If The Assistant, the first feature film by documentary filmmaker Kitty Green, addressed the abuse of power, workplace harassment, sexual scandals in the film industry and complicit silences with Julia Garner as the protagonist, the Australian director once again has the award-winning actress from the series Ozark to continue talking about sexist violence in Hotel Royal. “The truth is that it is a coincidence that both films deal with abuse of women at work. I suppose I tend towards this type of gender issues, but I don’t have a political agenda with my films.”
This drama about toxic masculinity, which competed in the official section of the San Sebastian Festival and hits theaters this Friday, follows Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick), two American friends who travel as backpackers through Australia. After running out of money and aiming for an adventure, Liv convinces Hanna to work temporarily behind the bar at a pub called The Royal Hotel, in a remote mining town. In that run-down place, the bar owner and a group of locals push them into a wild introduction into Australia’s alcohol culture, but soon the friends will find themselves trapped in an increasingly uncomfortable situation that is beyond their control.
“A few years ago I saw a very harsh documentary at a local festival in Australia about two Finnish girls who settled in a pub in a remote area of ??the country to make some money and suffered harassment and abuse from the men there,” Green comments in conversation with this newspaper about the origin of his second film. “I thought it was interesting to show a place like this and this type of man from the point of view of two young people,” she adds.
American critics called The Assistant “the first great film about the
Hannah “is more cautious and Liv wants more freedom, wants to have fun and enjoys the interactions with these new people she meets. She sees the best in everyone and Hannah sees the worst.” The film shows how the lascivious gaze of those alcohol-addicted locals believe they have the right to sexually harass these low-income girls to a point where the tension of the story takes on overtones of terror. However, Green’s camera does not dwell on explicit violence. “Anyone who has traveled backpacking has surely encountered risky situations, when we see the image of two backpacking girls in a movie we assume that they are going to die and I wanted to challenge that image, I thought that showing the threat was scary enough. These men form part of a type of culture in which once they drink too much there are no rules and everything can speed up. And the fact that they are in a pub isolated is scarier. The film is about how to say ‘no’ before things go further. To start a conversation about what we tolerate, accept and what we put up with as women.”
Green is delighted with the work of Garner, who has a really hard time in the film. And it is her character who has to think about how to escape from an experience that has become hell and she must manage to get out alive when everything goes out of control. “After The Assistant I wanted to collaborate with her again. I knew she fit the role and it was very easy. We have a very good and close friendship and I hope we work again on my next project,” she concludes.
