PEOPLE & SOCIETY: INTERVIEW
Modern Mystic: Charlotte Colbert
Horror Movies, Psychology And The Wisdom of The Kogi Tribe
BY JOHN-PAUL PRYOR
Charlotte Colbert is a multi-media artist celebrated for sculptural interventions that explore feminist critique and modern womanhood. It’s perhaps unsurprising then that her debut foray into the celluloid realm, which recently premiered at the BFI London Film Festival, places the historical abuse and subjugation of women center frame. She Will incarnates the rage of thousands or women burned at the stake via a tortuous psychological web involving a veteran iconic actor (played with verve and grace by Alice Krige) reliving the trauma and abuse she suffered at the hands of a narcissistic film director (played by genuine icon Malcolm McDowell) as a child star. Set mainly in a somewhat bizarre retreat in Scotland, where the protagonist’s convalescence from breast cancer turns into a powerful and sentient nightmare out for revenge, the film is something of an homage to the great psychological horrors of the 1970s, such as Suspiria and Possession (in fact, legend Dario Argento was so taken with the film, he jumped in as an executive producer). Here, the artist and emerging director talks to Flaunt about exploring collective trauma, why non-linear narratives are a more authentic representation of reality, and explains why you might just be able to dream your way to vengeance.
What made you wish to make you want to explore the genre of horror with your directorial debut?
I think that maybe you can take a bit more risk with horror. They’re really creative as a form, because they allow you to push an aesthetic idea more and play with the visuals, and the audience will just accept it. I do sometimes wonder whether the kind of non-linear narratives prevalent in horror are actually a bit closer to how we experience life in our heads. I mean, the way we experience reality as individuals is so complicated, and so overwhelmingly complex, non? It's weird, because even as I'm thinking about this, it's making me wonder how we even define the genre. I watched The Father recently, which is presented as a drama, but that film is really a psychological horror.
“Femininity is important to me. I consider woman as the source of creation, in a way – the bringer of life.”
Are there any ideas in psychology that you particularly wanted to explore?
I really love the psychologist RD Laing. He has this amazing thing where he says that you only ever experience trauma as a presence in real time, and that was really key to the film. Your mind never acknowledges the fact that a traumatic event happened in the past, you just re-experience it in the now, so it explodes notions of linear time—everything just seems to happen at that same moment. I love that idea that sitting within you is you as a child, the middle aged you and the old you, all at the same time, and that they are all feeding into your present.
Did you explicitly want to dive into notions of collective consciousness?
I do love the idea that there's this big sort of cosmic soup underneath us that we can tap into, and that we're sort of all connected in one big messy blob. If you speak to nuns and people like that, then they really believe that prayer helps the world and has an actual, real life effect in terms of making the world a better place, and sometimes I’m sure we all wonder if our intention in thinking about something actually affects it. The film definitely explores that, and it leaves the question open as to whether Alice’s character is affecting the person who damaged or abused her in the past, or whether its’ the abuser himself who is dreaming, and it’s all in his mind. I like that idea of exacting revenge through dreams—it just felt really interesting to explore whether or not dreams have an actual effect in reality.
The film also explores the notion of a powerful and sentient natural world—where did that come from and how did that play into the story?
There is this notion in the script about the power of the lungs within nature, and this sort of fossilized memory of the earth where all these stories, and DNAs are crushed together in a big mush. It was really interesting tapping into this notion of one person's hurt and journey, and of them going to a physical place and connecting with the pain of that place. In a way, this woman who has been confronted with her mortality is forced to go on a journey, where she relives the trauma buried in the earth by connecting to the collective trauma of all the women who were burned there as witches—there's this very physical, earthy sense of reclaiming what hurt you and acknowledging it, so it can make you stronger.
Were your own ideas about the natural world shaped by your visit to the Amazon to meet the Kogi Tribe?
Well, it was amazing. I was one of eight artists dropped in the middle of the Columbian jungle to live with the Kogi Indians on a trip organized by visionary curator Mia Pfeifer. They conceive of Earth as an organic, holistic organ, a female body with nerves, and skin, a stomach and veins – and themselves, for a lack of a better analogy, as its acupuncturists or keepers of balance. They have held this responsibility for thousands of years and the entire structure of their society is based on it. But since the 70s, they have found the imbalance created by man too great to be able to regulate themselves. The whole culture believes in the curative power of ‘la palabra’ – the power of the word – very like psychoanalysis. They believe in a common unconscious, similar to what Jung plotted in his Viennese apartment at the beginning of the last century.
Do you think we are increasingly out-of-touch with our ‘natural’ humanity?
Yes. Everyone imagined the cyborg invasion would look like The Terminator, but when it really came, it was much more subtle! We have become the cyborgs. I am interested in exploring how our own physicality might be redefined as the fabric of our material and virtual worlds continue to blur. Digitalization poses the question of identity in a fresh light. How does co-existing in different worlds, the 3D physical world and the ‘other’ virtual world affect our sense of self? What new senses are available to a human who is a concentrated blend of matter and media? How can we remain autonomous in a world where we are under continual surveillance and are constantly being prodded by algorithms run by some of the richest corporations in history that have no way of making money other than to manipulate our behaviour.
Introduction & Interview by John-Paul Pryor
Find out more about Charlotte Colbert here.
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