The director, writer and star of The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed – a deadpan comedy about kink – talks about the misconceptions around BDSM
In Joanna Arnow’s acidic comedy of contemporary manners The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, thirtysomething New Yorker Anne navigates a string of BDSM relationships while just barely holding down her low-level office job. A highlight of the Directors’ Fortnight strand at Cannes film festival, it’s an explosively funny, sometimes mortifying dive under the covers of a kink enthusiast whose deadpan style shines through in the smallest of moments, like the one in which Anne – fearlessly played by Arnow – is giving head to her boyfriend Chris, stops for a second to sneeze, apologises, and then carries on.
“The sneeze wasn’t actually scripted,” says Arnow, after the film’s premiere in Cannes. “In the acting style I studied there’s a sense of nothing being wrong; you just use what’s happening. It’s like, if you sneeze, say sorry!” Such unfailing politesse is at odds with the scenes of sexual abandonment elsewhere, including one where Anne cosplays as what one suitor ungallantly calls his ‘fuck pig’. (“What would your friends in women’s lib say if they saw you now?” he asks triumphantly.) But if Arnow’s film can make BDSM seem like an interesting way to work out some of our less socially acceptable impulses, the point is that Anne is in full control of these interactions, a fact that’s been lost on some critics reviewing the film, says the director.
Here, Joanna Arnow talks about the tendency to pathologise BDSM relationships and the ways in which people “change and don’t change”.
Alex Denney: You’ve written, directed and starred in this film that has the feel of a confessional, while your last feature, i hate myself :), was a documentary about a past relationship. How are we to sort fact and fiction here?
Joanna Arnow: Well, it’s definitely a film that draws on personal experience but it’s not an autobiographical film. Things changed a lot creating this story. I think when you’re creating any narrative some elements [from real life] get amplified, even when it’s experimental and minimalist like this one. But I do like working with personal material. I like mining the specifics to create comedy I hope will resonate with others.
AD: Your first feature, I hate myself :), seems to have struck a nerve with some critics. Do you get a kick out of being provocative with your art?
JA: I don’t make work to be provocative. I am trying to tell stories in the way that’s right for those stories. Often they deal with sexuality and relationships, but the use of sexuality in the films isn’t really for shock value, it’s [there to] tell a story and, you know, it’s part of human experience. I think the way that women are portrayed is often very narrow. And I think women expressing sexuality in ways that challenge norms or go outside of those portrayals can sometimes engender those kinds of reactions.
AD: Do you anticipate this one doing the same thing? How has it been received at the festival?
JA: The reaction has been very positive which I’ve been excited about. There are certain words people use that feel like [they’re] viewing this film in a sort of double-standard way, that they wouldn’t use if it had been made by a male director. I don’t want to complain too much, I’m so grateful to be here and for any people to review the film at all. But there’s a [tendency for people] to see these characters as weak or not in control, not having full agency.
AD: There aren’t too many depictions of BDSM sexuality in mainstream cinema. Was that something you wanted to address with your film?
JA: I feel like there are a lot of misconceptions around BDSM and I wanted to portray the protagonist as a very active participant in the planning of the sessions, partly to counter that. Like we have a scene where she is meeting someone and asks about the costumes; there’s a certain amount of discussion about what’s going to happen and what she would like, you know? I feel like the way BDSM is depicted without conversations is very unrealistic and even unsafe, and sometimes it gets pathologised. In my experience, people involved in BDSM have to be triply communicative and respectful to participate, and I wanted to film to reflect that.
AD: Are we talking about the fuck pig scene here? Is that what he calls it?
JA: Yeah. fuck pig, fuck bunny, fuck toy, fuck doll.
AD: And you juxtapose scenes like this with interludes from Anne’s work life – why?
JA: I wanted to include threads of work and family in addition to relationships and sexuality; I was interested in how our experience in all its mosaic qualities informs who we are. One of the things I wanted to explore with this film was how we are all more than one person – in traditional films, the change from A to B can be so drastic and clear-cut; I wanted this film to be about the ways we change and don’t change.
AD: So often it’s the small moments that cracked me up in the film. The sneeze, for example.
JA: The sneeze wasn’t actually scripted. I do love some comic chaos, and there was already a bit of that going on in the scene, with some miscommunication and misunderstandings – Anne thinks that Chris already come and he’s saying no, he hasn’t, and there’s like an extended back and forth on that, and so the sneeze was just the cherry on top of that.
AD: And then you carry on!
JA: Yes. In the acting style I studied there’s a sense of nothing being wrong; you just use what’s happening. It’s like, if you sneeze, say sorry! [Laughs].
