Blue Underground is such a wonderful DVD company. The company was founded by cult filmmaker William Lustig after he left Anchor Bay Entertainment. Every single time I hit their website I discover a new gem. Most recently they are pushing the foreign film, Daughters of Darkness, released in 1971 in the United States. The film is directed by Belgian filmmaker Harry Kmel and it is about a newlywed couple who while on their way to meet with the grooms parents stop at lonely but beautiful hotel. Coincidentally the 300 year old vampire, Countess Bthory, and her lesbian assistant are staying in the same hotel and they seduce the young couple. I got a chance to talk with Kmel from his home in Belgium.
Buy the DVD of Daughters of Darkness
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Harry Kmel: At this present moment Im busy with my new screenplay that Im developing and that is taking quite a long time. Thats it.
DRE: Whats this movie about?
HK: Its a historical subject about something that happened in Belgium after the Second World War. We almost had a revolution in our country because some parts of the country wanted to keep the king and others didnt want to keep him. Thats in a nutshell but its more complicated than that but thats the best I can do in this context.
DRE: Do you know when youre going to be starting shooting?
HK: If everything works out as I hope this should be something for March 2008.
DRE: I had read that you werent making films anymore. Is that incorrect?
HK: No, thats completely incorrect. Im quite busy. I havent been making features for a long time because I make a lot of commercials, which as you can imagine, make more money than feature films. So that is one of the reasons why I didnt make more feature films since my last movie. Also because that last movie was not up to the standard I wanted to make it. Not through any fault of mine but I didnt want to go through that charade again except when I got the freedom to do whatever I want. I do not need to make movies in order to live you see. So I want to make them as I want and not as other people think they should be made.
DRE: Good, I agree.
HK: That is something one cannot disagree with.
DRE: What was the inspiration for Daughters of Darkness?
HK: Some young people that had made a very successful commercial film asked me to do it. Many films are propped up completely by subsidies which makes for strange movies sometimes. They wanted it to be in the style of my first feature, but commercial. So I looked for a subject and quite by accident I fell upon the story of the Countess Elizabeth Bthory and proposed that to them but they said that it was too expensive to make. Then I came upon the idea, What if the Countess were still alive and the scheme of staying young forever had succeeded? That was the point of departure and we wrote the treatment extremely quickly and the production was sold on the strength of the treatment alone because it was a combination of sex and horror, which was quite in vogue. The idea was developed in the autumn and by next summer we were already shooting. For Belgian standards it was extremely quickly.
DRE: Was the idea of female homosexuality essential to the Countess story?
HK: Well, that was more or less obvious given the subject matter. She was a lady who bathes in the blood of virgins so from there it became that she had a helper and that helper was a lesbian. It wasnt that exactly but it was more or less a given at that point. I didnt especially develop that idea but it came about as we went along. Our aim was to make as many sex scenes as possible. That was our purpose. We had to be very commercial so we needed all permutations of sex scenes. Thats often the way films are done and when they come out differently thats so much the better.
DRE: It would be difficult to talk about this film without mentioning the beautiful photography and very colorful production design. I read that you had studied as a painter.
HK: No, never. I cannot draw, absolutely not. But I try to give all my films and even my commercials a special look. Thats what Im paid for. I am very much influenced by Josef Von Sternberg. He made trashy subjects and elevated them. I use the same approach. Thats the appeal of doing genre movies. You can do a lot cinematographically because people do not expect them to be important. You can avoid being pretentious and produce films that have special meaning.
DRE: Was the hotel a set you built?
HK: Oh no. This was such a small production that we shot in five weeks on existing sets. The only thing that was built was something to match the exterior to the interior when you first walk into the hotel. The rest is all there at the location, barely touched.
DRE: When the film came out was it compared to Vampyros Lesbos?
HK: Im not aware of that but it was an extraordinary surprise that it was a runaway success, to begin with, in France. It opened in France and then it was a big success in America, all things considered for a European movie.
DRE: I had read that it was very controversial when it was released.
HK: Well it was released quite normally in the United States. Bill Lustig remembers seeing it at a very seedy place on 42nd Street when it came out. Im still a bit surprised by the reception it had because I consider it a niche movie.
DRE: The film is a lot a fun. I read it described as caught between the arthouse and the grindhouse.
HK: Thats correct. People with whom I worked later like the great English cameraman, Gerry Fisher, who kept saying, When I saw that movie I couldnt make out whether he meant it or not. I never told him. You have to do these things with a light touch and not try to take yourself too seriously. Now the filmmaking is another thing, that I take very seriously.
DRE: I thought it was very interesting that you never explain why the character Stefan is so sadistic.
