Sebastian Gutierrez is a director and writer whose latest film Elizabeth Harvest is now in release.
Gutierrez is behind such films as Elektra Luxx (writer/director), Girl Walk into a Bar (writer/director), Snakes on a Plane (writer), Gothika (writer) and more. He won a Critic’s Award in 1998 for his debut film Judas Kiss, which starred Carla Gugino, with whom he has cast in many of his films. His latest project is a psychological thriller called Elizabeth Harvest, another visually creative movie with a mind-bending twist. We recently had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about the film. Here’s what he had to say.
Hello and thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions. I’d like to start with you if I may. For readers who might not know, could you briefly tell me about yourself and how you got into the business?
Sebastian Gutierrez: I moved to Los Angeles from Venezuela and got a job working as a PA at Sunset Gower Studios. Eventually I started working as a grip on TV shows, learning how sets and shows operated. This was invaluable in seeing how a crew is treated and how to get the best from them. I started writing scripts and working on friends’ indie films, until I bluffed my way into directing my first film, Judas Kiss.
Let’s jump right into your latest film. Elizabeth Harvest is a psychological thriller about a young woman who makes a startling discovery in the home of her new yet older husband’s home. Without giving away its secrets, what was your inspiration for the story, which you also wrote?
SB: The Bluebeard folktale has long held its power over me. From the time I was a kid, I always found the notion of the person you love turning out to be a deranged murderer to be the most terrifying idea. I was also mystified by what the moral or message of the story was trying to say. Was it really trying to say the young bride’s curiosity was responsible for her destruction. The notion that when women gain knowledge, men go crazy – this always seemed like fertile material for a movie. It is present in the DNA of many stories, all the way back to Adam and Eve.
READ MORE: Our Full Review of the Sebastian Gutierrez Thriller Elizabeth Harvest
I first want to comment on your imagery. You’ve always been a very ‘visual’ filmmaker, yet with Elizabeth Harvest, I really think you’ve done some of your best work yet. There’s as much story in what we see as much as what is spoken, and I’d like to know about that balance. How do you decide how much to give away in words while also hoping what is shown should tell as much?
SB: The story is very dreamlike, like a fever dream. I wanted to explore a Russian Dolls “story-inside-a-story” type tale, as opposed to sticking with the familiar Bluebeard premise we all know. Color coding was written into the script as a way to identify the main emotion of each scene and to guide us through the back and forth shifts in time. Saturated colors are the language of dreams, of memory, of madness, of the hour of the wolf. Elizabeth Harvest is, at its heart, a story of love gone very wrong. Deliriously wrong. Big emotions. Gothic imagery. Duality, reflections, negative space … all these elements seemed like natural tools to rely on.
Keeping on the imagery, I found the experience a sort amalgam of old school 70s mixed with a kind of bold techno flair, if that makes sense. What are some of the influences behind the film’s style?
SB: Everything from early De Palma (”Sisters” in particular) to Vicente Aranda’s “The Blood Splattered Bride”, Franju’s “Eyes Without A Face”, Argento, Almodovar, “Alucarda”.
This leads me to the film’s set, the home where the titular Elizabeth is confined and explores. It’s cliché to say at this point maybe, but it’s as much a character as the people. Tell me about the design and filming of this disturbing home.
SB: The house is an artificial playground staged by Henry with elements meant to entice and intrigue his young wife. Therefore we had to make sure it reflected the two sides of Henry: the brilliant, clean, minimalist scientist side and the messier part of his subconscious.
You’ve got another strong cast in Elizabeth Harvest, including the great Ciarán Hinds and Carla Gugino, whom you’ve worked with before. However, most impressive is the striking Abbey Lee, who I believe makes a career-changing impression. Tell me about your cast.
SB: Elizabeth Harvest is, first and foremost, a story about love. All of the characters do what they do because of it. All four central characters require crafty actors because none of them are what they appear to be. Ciaran (Hinds) is someone I’ve been wanting to work with for years. He has such presence and such ease with language. This sort of Gothic sci-fi material was new ground for him, but I knew he would be able to play the tragic love story and find the human being in Henry. Carla (Gugino) had to convincingly embody the buttoned-down Mrs. Danvers type that forms part of our collective subconscious, lurking in corridors, apparently disapproving … and then reveal an entirely different, highly conflicted self. Matthew Beard has perhaps the biggest secret of all to hold back. Not so much a secret but a nagging doubt at the core of his being that literally defines him. And yet, being blind, he needs Elizabeth to help him. As an actor, your eyes are the easiest way to communicate with those around you. So Matthew had a very difficult fine line to navigate, and I think does so beautifully.
Elizabeth is all paradox. Abbey (Lee), whipsmart and with key life experience (she was successful in an industry that’s even trickier for women than Hollywood), immediately grasped what I was after. She was like a surgeon in differentiating versions of Elizabeth in the most subtle ways and this is apparent from the very beginning, as the seemingly-conked on the head young bride arrives at her husband’s estate. It’s one thing to play someone suffering from amnesia (like Jason Bourne), it’s a different thing altogether to play someone who is [bg_collapse view=”link-inline” color=”#e81313″ icon=”arrow” expand_text=”Show Spoiler” collapse_text=”Close Spoiler” ]not fully formed. She’s a facsimile, an echo and yet –one hundred percent human.[/bg_collapse] But she is experiencing many things for the very first time. She needed to be both child-like and a woman. Abbey can be mesmerizing while playing mesmerized. And when the tables turn, she’s a natural born action star.
A number of your films center on women in a kind of evolutionary state, with films like Elektra Luxx, Women in Trouble, Girl Walks into a Bar and now Elizabeth Harvest. Talk to me about the importance of women in your films.
SB: On a practical level, women – especially in Hollywood – are completely underutilized. Female characters can cover the range of emotions, from maternal instinct to fierce to a sobbing, full- on meltdown – without batting an eye. If you have a tough guy with a gun and in the next scene he has to break down crying, there’s a lot of work you have to do as a storyteller, to make sure the character is not confusing to the audience.
Just briefly, I want to also mention the impact of the film’s score, by Rachel Zeffira and Faris Badwan. How did you come upon their work and get them involved in the film?
SB: Cat’s Eyes, the band they are in, did an amazing score for Peter Strickland’s The Duke Of Burgundy, a wonderfully strange film you should check out. I was so impressed, I reached out to them. Faris, whose day job is being the lead singer of The Horrors, was on tour, so it fell to Rachel to do the score and she did amazing things: it is both completely modern and harkens back to that 60’s/70’s sweet spot that brings to mind things like Rosemary’s Baby. She’s brilliant.
I know you’re busy on set with your next project. Could you perhaps give our readers some hint of what’s coming up for you?
SB: I’m directing a crime series I wrote called JETT. It starts Carla Gugino, Giancarlo Esposito, Elena Anaya, Gaite Jansen and a bunch of other cool people. It’s for Cinemax. It comes out next summer.
Thank you so much for your time. I want to again say how impressed I am with your work and hope that one day our paths cross again.
SB: Thank you so much for your kind words.