"Sweet Thing" looks at the life of a brother and a sister confronted with their not really easy or even downright abusive family.
The children of filmmaker Alexander Rockwell play the main roles.
He also surrounded himself with other relatives for this film, shot completely independently.
Does the name of Alexander Rockwell ring a bell? It's not entirely surprising but you might be familiar with his work. After the highly acclaimed
In The soup
and
Somebody to Love
, he returns with
Sweet Thing
, a fine example of the best that independent New York cinema can give.
In a luminous black and white, the filmmaker follows the destiny of a brother and a sister stuck in a dysfunctional family to the point of having no other solution than to run away.
Daddy drinks to the point of being interned, Mum has resigned and Step-Dad takes a little too much interest in his very young stepson.
"These kids are going to have to grow up too quickly," says Alexandre Rockwell to
20 Minutes
.
I wanted to film their evolution as closely as possible.
"
Ball kids
Alexander Rockwell did not look far to find his youthful performers. Lana, 15, and Nico, 11, who play the sister and brother, are her own children. “But the family in the film has nothing to do with ours,” he comments. We just used to work together since they were little. What was initially an economic choice gave them a taste for the profession of actors. He had already directed them toddlers in
Little Feet
(2013).
The two young people are doing wonderfully, including in difficult scenes;
the one in which Lana gets her hair cut forcibly or when Nico faces a sexual assault.
“They are used to being on a set and can perfectly distinguish between fact and fiction.
When properly explained, such scenes cannot traumatize them, ”said Alexandre Rockwell.
A family matter
Alexander Rockwell also reunited his wife Karyn Parsons and his friend Will Patton in the cast.
“As we had a very small budget, it was comforting to be surrounded by benevolent and accomplice spirits,” he explains.
This undoubtedly explains in part the accuracy of tone of
Sweet Thing
, filmed in 16 mm which always blurs the line between reality and fiction.
“I also called on some of my students to support me,” he admits.
The only way to make independent cinema viable these days is to surround yourself with family and loved ones.
He is lucky to have such an entourage because
Sweet Thing
seems touched by grace carrying the viewer into a world admittedly dark, but enlightened by the vitality of seeds of exceptionally talented stars.
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