HK: [laughs] I would say that in this movie one should not look too much for great psychological explanations. Lets leave that to the European filmmakers that make these long, boring movies that some film critics in the New York Times would find interesting. The character of Stefan was made up as we went along, but there was one thing we found interesting at a certain point. Jean Ferry whom I worked with on the screenplay was a very famous screenwriter. But at that time he had no interesting work at all because he belonged to the old French school of filmmaking that was before the New Wave. In France, they always make revolutions. Its like Alice in Wonderland revolutions. They often say Off with their heads, and theyd not respect the old filmmakers and screenwriters. Ferry was really talented. He had written over 50 movies. For our movie he had written that this man Stefan had a mother in England and then one day I thought by myself, Oh my goodness, what if we make this mother a man? That was just one of these cuckoo ideas that I had to make him more interesting. If you truly need an answer, Stefan is sadistic because he is very angry at the girl that she put him in this quandary of going to see his mother.
DRE: I was very taken with Andrea Rau in Daughters of Darkness.
HK: That I can understand because she is absolutely ravishing. Since it was the production between several countries it was always a surprise whom I would get because all these people were sent by five co-producers or five financiers of the movie. Andrea was the mistress of one of the German distributors at the time. She was warmly recommended to me. They asked me to go and see her in film that was playing at a cinema in Brussels. It was on the verge of pornography but she was so beautiful and so wonderful as an artist. For many of the actors I was told You take them or you take your leave. But Andrea was extraordinary and she compliments in a wonderful way, Delphine Seyrig. They made a wonderful couple.
DRE: Were the actors comfortable with all the sexuality in the film?
HK: Oh yes, they knew what they were doing. Since it was considered as being extremely daring we decided to not make any bones about it. It was also one of the reasons why it was successful at that time. I said I wont make the movie if I dont have Delphine Seyrig. She, at that time, was one of the most intellectual actresses around. She accepted the role because she was a lady who knew a good part when she saw it [laughs].
DRE: How was it working with Orson Welles on the film Malpertuis?
HK: He was a bastard. Claude Chabrol, a famous French director, had done a movie right before I did [called Ten Days Wonder]. I know Claude very well. I told him, Oh Claude it was such a nightmare as a director to work with that man. He said, Oh, you are complaining, you had him four days, I had him nine weeks. Can you imagine? That was terrible. Claude, the poor dear, had to work with that man a long period and that was a nightmare for him. Orson Welles was difficult even on the set. In life he was the most exquisite person I have ever known but on set he was not the same person. He was very bitter. Everyone was so excited to meet the maker of Citizen Kane. Well, after one hour they could have killed him. He literally destroyed peoples scenes. That was the bad thing about him. He was so unprofessional. Also he had such old fashioned ideas about cinema and was such a disappointment.
DRE: If someone wanted to remake Daughters of Darkness would you want to be involved?
HK: Oh yes. I have an idea for it. Somebody told me, Wouldnt you want to make a sequel? I would love to, but I said I only want one actress in it. I would only do this with Nicole Kidman. Shes the only one with whom I would like to do that. Shes the only one capable of carrying this off. But it is a pipe dream as you can imagine. The idea that Nicole Kidman would do it is so far off.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy the DVD of Daughters of Darkness
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Harry Kmel: At this present moment Im busy with my new screenplay that Im developing and that is taking quite a long time. Thats it.
DRE: Whats this movie about?
HK: Its a historical subject about something that happened in Belgium after the Second World War. We almost had a revolution in our country because some parts of the country wanted to keep the king and others didnt want to keep him. Thats in a nutshell but its more complicated than that but thats the best I can do in this context.
DRE: Do you know when youre going to be starting shooting?
HK: If everything works out as I hope this should be something for March 2008.
DRE: I had read that you werent making films anymore. Is that incorrect?
HK: No, thats completely incorrect. Im quite busy. I havent been making features for a long time because I make a lot of commercials, which as you can imagine, make more money than feature films. So that is one of the reasons why I didnt make more feature films since my last movie. Also because that last movie was not up to the standard I wanted to make it. Not through any fault of mine but I didnt want to go through that charade again except when I got the freedom to do whatever I want. I do not need to make movies in order to live you see. So I want to make them as I want and not as other people think they should be made.
DRE: Good, I agree.
HK: That is something one cannot disagree with.
DRE: What was the inspiration for Daughters of Darkness?
HK: Some young people that had made a very successful commercial film asked me to do it. Many films are propped up completely by subsidies which makes for strange movies sometimes. They wanted it to be in the style of my first feature, but commercial. So I looked for a subject and quite by accident I fell upon the story of the Countess Elizabeth Bthory and proposed that to them but they said that it was too expensive to make. Then I came upon the idea, What if the Countess were still alive and the scheme of staying young forever had succeeded? That was the point of departure and we wrote the treatment extremely quickly and the production was sold on the strength of the treatment alone because it was a combination of sex and horror, which was quite in vogue. The idea was developed in the autumn and by next summer we were already shooting. For Belgian standards it was extremely quickly.
DRE: Was the idea of female homosexuality essential to the Countess story?
HK: Well, that was more or less obvious given the subject matter. She was a lady who bathes in the blood of virgins so from there it became that she had a helper and that helper was a lesbian. It wasnt that exactly but it was more or less a given at that point. I didnt especially develop that idea but it came about as we went along. Our aim was to make as many sex scenes as possible. That was our purpose. We had to be very commercial so we needed all permutations of sex scenes. Thats often the way films are done and when they come out differently thats so much the better.
