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“Questions of the Soul”: Director Brian Tetsuro Ivie and Star Sydney Chandler on Anima
Anima A lo-fi sci-fi road trip film that reaffirms the magic of discordant personalities finding harmony, director Brian Tetsuro Ivie’s Anima is at once earthy and spiritual. It focuses on Beck (Sydney Chandler), who, on the first day of a new job, is assigned to accompany Paul (Takehiro Hira) to a facility for an end-of-life procedure. Paul has decided to upload his consciousness into a cloud system, which means that anyone who wishes can visit a digitized version of himself. What is thought to be a straightforward journey becomes an existential winding road, as Paul frequently diverts Beck from their course as he tries to make amends with people he’s wronged. Such acts serve as a way for him to absolve himself so that he can enter his digital afterlife in peace.
Yet for all of these themes around digitized immortality, there’s a warmth to the film that reminds its characters to stay rooted in this life, even if they’re preoccupied with the next one. Ivie shot on 16mm film, which gives a grainy, lived-in feel to Beck and Paul’s journey as both find more of themselves in each other than they care to admit. In trying so hard to preserve, we can fail to be present, and the pair’s odyssey becomes a way to focus on enjoying the time we have left rather than simply trying to extend it.
Filmmaker spoke with Ivie and Chandler at two separate points; this piece combines their interviews into one fluid conversation. They shared about how shooting on film is an act of prayer, what it means to create art that lives beyond the artist, and the importance of mystery in the creative life. Anima premiered at SXSW on March 12.
Filmmaker: Brian, I read that this film has some of its narrative origins in that Parable in the Gospel of Luke of the Rich Fool. In the process of adaptation, I’m curious if there were spiritual underpinnings of that story you were carrying over.
Ivie: I appreciate you being curious about that. I grew up in a Catholic home in California, but I was not really interested in spiritual things. There’s a really great lineage of Catholic filmmakers, and so I think the only way into faith for me was through the arts. There was something transcendent about that search and process, but it didn’t feel religious; it just felt pure, beautiful, and true. My overall mission in my life, I’d say, is to try to understand the divine through the arts. When it came to making my first narrative film, it was a struggle, because there’s a whole genre of Christian movies that I am allergic to as an idea. I don’t consider God to be a narrow part of the universe; all truth is God’s truth, as they say.
There’s something to be said about Anima as a parable. That parable came at a time in my life when I had a lot, and I was wondering what it all added up to. The question I was grappling with the most was, “What does it mean to live a meaningful life?” I’ve modernized the Parable and tried to put it into this context in which we live now, where we’re trying to transcend death without any spiritual consideration.
We’ve started to at least talk about ourselves instead of ensouled creatures as beings who are just time and chance acting on matter. If we view ourselves as primarily material, that’s what enables this idea that we can be uploadable and become silicon. I have a fundamental disagreement with that idea. I believe we are primarily immaterial, and so that’s what the film sort of is in dialogue with.
Filmmaker: Sydney, in the press notes, you mentioned you were thinking through some guiding questions to help access Beck’s inner life. Some you mentioned were, “Where is she stunted in her youth? What’s her relationship to loyalty?” Were you able to find any answers?
Chandler: Firstly, it’s great to play a human being because I haven’t been able to do that very much yet. Not that I don’t love sci-fi, but this is one of the more grounded pieces that I’ve been a part of. So the process of finding her was different. One thing I loved was that it’s ambiguous what happened to Beck’s father. I created my own backstory there, and I wanted to play with the quiet rage that comes with losing someone instead of just embodying sadness. That loss can turn you away from believing in loyalty and love. It helped me reframe Beck as a character of transaction. Abandonment has created a coldness in her, and that’s what she brings when she jumps into her work with Paul. She doesn’t think twice about the job because she’s just trying to get a paycheck.
Takehiro brought so much humanity to the character. It was great because, as Beck, I felt her frustration. Beck didn’t want to connect with this person, but she comes to realize they’re two sides of the same coin. I found a lot of answers to those questions through the filming process; it’s both beautiful and scary to explore a character that way, but it felt right for this project.
Filmmaker: Your background is in documentary films, Brian, and so much of that type of filmmaking is discovering the truth while you’re making something. Did you find any transference of skill from your documentary work to your narrative work?
Ivie: Primarily, I would say in leadership that’s very clear because you have to take care of people. In Hollywood, the crew doesn’t really get that, certainly not in indie productions. It’s not always their fault; it’s just hard to take care of people the right way. I also had a Crew Careline item in our budget, which is essentially money I personally put into taking care of people if they need better food, hotels, or an Uber home. That was a way to say, “You’re not on the altar of my ambition. We want you to come out of this better than when you started.” Thankfully, my producers were in on that as well.
Chandler: Knowing that Brian was coming from that documentary space excited me. Documentarians often don’t know what story you’re going to get until you’re making the film. I trusted that he was going to have us do our scenes until he felt the truth of what you would feel from a real person going through something. One of the biggest gifts that I got personally was being able to work through aspects of my personal life through my art and craft. I’m blessed to be able to do that and pay rent…it’s great to be paid for therapy! [Laughs]
Filmmaker: What’s fascinating about the procedure is that Paul’s trying to circumvent death and remove the mystery of not knowing what lies beyond the veil, so to speak. We all die not knowing what’s on the other side, and ironically, in Paul trying to extend his humanity, he’s losing access to an experience that defines all of us. I’m curious to what extent mystery plays for you as a creative, or phrased differently, the importance of having a kind of faith in “not knowing.”
Chandler: It’s kismet that I’ve been drawn to characters like Beck. My understanding of my identity has shifted so much throughout my life; I’m still figuring out the mystery of who I am, what my emotions mean to me, and what community and connection mean to me. I’ve jumped around the world so much now, and I’ve had the blessing of being a chameleon and figuring that out.
