Premiered at Tribeca, Simple as Water, a documentary directed by Oscar winner Megan Mylan, tells a first hand account of the endless waiting experienced by civilians whose lives and families have been torn apart by the Syrian civil war. The film does not get into the politics of the Syrian civil war. Nor is it a commentary on the refugee resettlement programs in the various countries in which the displaced families find themselves. The film is more of a meditation on the enormous strain on the family bonds of those who’ve been displaced by war. In this, it’s as timeless as it is timely. We had a chance to interview the director following its premiere at Tribeca.
Chris McClure, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): What inspired you to make a film on such a topic?
Megan Mylan (MM): Motherhood. I had a three-year old at the time I was getting started on the film. It really changes the way you experience the world and it changed the way I think about filmmaking. About five years ago, I became really consumed with the news in Syria. It occupied my heart every day. In the morning, I would wake up and read news stories. Consistently, what was pulling me in was thinking about the parents. I would see photographs of parents cradling their wounded children or making a decision to get them on a smuggler raft. I kept thinking, how do you say to a child that everything’s gonna be okay when you really know very well that nothing is okay and it might not be for a long, long time.
It was that torrential experience of the war that I felt like I had some personal connection to just prove that universality of being a parent. I started thinking about how I could make a film to honor the individuality of each family’s experience but also give you a sense of the massive scale of the displacement that was happening in Syria and that it’s happening all over the world with having more refugees and displaced people than we have ever had before in history. It was that point of entry as a mother that felt like a meaningful one and a valid one for me.
(UM): Were there any specific movies that you had in mind while making this film?
(MM): The film is structured in five vignettes or five separate stories that don’t intercut. That was a structural decision that came before about trying to get to this epic scale of the displacement, but do it in a very intimate way. When I had the “Aha” for that, I was spending a weekend trying to figure out how I could do that. One of my favorite films was Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. While we only get five rather than thirty-two, each of my chapters are character-driven. Whereas Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, each one is different style and everything, but that really was an inspiration, as well as The Three Rooms of Melancholia which is a film made, I believe, in the late 90s. It’s a documentary that I think is really distinct and beautiful, and had a lot of the poetry and joy along with the intense pain woven together. Those were two that were inspirations.
(UM): How did you find this family for the film, and how did you convince them to be in the project?
(MM): Yes. My important collaboration is with the people in my films. I make the kind of film where I’m focusing on the people who want me to tell their stories, design investigative reports on their character-driven portrait, and so each person has to find some meaning in the experience of having their life experience portrayed. Sometimes, it’s because they believe if the world knew more, things would change.
I do think that approaching each of these families about wanting to share what war does to families, what separation of families, what escaping violence and then having borders shut and bureaucratic processes set in front of you, that I think is a valid point of entry. I think they trusted me. I think the large part of the reason they trusted me is the way I did the casting.
I would send out these teams to meet families that were in the light moment that I was hoping to capture in each of the chapters. Each one had a different focus. One looks at a family where the father has chosen to go ahead to make sure the route is safe. Another looks at a child having to take on adult responsibilities because the parents have been lost. Each family has some devastating, unspeakable loss, but also are caught in the moment of aftermath of that added different juncture.
They would send me a profile, and then I would talk to people through Skype. It was really a process of building relationships and trust and also finding characters to stories that speak to each other even though they weren’t in our cut. It’s always so much trust. We had wonderful people working on the team. We had the premiere last night and I was naming off the list of countries where they all are — People from Paris, London, Frankfurt, Beirut, Damascus, Gaza and Athens. It was quite a network of those who worked on this.
(UM): How long did shooting take? Was there any specific difficulty during the process?
(MM): The whole making of the film was about five years. We shot different chapters at different times. The film isn’t really timestamped. It’s quite universal about what war does to families. Whether it’s 2017 or 2019, it’s irrelevant. We don’t really reveal that in the film. I really shot for a short amount of time with each family. A lot of work in the pre-production — identifying the right family, gaining rapport with them, and timing our shooting so that we were there at moments where all of the layers of what I was hoping to reveal were unfolding organically because I direct the crew but I don’t direct the people in the film at all. We needed to know that all of the textures and scenes were going to come up naturally and not have to force it.
As far as the challenges, there are all sorts of logistic stuff as filming inside Syria and all of that, but for me, the really essential challenge with this film was how do you portray another person’s pain. It’s how do you give it justice and complexity. I think it’s actually impossible to do it authentically because you never know how someone experiences, but we wanted to try and honor this very different and personal way of each person in the film and each family dealt with the really unspeakable loss they have gone through. Each of them did have very different attitudes and reactions to what they were going through. I think that was the biggest challenge for me.
(UM): In terms of funding, how did you manage to secure the funds for the film as you worked also as a producer?
(MM): This is a completely, independently funded film made of few arts grants from foundations and individuals. It probably added a year to the life of the making of the film just to be able to do it by myself. I felt the real responsibility to the families in the film to take the time to get their stories right and the nuance, and funding things independently gives you that ability to decide what’s in and what’s out, and when the film is done and when it’s not. You can have your great relationship with executive producers, and when they’re already vying in the film and that’s some great momentum, too. In this case, I felt we really wanted to see this through just for our team deciding through the timeline, trajectory and the content and everything so now it’s out. It was all our expense and foundation grant.
