Yorgos Lanthimos couldn’t make shooting in the Big Easy too easy. Though he chose a much simpler approach to production design in his latest film, “Kinds of Kindness,” compared to previous efforts like “The Favourite” and “Poor Things,” there were still challenges that came about from shooting on location in New Orleans. In an exclusive bonus feature clip included on the digital release, Lanthimos and production designer Anthony Gasparro discuss the parameters they sought out of their locations, particularly in reference to the first part of the triptych absurdist comedy, entitled “The Death of R.M.F.”
“We needed a place with a big lake, so we could have a boat,” said Lanthimos. “We’re looking for a decadent, rich house. It just felt that it was American, so we were looking somewhere in America.”
Gasparro acknowledged that the lake wasn’t the only deciding factor in choosing the locations they did, but also how the vibe of each one matched the characters who inhabited them. Initially, he was thrown off by some of Lanthimos’ choices, but upon seeing how he staged the actors and placed the cameras, he realized the potential of each space.
“He could point the camera in that corner,” said Gasparro, “where there’s nothing going on, but he’ll find the most interesting thing and bring out this performance and they’re always just astounding and you’re like, ‘Oh yea, that’s why you’re Yorgos.’”
Gasparro previously spoke with IndieWire at the time of the film’s theatrical release, breaking down how they landed on each location they shot in. He said to IndieWire, “Because it was so location dependent, it was really about just discovering and connecting with the locations that were going to anchor each story and then working around the satellite ones, and then figuring out how that all works story by story.”
In IndieWire’s review of Cannes, David Ehrlich said of the film, “Shot ‘on a budget’ during the long post-production process for Lanthimos’ extravagant, Oscar-winning ‘Poor Things,’ the happily inhospitable ‘Kinds of Kindness’ can’t help but feel like an allergic reaction to the mainstream success he’s enjoyed — or at least capitalized upon — since pivoting from Greek to English with ‘The Lobster’ in 2015.”
The official synopsis for the film reads, “‘Kinds of Kindness’ is a triptych fable following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life, a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person, and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.”
Watch the exclusive bonus feature clip above.
“Kinds of Kindness” from Searchlight Pictures releases on digital August 27 and on Blu-Ray and DVD October 8.
