking back at this in ten years, what do you think is the moment that you’re going to look back on with the fondest memory?

From this film I think one of the greatest memories was working with the team, who actually understood what we were working on. Everybody understood each other’s language and everybody had their own space – no one complained and everyone enjoyed that process.

I thought it was going to be really daunting, but somehow everyone worked with each other so well, to the point where since then I actually worked with the same crew three times on different projects. I guess ten years from now, I’m still going to be in a pub drinking with them. That doesn’t mean I’m going to work with them continuously, might not happen but I can still have a laugh with them.

Same goes for the cast as well: we’re all still connected, we still all talk, we email each other. I think maybe my fondest memory might be meeting these people more than anything else. These people who believed in this journey, especially me being a first time director. To believe in my journey and work with me

I think that’s my fondest memory: the people.

 

The Darkness is out now on digital platforms