‘Rosebush Pruning’ from Karim Aïnouz is ‘risky’ and ‘destabilizing,’ but he wants it to be fun – AOL

Featuring a cast of particularly beloved actors, including Callum Turner, Elle Fanning, Lukas Gage, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Tracy Letts and Pamela Anderson, Rosebush Pruning (now in theatres) is indicative of director Karim Aïnouz’s commitment to disrupting the status quo of filmmaking, even if it doesn’t result in overwhelmingly glowing reviews. Loosely adapted from Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 film Fists In The Pocket, Aïnouz maintains the movie’s rebellious spirit in this story about a wealthy white family in Catalonia, Spain, exploring the intricacies of their damaged dynamics, never shying away from the absurdities.

“I find it very interesting that people are disturbed by the movie, but they’re not disturbed by what’s happening every day, particularly in the Western world, … [and] all over the world,” Aïnouz told Yahoo Canada. “It’s very risky, because to sign a contract with an audience in the beginning that it’s about empathy, we’ve been there, we know how to do this, it works really well, and that’s why cinema is so beautiful and so potent. But when that contract is not clear, and that contract is about discomfort, for me, it was this fine line.”

“It’s so funny, because when I go to screenings of this film, I feel like a little child asking, … ‘It was really fun, right?’ That’s the first thing I ask people. … I make sure it was fun because then there was so much under the fun. … I think there was this wish to engage in a way that creates a sense of questioning. ‘Whoa, am I supposed to be laughing about this, or am I supposed to be disgusted by this?’ … It was super important as a way to denaturalize the way that we’re treating these absurdities going on. … When you have the possibility of locking someone in a room for an hour and a half, I think that, for me, was the experiment.”

Whiteness, privilege and toxic masculinity: ‘It’s an exponential recipe for a really horrible poison’

While Aïnouz didn’t specifically set out to do this, with his 2023 film Firebrand, then Motel Destino in 2024, and now Rosebush Pruning, it has resulted in a trilogy of films that interrogate toxic male characters, and specifically in Rosebush Pruning, looking at whiteness and privilege.

“I think it stems from this utter shock that I have every morning when I wake up and I read the news, at least in the last few years. … It was these recurring images of men who are not only abusive, patriarchal, but also super rich,” Aïnouz said. “It’s an exponential recipe for a really horrible poison.”

“I think on this one, I was really interested in … when whiteness mixes up with privilege and super wealth. I think there are a lot of monsters out there, and they are monsters that are made of flesh and bone. … I’m trying to understand what they are and where they came from. But I think here, instead of looking at the genealogy of those monsters, two things were important. That they are people like us, so we … cannot pretend that they are from another species. … And I think that the other thing that for me was really important was … this combustion of all these strands of masculinity and wealth and so on, … but at the same time, to not judge. It was very important that what they did was very concrete and in the present. … That these things are happening … not in a castle. It’s not in a motel. It’s in a privileged house.”

And it was through this view of the characters in Rosebush Pruning that the question of absurdity came up for Aïnouz.

“I’ll never forget this. … I woke up on the third of January, and there was the invasion of Venezuela. I’m just thinking, this is not real,” he said. “The question of absurdity alongside this kind of autopsy of the patriarch, and of the super-rich patriarch, was something that, it was there, but it was not like, oh I’m set up to do a movie about this theme. These themes were really contaminating the story.”

While RosebushPruning has often been described as a “dysfunctional family” story, that language may be too soft, as it’s more of a damaged family film.

But with that come questions about how this cycle of damage can come to an end, or how someone can escape it, and in Aïnouz’s film, it’s love that provides that element of hope. Aïnouz also really focused on the music to provide a sense of “catharsis” by the end of the film.

But the concept of “revenge” and violence stemming from it was also important to him.

“I think you cannot break the cycle without violence, because it’s not you infringing violence, it’s been infringed upon you for ages and ages,” Aïnouz said.

‘It was the most exciting ride I’ve ever had making a movie’

Aïnouz described watching experimental films as “transformative” for him, and it’s the impact of that kind of that disruptive filmmaking that he wants to preserve.

“You can’t just say no to narration. You can’t say no to linear storytelling. So, what was really exciting [with Rosebush Pruning], it was pushing the boundaries, but more than that, … it’s this negotiation of having a line which is clear,” Aïnouz said. “I’m flirting with different genres, but at the same time there was another layer that for me was super important, … the unconscious. I think it’s very important when a story can embrace the unconscious, when it’s not only about the classic Aristotelian structure of storytelling.”

“But it’s so risky, because it’s very destabilizing, but that’s why I keep asking that question, ‘Did you have fun?’ Because I want to make sure that I’m also not imposing something on an audience, … but it’s a constant negotiation almost at every frame with this film. But I have to tell you, it was the most exciting ride I’ve ever had making a movie, just because there were a lot of questions, … there was a lot of beauty, there was a lot of imagination, there was something visually that was also super delicious.”