Many of Perla's actions can be understood. Not all of them, though. She is an artist and a mother, she loves two men and has
rebelled against a regime; when she makes a decision, it is based on her gut feeling – and most of all, it is her own decision.
In her second feature film, PERLA, Alexandra Makarová has created a powerful and ambivalent character who takes us back to the times of the Iron Curtain and
reminds us of the worlds separated only by a shallow little river on the Austrian border, and the ways of life it managed
to prevent and destroy.
Your family roots go back to the former Czechoslovakia. To what extent has the history of your family been shaped by political
regimes?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: My personality has been influenced to a considerable extent by the history of my family. My great-grandparents fled Russia
in 1917 after the October Revolution. They had to leave everything behind, and because they took refuge in Czechoslovakia,
they were the only ones from their families who survived. That was the beginning of the refugee movement in my family. Two
days after Nazi Germany capitulated, my great-grandfather was deported to Siberia; for years afterwards, his family didn’t
even know whether he was alive or not. Following the death of Stalin, he was returned to his family in 1956 due to the intervention
of Alexander Dubček. These traumatic experiences became anchored so deep within us, they were constant elements of our lives.
For as long as I can remember, we would talk about hunger. Having to flee, being expelled or imprisoned; these things are
deep inside me. The fear of something similar happening to me is always there, no matter how unlikely it is. I am sure those
fears and modes of behaviour were passed on to us. That's why I see the roots of Perla's story in my own family.
You have set the story of PERLA in the year 1981. We now know that the end of the Warsaw Pact authoritarian regimes wasn’t
so far away at that time. What was everyday life like, what prospects were there for young people such as Perla and Andrej?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: I think history is repeating itself right now in Slovakia, in Hungary and in Georgia. People are watched to see if they demonstrate
loyalty to the regime, like back then. Children from families who were party members and had contacts could study whatever
they wanted, while those known to have parents or grandparents who opposed the regime could not. That also applied to Perla
– and to my mother, who applied to art school four times. She was rejected each time and only accepted towards the end of
the regime. There were drastic invasions of privacy. You couldn't travel or say what you thought. I chose the early 80s because
it was a slightly more hopeful time than the Stalinist 1950s or the period just after the invasions of Warsaw Pact troops.
PERLA is a film that emerged from the screenplay program If she can see it she can be it. What aspects of a self-confident
female main character did you bring to the fore when writing?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: The idea behind If she can see it she can be it is to encourage female characters that go beyond the clichéd. I put a lot
of effort into adhering to this aim – but still I caught myself repeatedly veering away towards clichés. I had to rap myself
on the knuckles again and again. What I like about Perla is her resilience and her basic trust in her intuition, regardless
of potential losses. That's the way she is. Mother, artist, rebel. She decides for herself again and again, always following
her intuition with dogged persistence. Perla isn’t unsympathetic, but she makes decisions that many people find incomprehensible.
We are all ambivalent. And I think the prevailing image of motherhood really needs to be questioned – in my case too.
To what extent do you subscribe to the idea that children have to bear the consequences of decisions taken by their parents?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: A great deal. This brings us back to transgenerational trauma, even in today's world. The decisions taken by parents always
have consequences for the children, for the rest of their lives. Naturally I was influenced by our conversations around the
dinner table about camps, hunger and wartime events. So much so that I have made a film about it. Julia, Perla's daughter,
also represents children today who end up in Europe, or other regions of the world, due to migration. I am not aware of women
starting wars, raping or pillaging. But they are the ones who have to raise a new generation, try to rebuild and pay for the
mistakes made by the patriarchy.
PERLA is also a story about the past and new beginnings. Often your shots only show segments, with elements that obstruct
the view of the whole, half-open doors. Does this tell us something about a past that is always only half closed, a present
with new beginnings that will always remain only half open?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: You could say that's absolutely the point. At a relatively early stage it became apparent that we wanted the visual language
to have an observational style; we looked for angles that were not the most obvious ones. We want to show that this woman
is always between two worlds, even though she lives in the present, keeps looking ahead and never turns back. We work a lot
with mirrors, because she also has to live with her guilt, with the knowledge of what she left behind. At the same time, she
has this longing for home that nothing can replace. The cameraman Georg Weiss and I worked together very intensively, with
great respect for this project. It took us a long time to decide which colours should dominate, what the collective memory
of that period looks like – because it doesn't always correspond to what it actually looked like. One important insight we
gained from PERLA is how crucial costumes are for the visual tone, especially in a historical film. Our colour palette focused
more on the 50s and Kodachrome.
