Luna Carmoon: “We all know how complex people are”

Luna Carmoon: I was about 14 years old when I caught the bug and had to watch three films a day. I was obsessed with it. During that time, I was trying to find films that could explain my feelings. I was going through these fast, rough and violent phases of puberty and came across movies like Dogtooth or Wetlands that really got under my skin. Suddenly, I discovered more and more of these rabbit holes, far away from the mainstream cinema. In my later teens, I realized more and more that I wanted to be a director. I took part in a program that was intended for people who couldn’t afford university and had no prior experience. There, they gave me the chance to write my first work of fiction without any expertise. I had only one week to note it down and film it – my entry into the industry.

To me, the greatest translation of the human condition, everything we take in as emotion, sound, taste and experience, is the closest thing to film. I think that’s why I’m so drawn to it. We want to connect with people and I feel that words and dialogue are the ultimate way for me. I have no interest in telling anyone how to feel, but I’m convinced that film is the only medium that could do that. Now I’m obsessed with it and I can’t stop.

Oh, absolutely! Sometimes, when it got too much for me at home or at school, I just wanted to crawl into my bed and watch those three films. I’d often start the day thinking about what films I was going to watch. As soon as I got home from school (or if I skipped school completely) I would dive into my own world and leave all other problems out there. That’s the genius of it – all it takes is a TV or a computer to get somewhere else. Cinema is like meditation for me, it brings up all my emotions and I find myself in tears during a film. Something strange happens inside me, and I just start crying and feeling myself. It’s as if there’s some kind of processing program in me at the sight of a film.

Film allows feelings to leave my body.

I remember when I saw the first trailer for it. I really waited months for it to finally appear on a legal streaming website with English subtitles. And I loved the film from the beginning, I loved seeing girls like that – gorgeous, sticky, wild and feral. As they are. Later on, I also watched a lot of Charlotte Roche’s interviews and studied them. Even today, I still think about this film very often, I have to admit. It was like an explosion to me at the time.

I think because I started writing so early, I was much closer to that period. Both are coming-of-age films. A lot of what I do is personal, or based on my personal experiences. Making these films was like a dance in which I stripped away the past piece by piece. A natural evolution. There is so much that happens during this time, so much that develops and changes within us. But I’m also ready for the responsibility now that I’m slowly but surely approaching my 30s. I want to see women older than me on screen. Even though I feel like a 14-year-old, at the same time, I could also be 40 or 80 years old.

Oh my gosh, my ego is something I always thought I had killed, but I haven’t. I feel like I’ve always known who I am, but I’ve also felt insecure in my skin – not just in a physical way, but in a way that made me feel quite extrinsic in my own body, even as a child. Maybe that was because I wanted to feel a lot of things about my ego physically, to be seen substantially. In my family, I was raised to like myself in a very healthy, honest way and to be whoever I wanted to be. I can’t give them enough credit for that. This approach allowed me to develop a strong sense of identity, good and bad. I am very grounded and somehow don’t want too much from life. Love, maybe. And I love watching films, making myself something nice to eat, a walk, ice cream, DVDs. I don’t need to be fed much; I get a lot of food from outside and think I have a balanced, good diet of life as a result.

To be honest, I really don’t know. Writing was something I took for granted somewhere along the line. I managed to write an incredible amount, from poems to stories to diary entries. Everything that raged through my mind I put down on paper, but only for myself. When, as a teenager, the problems in my head started, writing helped me to understand what was going on up there. There is often a ruthless honesty about what we put down on paper. And many people don’t like this kind of truth, it’s often things they don’t want to admit or simply don’t want to deal with. I don’t tell them to do that either. But I notice that my films provoke a pretty clear reaction, people either love or hate the supposed realities I show them.

I was bullied at school, so people’s opinions don’t really bother me too much these days. I have this good inner compass with myself, I know who I am, what I like and what I want to surround myself with. It doesn’t make me waver. My older sister always told me that I should take a leaf out of anyone else’s book who is a really good role model. There’s no point in worrying about what other people think; be a decent person and treat other people the way you want to be treated. I don’t really care what other people think because I’m really happy and I’ve created something that fulfills me. Perhaps I am detached from negative opinions about my work because I am satisfied with it. And I satisfy my younger self with it as well.

It is the consequence of our own insecurities. I think that insecurity is the real evil of the world; it is the reason why everything is the way it is. Insecurity leads to violence, generates aggression and hatred. If people were taught to like themselves more and accept the people around them, then we wouldn’t be as hateful as we are. And that’s spreading more and more. It’s a strange place to live, planet Earth, at the moment, isn’t it?

It is destroying our planet and people in so many different ways.

There are some British TV shows, very exploitative “documentary series,” about the topic. TV hosts coming in, making people feel super bad about themselves just because they have this problem. When I was researching the topic, the phrase that stuck with me was that people can hurt you, but things can make you feel better. It became the synthesis, especially for the character of the mother. Each character is the essence of someone I knew, someone I grew up with, becoming an amalgamation of different people.

I wanted to explore the theme without judgement. Hoarding is also a consequence of the Second World War, when people had nothing and then kept everything. And there’s also something animalistic about having a nest and building your sanctuary around you.

I can empathize with that and I’m definitely a maximalist. The film is also a retaliation against minimalism, which was very present at that time. It’s nice to keep things that belong to you, your family or your friends. These things are in your possession for a reason. I like my things and I take care of them, they speak to me and make me feel more myself.

The basic idea when I wrote the story originally was that it sort of reeked of trauma and you can literally smell it on each other. But also that not all traumas are the same and that it can often get lost in translation when two people are quite damaged and don’t confront these shadows inside them, which can almost lead to a sort of implosion. It resembles a gift to finally be able to smell that on someone else. It’s like this gas, this odor, a false sense of security. You feel like you understand each other, you connect on an animalistic level, which is beautiful but dangerous at the same time.

It’s kind of a product of the time I grew up in, where there wasn’t a real understanding of mental health. What I’ve seen these people feel, there’s not always the words or the educational language to articulate and express that. And so we end up going back into these animalistic tendencies. What happens when you don’t have a language to express your feelings? Violence, aggression, behaving as if you have not been socialized accordingly. You go back to instinctive behavior because you can no longer communicate, but you also find yourself in a world that is not animalistic enough to facilitate that either.

I have to honestly admit that I don’t condone Maria’s and Michael’s relationship. I’m also very aware of the age difference – she’s 16 and he’s 30. I didn’t write it that way because I think it’s romantic and I don’t like him as a character, but it makes sense to me, it makes sense in a world that I come from and that we live in. I am not aiming to make films for now, but for eternity. I used to experience this kind of encounter, the girls I grew up with secretly got into cars with these men, went out with them, were “groomed” by them. They are led by this deceptive belief that they are in control and that they have autonomy, but actually, it’s children and adults. However, I don’t want to tell anyone what to think or feel about a character. Actually, we all know how complex people are and so there are many people who empathize with the character of Michael, or even like him. I also have to make this concession to the audience.

Raw meat and the insides of bodies!