(UM): There’s a lot of talk about diversity and inclusion right now in cinema. What are your thoughts on this.
(MM): Yes, it’s absolutely essential. I am always so aware of my outsider status. I really think intensely before I proceed with what a valid point of entry it is that I have. I’m not Syrian and I have no connection with Syria exactly, but what I make sure to do when that’s the case is surround myself with people who do have a deeper connection and I give them enough clout, enough agency to challenge me. I never stop being aware of the limits of how much I can know about another person. As I was saying before, particularly about somebody else’s pain, if I don’t share language or ways to a nationality, gender, those are all barriers.
I really also deeply believe that we all have more in common than we do different. As simplistic as that might seem, I believe that very deeply. We have a responsibility to try and get to know each other, to try and find connection. It’s something very core and primal. Being a mother is a very essential part of the human experience. That felt like something I had powerfully in common with the other parents in the film. That’s how I operated, finding a place of connection and then surrounding myself with people who have more organic, more natural community racial-ethnic connection to the story. It’s a real collaboration. The people in the film also are choosing what they share with me. Even though it’s their say and it’s very hands off, they know what they’re doing and they know when the camera is on. They have a strong role in the filming process.
(UM): How about the film industry? Is it becoming more open to the stories about diversity? Are there more funds available for stories that touch diversity?
(MM): Yes, I think so. There’s so far to go. I don’t come from a privileged family, but I have a safety net. I can take the risk. I would have many places to land if I couldn’t pay my bills. I think that the industry is belatedly recognizing it’s not a charitable thing. You get much richer stories, better stories that give energy and dynamism. It’s just a course that would have to happen. But I don’t know if I can say it that already has. It’s such a massive industry. I’m glad that it’s such a vibrant conversation happening now, like who gets to tell what stories, who gets the funding. All of that is so vital.
(UM): The film does not get into the politics of the Syrian civil war nor it is a commentary on the refugee resettlement program in various countries. The film is more of the mediation on the enormous strain of the family bonds of those who have been displaced by war. What do you think of this? Was it a kind of a choice that you make to make this film with this approach?
(MM): It was a very conscious decision. I care deeply about what’s happening in Syria, and there are people that are establishing they’re accountable, who should be held to account. I didn’t think that that was the portion of the story that I could do well. I set light by giving this more universal and timeless yet still very specific and nuanced about these textured people. That’s what I can communicate. The thing that I’m specifically trying to convey is that these families were people just like anyone listening with all sorts of plans and expectations for their future. Now, they have to pivot and reimagine life in a whole different setting and try as parents, and that’s the lens we’re coming into this, try and provide and protect their children, but also give them feelings of joy and expectations of things to happen in the future. How do you restore that? That element of what war does to families is where I felt like I could come in.
I do feel with this observational film making, it constantly adapts between how much detail you allow in and how much you leave out because you need to just leave in enough that it feels real, meaningful and textured enough to someone who knows the story well, but not so much detailed that it’s provoking questions and leaving people feeling like they’re not understanding something they should. I feel like it’s my job as a director to quite early on denote to you you’re in good hands. If there’s something you’re not understanding, it’s because you don’t need to understand it in order to look forward to the film. I feel like that’s something, as audience, that we’re more comfortable doing the fiction. When you sit down for a documentary, you’re really expecting to not get a lesson about long ago. I think we’ve pushed through that, but you’re expecting clarity, a real clarity on information. I’m trying to give you a clarity of emotion that also leave enough room for everyone to bring their own life experience into each of these stories. Your experience as one of these families is different from my experience about that.
It’s the poll. It’s a little bit of a meandering answer to your question about not having politics. Sorry, but it was very intentional. There are moments in there as much as it came up in the conversation with the families too. It wasn’t the main focus. I could bear with one more question.
(UM): My last question is about the impact of COVID on your film. Can you say a little bit? What was its impact on your film in terms of distribution or post-production?
(MM): Sure. We were in the final week for post-production. We had our color correction and sound mix yet to do and titling. We weren’t quite done, but we were heading to Tribeca last year, but then when COVID happened and everything shut down, we weren’t able to finish the film. I really cared about finishing it really gently, really well. We spent a lot of time processing these stories. I felt like the little moment of sound of her hand caressing her child as she puts them to sleep, I wanted to make sure we spend some time to get that right. We did not just do a remote finish of the film and put it out. We decided to hold it back and it’s really a 2021 film. It was completed in 2021 and released now in 2021.
It was hard. There was a lot of expectations. We were excited to share the stories, but it’s pretty hard to feel too bad about not being able to release one documentary than there were such a massive upheaval with everyone around the world. I got a film that is about massive upheaval in people’s lives and then having to pivot and reimagine their future. If I couldn’t take that lesson away from this film, and decide with this wonderful team we have who are going to bring the film out into the world to wait for a moment. I hope that the film have some added resonance for people as we have the same. When everything falls apart and all my expectations about what the future held for me have changed, what matters most, I’m sure a lot of people, the answer to that is family. That’s really what the film depicts as well.
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.