thefilmfiles

Not a Man's Job: Ellen Kuras'  making of The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)

     The story told in the documentary film The Betrayal, opening tomorrow in theaters is, even more so than in most documentaries, the story of how the film was made.    It all started more than 23 years ago when Ellen Kuras was an undergraduate at Brown University in Providence Rhode Island and was attracted by the presence of newly settled Southeast Asian people in her neighborhood.  It was at that time that she first established her connections to the community, organizing members  to participate in an exhibition she was working on at a museum on immigration.  You see, her family had a deep connection to immigration and the promises and "betrayals" of  the United States.  Kuras' own grandfather had emigrated and had felt such a betrayal when he lost everything during the Great Depression.

     By the time Kuras was in New York at NYU her gift for photography and her ambition to make films.  She had also not given up on her interest in the Laotian community and let everyone know that she wanted to learn the language.  When she met her tutor, Thavisouk Phrasavath, there was an immediate connection.  "He had this incredible gift for remembering stories, the stories that we hear in the film, like the one about his grandmother asking him if he wants to know where his umbilical cord is buried."  So "I picked up the camera to try and see if I could film these ideas."

     Kuras became fascinated with the idea of trying to visualize Thavi's memories.  She had a Super 8 camera and used that to shoot Thavi and his family, blowing the film up optically to 16mm.  Kuras was from a young age fascinated by the ability of film to sway people, to change the point of view and cites a very early viewing of Billy Jack as making her notice how a film could put people in the place of the voiceless victim.  So in 1984 while at NYU, Kuras, as a beginning filmmaker, began experimenting with Thavi's story: the story of a family of  Laotians, fleeing for their lives and landing in a tenement in Brooklyn.

     "It's an immigrants story but it's also a story about life and death as well as  loss of values."  Thavi's family had gone from a traditional culture that was organized mainly around family and temple to a  broken and displaced one without even the support of a  spiritual community.  Thavi's father had been arrested once the U.S. abandoned it's covert war against North Vietnam from Laos, and the communist Pathet Lao took over.  Ultimately the family was forced to flee at the last minute, Thavi's mother, leaving behind her oldest and youngest daughters who she still has not seen to this day.  Then the family discovers that the U.S. is not the land of milk and honey that they thought, when they are abandoned upon their arrival. The children ultimately adapt to the harsh life of the streets, joining gangs, running away.  When Thavi's father does finally "return" many years later, it is only temporary:  he has been in the U.S. for years and has started a new family.

     The NEH grants that initially funded Kuras' Laotian project were exhausted not long after she began, so she had to work.  This is how she got "sidetracked" into her award-winning cinematography career.  Kuras began mainly in the documentary world, shooting small films as well as working as an electrician and camera assistant.  In the years while she was shooting The Betrayal, she established herself as a top flight cinematographer on projects such as the Isaac Mizrahi portrait, Unzipped; Mary Harron's I Shot Andy Warhol; Tom Kalin's Swoon as well as If These Walls Could Talk with Nancy Savoca for HBO.  More recently Kuras has shot Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity and The Ballad of Jack and Rose and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind.  Kuras has worked with  Martin Scorcese, Spike Jonze, Spike Lee, Ted Demme and Sam Mendes, in addition to many women directors like Miller and Harron.

     Needless to say Ellen Kuras' work on this film was intermittent given her rapid recognition as a gifted cinematographer, but she never gave up on the project, even if she stepped away from it for as long as 5 years.    There did come a time though when it had to be finished and some angels  stepped in to help.   One of those was Cara Mertes then with the PBS series POV and now at the documentary division of the Sundance Institute.  "Cara's fantastic and has been a huge supporter of the film, our godmother in a way."  Mertes got the film American Broadcast rights for POV, and when she moved over to Sundance asked Kuras to bring the film over to the documentary lab.    Kuras said this sort of "kicked her butt" and made them finally put a rough cut together.

     Assembling the film was no easy task with 23 years of intermittently shot footage, some on 16mm, some on Hi-8 and even a bit on Mini-DV.  She was also working on the prep for Be Kind Rewind.  But it was a process that imposed some structure and organization on the project.  Kuras didn't want to take the traditional documentary approach demanded by some editors.  Rather than look at the words and place the images around them, Kuras envisioned a more poetic structure.  "This film is not only about the words, it's about the images too and you can't just divorce one from the other."  So she worked out what she wanted to say thematically and worked it out with Thavi. 

     They also finally decided to interview Thavi's mother, which they had not done in a comprehensive way.  Ellen felt that the focus on Thavi was too limiting.  She had gone through the same experiences, even more so with 10 children and essentially abandoned by her husband, yet no one had really asked her opinion.  After the interview, "I knew then, this is the missing link we've been looking for."  For Kuras, Thavi's mother is the prototypical tragic figure depicting the toll war takes on the mother/wife.

     Now that the film is finally finished Kuras has high hopes for it but mostly she really just wants people to see it.  Since it premiered at Sundance last year, it has been picked up for theatrical distribution and will be broadcast on POV in 2009.  She is hoping for an Oscar nod and has already been nominated for an Independent Spirit award.

      Ellen Kuras is a trailblazer being one of the few women cinematographers selected for membership in the American Society of Cinematographers.  She's a role model for many, perhaps even offering an alternative model for working one's way up the cinematography ranks, by starting on small thematic documentaries.  Kuras says the key has been that she has always been interested in whatever she has been shooting, and has been lucky to work with the brilliant people.  She counsels students to have confidence, not be afraid to be the boss, and stand up for oneself while always treating those working for you (your crew) with the respect that they deserve. 

     Now that Kuras has finally wrapped up The Betrayal  she plans on continuing to direct commercials and features, pursuing the projects that interest her.  Someone once asked her how it felt to have a man's job to which she responded, "I don't really know, I don't have a man's job, I have my job."  And what a job she does.

 The Betrayal opens in theaters on January 16, 2008.

 Directed by Ellen Kuras; co-directed by Thavisouk Phrasavath; written by Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath; produced by Ellen Kouras and Flora Fermandez-Marengo; music by Howard Shore; cinematography by Ellen Kuras, ASC; edited by Thavisouk Phrasavath.

 With: The Phrasavth Family.