The Czechoslovakian hotel is one of the most striking places in the film. How hard was it to find locations for a film about
the early 80s?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: The most obvious idea would have been to convey the dreariness by using prefabricated concrete structures. I didn't want
that. It’s not true that the whole of Czechoslovakia consisted of prefabricated buildings. I deliberately chose somewhere
with faded glamour, partly to show that this world isn’t so far from our own; it was just that a border had been erected.
We filmed in the spa town of Sliač, in a hotel that was a prestige project of the First Republic in Czechoslovakia. It was
a bit more difficult with the village. We finally found one where everything looked as if time had stood still. The place
was so cinematic and mysterious. However, conditions for the team were difficult. Also because of the bears, which weren’t
far away from us at that time of year. We always had two hunters on set.
Perla is a painter. You show her pictures but also the creative work involved, in the studio. You chose works by your mother
for the actual paintings. Why?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: It was important for me to show her in a completely different world. She is all alone in her studio and can do whatever she
wants; she can paint the kind of pictures in Vienna that would have been censored in the Czechoslovak Republic. Selecting
the pictures entailed a long journey. First, we had to decide which period of my mother’s paintings we wanted to take them
from, and there wasn’t so much left from the early 90s. It seemed natural to me to use my mother’s works, because I initially
based the character very firmly on her – though that changed considerably over time. The resilience, and also the hardness,
that’s from my mother, though also from many other women in my family. And at some point that applied to me, too, even if
I didn't want to admit it to myself for a long time. It was also important to me that my mother's paintings should feature
in the film, because they have the expressiveness and colour intensity that suit Perla.
The film takes on a rather nightmarish, almost unreal quality towards the end, when Perla becomes involved in a frightening
custom in her village. What is this custom all about?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: It’s a custom that’s enacted on Easter Monday. The women have water poured over them by the men or – depending how rural
the region is – they are immersed in the river or bathtubs of water in the farmyards. Then they are whipped with canes. It
is an incredibly patriarchal custom. The idea is that this procedure keeps women fresh and healthy all year round. It didn't
seem to occur to people that it was actually very intrusive. I witnessed it as a child in a village and found it scary but
also exciting; I’ve never been able to forget it. In the film it also starts almost as a joke, so you don't really know which
direction it’ll go in, but I felt it was important that it should gradually take on a horrific element. That relates to Perla's
inner horror when she finds she’s yet again being overpowered by men against her will.
Rebeka Poláková is a Slovakian actress. How did you discover her for the leading role? What demands did this part place on
the actress?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: I didn't have a concrete idea about Perla's appearance. I was completely open, but I wanted an actress with a very indefinable
quality. The idea was that you shouldn’t know for a long time who this woman really is. Rebeka achieved that in an almost
eerie way. She always looks different, she has great presence and distinction, but you can never quite classify her. There
is something mysterious about it. PERLA was a challenge for several reasons, because she comes from a theatre background and
doesn't speak German. She had to learn German phonetically, which worked incredibly well. And she had to submerge herself
in a character who experiences a lot of pain. We often talked about how we'd like to have more of Perla's resilience, more
of her strength, even though it borders on madness.
You yourself lived in Czechoslovakia when you were a little child. What did it mean for you to immerse yourself in that time,
in that language, and to shoot in the country of your early childhood?
ALEXANDRA MAKAROVÁ: The language wasn’t so much of an issue, but the very personal roots of the story became apparent to me. When I want something
– I'm not unlike Perla in that way – I don't think much at first about whether it’s frightening. I just do it, also because
I'm very stubborn. At first, I didn't think about how personal this story is. But it’s really based on so many women in my
family. I often wondered why I was reckless enough to choose such a personal topic. But it also had a kind of cathartic effect.
Interview: Karin Schiefer
January 2025