DRE: It would be difficult to talk about this film without mentioning the beautiful photography and very colorful production design. I read that you had studied as a painter.
HK: No, never. I cannot draw, absolutely not. But I try to give all my films and even my commercials a special look. Thats what Im paid for. I am very much influenced by Josef Von Sternberg. He made trashy subjects and elevated them. I use the same approach. Thats the appeal of doing genre movies. You can do a lot cinematographically because people do not expect them to be important. You can avoid being pretentious and produce films that have special meaning.
DRE: Was the hotel a set you built?
HK: Oh no. This was such a small production that we shot in five weeks on existing sets. The only thing that was built was something to match the exterior to the interior when you first walk into the hotel. The rest is all there at the location, barely touched.
DRE: When the film came out was it compared to Vampyros Lesbos?
HK: Im not aware of that but it was an extraordinary surprise that it was a runaway success, to begin with, in France. It opened in France and then it was a big success in America, all things considered for a European movie.
DRE: I had read that it was very controversial when it was released.
HK: Well it was released quite normally in the United States. Bill Lustig remembers seeing it at a very seedy place on 42nd Street when it came out. Im still a bit surprised by the reception it had because I consider it a niche movie.
DRE: The film is a lot a fun. I read it described as caught between the arthouse and the grindhouse.
HK: Thats correct. People with whom I worked later like the great English cameraman, Gerry Fisher, who kept saying, When I saw that movie I couldnt make out whether he meant it or not. I never told him. You have to do these things with a light touch and not try to take yourself too seriously. Now the filmmaking is another thing, that I take very seriously.
DRE: I thought it was very interesting that you never explain why the character Stefan is so sadistic.
HK: [laughs] I would say that in this movie one should not look too much for great psychological explanations. Lets leave that to the European filmmakers that make these long, boring movies that some film critics in the New York Times would find interesting. The character of Stefan was made up as we went along, but there was one thing we found interesting at a certain point. Jean Ferry whom I worked with on the screenplay was a very famous screenwriter. But at that time he had no interesting work at all because he belonged to the old French school of filmmaking that was before the New Wave. In France, they always make revolutions. Its like Alice in Wonderland revolutions. They often say Off with their heads, and theyd not respect the old filmmakers and screenwriters. Ferry was really talented. He had written over 50 movies. For our movie he had written that this man Stefan had a mother in England and then one day I thought by myself, Oh my goodness, what if we make this mother a man? That was just one of these cuckoo ideas that I had to make him more interesting. If you truly need an answer, Stefan is sadistic because he is very angry at the girl that she put him in this quandary of going to see his mother.
DRE: I was very taken with Andrea Rau in Daughters of Darkness.
HK: That I can understand because she is absolutely ravishing. Since it was the production between several countries it was always a surprise whom I would get because all these people were sent by five co-producers or five financiers of the movie. Andrea was the mistress of one of the German distributors at the time. She was warmly recommended to me. They asked me to go and see her in film that was playing at a cinema in Brussels. It was on the verge of pornography but she was so beautiful and so wonderful as an artist. For many of the actors I was told You take them or you take your leave. But Andrea was extraordinary and she compliments in a wonderful way, Delphine Seyrig. They made a wonderful couple.
DRE: Were the actors comfortable with all the sexuality in the film?
HK: Oh yes, they knew what they were doing. Since it was considered as being extremely daring we decided to not make any bones about it. It was also one of the reasons why it was successful at that time. I said I wont make the movie if I dont have Delphine Seyrig. She, at that time, was one of the most intellectual actresses around. She accepted the role because she was a lady who knew a good part when she saw it [laughs].
DRE: How was it working with Orson Welles on the film Malpertuis?
HK: He was a bastard. Claude Chabrol, a famous French director, had done a movie right before I did [called Ten Days Wonder]. I know Claude very well. I told him, Oh Claude it was such a nightmare as a director to work with that man. He said, Oh, you are complaining, you had him four days, I had him nine weeks. Can you imagine? That was terrible. Claude, the poor dear, had to work with that man a long period and that was a nightmare for him. Orson Welles was difficult even on the set. In life he was the most exquisite person I have ever known but on set he was not the same person. He was very bitter. Everyone was so excited to meet the maker of Citizen Kane. Well, after one hour they could have killed him. He literally destroyed peoples scenes. That was the bad thing about him. He was so unprofessional. Also he had such old fashioned ideas about cinema and was such a disappointment.
DRE: If someone wanted to remake Daughters of Darkness would you want to be involved?
HK: Oh yes. I have an idea for it. Somebody told me, Wouldnt you want to make a sequel? I would love to, but I said I only want one actress in it. I would only do this with Nicole Kidman. Shes the only one with whom I would like to do that. Shes the only one capable of carrying this off. But it is a pipe dream as you can imagine. The idea that Nicole Kidman would do it is so far off.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
and holy shit, i would love to see a sequel with Nicole Kidman.