INTERVIEW: ‘Good Manners’ began with one nightmare

Photo: Good Manners stars, from left, Marjorie Estiano and Isabél Zuaa. Photo courtesy of Cinema Tropical / Provided with permission.

The following article contains mild spoilers.

Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, co-writers and co-directors of the new horror film Good Manners, collaborated once before on a feature-length film called Hard Labor. What prompted their second collaboration was actually a nightmare.

“Well, Marco had a dream about two women that were raising this monstrous child and that they were living in an isolated place, and he told me that dream,” Rojas said in a recent phone interview. “It seemed like a really strong image because of an idea of a child that is also a monster and also because of the idea of two women [assisting] to raise that special creature and protect it from the world.”

That nightmare sent Rojas and Dutra thinking, and over the course of several years, they developed the script for Good Manners, which follows Clara (Isabél Zuaa), a nanny who has taken a new job with Ana (Marjorie Estiano), a woman who is pregnant with … a werewolf.

“So we start to work on the film thinking that the child would be a werewolf, and we were very attracted to the idea of telling a werewolf story because it’s a very popular tale in Brazil, especially in the countryside,” Rojas said. “And it’s also an interesting tale because it talks about metamorphoses and the tragic idea of a creature that is part human and part beast, and we think it relates to a lot of human issues because we are as humans always trying to balance our rational side with our animal side, with our passions and our instincts. So that’s where the idea came from, and we worked together on the script during many years as we were raising the money to do the film. It evolved to the film we have today because we added all the elements of genre that you see in the film.”

The pregnancy scene in Good Manners is an instant classic — for its special effects, for its graphic nature, for its importance in determining what happens to Clara and Ana. The effects for the scene, plus the actual werewolf parts that come later, meant the production was difficult for Rojas, Dutra and their team.

“It was kind of a complicated production because of the effects involved in the film, and we had to plan those effects very early in the pre-production,” Rojas said. “Also we were working with children, so we had a very limited amount of hours to work with them. We only had four hours per day to shoot the scenes with the children, but it was very challenging and extremely fun for Marco and I.”

The two main actresses, Zuaa and Estiano, came to the directors through the typical audition process. They both read for a scene, and the filmmakers were impressed with how they connected with the material. Rojas found them to be “very instinctive,” and they brought new layers to the composition of the characters.

Up until July 27, American audiences would have had to catch Good Manners at a film festival, but now moviegoers have the chance to catch it in movie theaters. It’s currently playing at the IFC Center in New York City and is set to open in Los Angeles in August.

“I think it might have a different audience [compared to film festival crowds],” Rojas predicted. “I know it is hard to release a Portuguese-speaking film in the U.S. because of the language. People may not feel attracted to the kind of film. … All of our films, we try to use the fantastic element to make a commentary about our society and our human relations, and I think that’s the same with Good Manners. It’s very important the political commentary in the film, and we tried to discuss a lot of subjects that are important to us — like motherhood, biological motherhood vs. adoptive motherhood, and race and social difference, and passion. So I think that’s part of the metaphor in the film. The werewolf serves also as a metaphor to those political aspects.”

Much like Dutra shared in another Hollywood Soapbox interview, Rojas believes viewers should know as little as possible before experiencing Good Manners. That’s the way she likes to enjoy movies.

“I’m thinking about the kind of spectator I am, and I don’t like to know very much because I like to be surprised,” she said.  “I’m excited when I go to see a film, and I know nothing about it. And it takes me to places. I like when people don’t know much about the film because they can really care about the story, but I don’t care also if they know it’s about a werewolf. But I prefer if they go to the cinema knowing nothing about it because then they can be surprised and have that extra pleasure.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Good Manners, written and directed by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, stars Isabél Zuaa and Marjorie Estiano. The film is currently playing at the IFC Center in New York City and opens Friday, Aug. 17 at the Laemmle Royal Theatre in Los Angeles. Click here for more information. Click here for Hollywood Soapbox’s interview with Marco Dutra.