The beauty of life is the mystery itself. As you said, the one permanent aspect of life is that we are born and we die. A lot of people fear that, and I’m not saying that I don’t fear it as well, but I also think it is the most natural path in the world. It’s one that I believe we all take, and I don’t know if we should mess with that. I think once you take away the aspect of death, life loses its color and meaning. I think Beck and I both landed on that answer for ourselves. I didn’t know how she would feel about everything until the end. It does become quite clear, though, that while she has affection for Paul, she’s not trying to do the same procedure as he does.
Filmmaker: In that scene where Paul takes the pill, and Beck is standing by him, I loved how she shudders and turns away. It’s her way of setting a boundary; she won’t abandon him in his final hours, but she also doesn’t support his decision fully either.
Chandler: It’s funny because there’s a scene after that moment when Beck really breaks down. But while we were filming the pill scene–I hadn’t expected this–but I had grown to love Tak so much as a friend and performer, that when we were filming that, I could not stop crying. I went up to Brian, angry, and apologized because I knew that was not the moment when the crying was supposed to happen. That turning-away moment is rooted in a bit of my frustration at myself, but I think it worked for the character.Usually, if I have to cry in a scene, I’m like, “Oh God.” It’s the scariest thing for an actor. I do think at the last minute, she’s hoping he stops what he’s doing. I think a part of her wanted to say “stop,” but she couldn’t. That’s another growth point for Beck, where she has to learn what acceptance is.
Filmmaker: On a more tangible level, I’m always interested in the costumes of the future. Can you both speak more to the conversations you had with costume designer Emily Costantino about crafting the wardrobe pieces?
Chandler: For one, the clothes I wore on set are the comfiest I’ve ever worn on set, which made me ecstatic. I could do jumping jacks, I could run around…it was amazing. Since Anima was shot on film, it made everything feel like we were in a different dimension, almost like it was a cousin to the world we’re living in now. My clothing felt like it was a throwback to the futuristic aspects of the clothes in the 90s or early 2000s. I loved seeing Beck’s more scroungy outfits next to Paul’s more Matrix-inspired outfits.
Ivie: If she had me, I would work with Emily every time, every forever. She is the type of artist who does not reference other movies. There’s nothing derivative, and she’ll often reference paintings or old photographs from Japanese magazines from the 1960s,’70s, and ’80s. Being a documentary filmmaker, you’re not thinking about costume; people wear what they wear, and you don’t get to control that. But the color of the movie is in many ways defined, not just by the cinematography, but by the costumes. I think the success of the movie rides on whether Beck and Paul were wearing the right costumes in the right room or situation, or whether their car was the right color. If it wasn’t in sync, the film would have felt flat.
Filmmaker: More on aesthetics, what was the importance of shooting Anima on film?
Ivie: I started film school the year we went digital, and it was a tragedy because I always felt there was something just so human about film. It’s so imperfect; you see the problems, and as Spielberg said, it’s a chemical miracle. I started a company, Kebrado, in an attempt to help filmmakers in the world maintain their humanity through the arts. Working with film is slower and harder…It’s like a prayer. Anima is lo-fi, very intimate, and a broken reflection of life in our modern age. The 16mm was intentional because you can see the grain structure more. We let light leaks play into scenes.
Even though we were talking about this futuristic idea of transference of digital consciousness, it was still grounded in our felt reality. Film was this way where we could take this tool of the past and meet this idea of the future. My plan, of course, is to shoot on film for the rest of my life until they stop making it available.
Filmmaker: It’s not the same service as what the company in Anima is offering, but as an actor, you’re, in a sense, putting artificial versions of yourself that will live on beyond you when you make a movie.
Chandler: It’s both beautiful and scary. There is something beautiful about art being able to outlive the artist. I had a great music teacher once, and he said, “Art is never finished. It just gets ready.” It’s this idea that you send your art into the world, and it is prepared to touch the right person at the right time. If it gets to the right person at the right time, we’ve done our job well. The fact that my art is around longer than I am, it might take that long to reach someone, but it might reach the right person.
To ramble on AI, I really do believe art made by humans will outlast and withstand because art is made from human mistakes. That’s the one thing AI doesn’t do; it doesn’t prepare someone to feel like “Shit, I’m crying too much, turn away.” What makes us human is our mistakes, and then we have the capacity to ask why and try to fix them. I think that’s the beauty of soul and art, and I think I’m really hopeful that it will outlast and withstand the AI movement.
Filmmaker: Sydney, your college thesis looked at the genre work that emerged in the aftermath of a crisis, such as the horror, sci-fi, and surrealist art that was written after World War I or II, etc. We’re always in the midst of a crisis, but I’m curious if both of you have reflected in some way on the canon Anima is joining, that in a time when there’s much angst around the threats to our body and soul, here comes a project that offers one possible path.
Chandler: The best sci-fi stories are intimate studies of humanity. I think I’ve learned the most about humanity by reading sci-fi or fantasy because you create an entire world that can be a metaphor for the people you are writing about. It’s interesting to see that all the pieces coming out now about AI typically deal with questions of the soul and always come back to the importance of real human connection. I think even on a subconscious level, when people are writing these stories, we’re all yearning for human connection. Knowing that gives me hope. It’s scary to explore those themes even while filming, because it often feels like we’re not making sci-fi anymore. I’m working on projects about present realities.
I don’t think I’ve seen a film where AI comes around and we’re all happy. We’re all resisting it, we’re saying, “Let’s connect more.” That’s the beauty of being in art, and in the world of acting, you create art, you’re asking a lot of questions, and you’re not necessarily throwing answers down your audience’s throat. We don’t have them, but they’re good questions to chew on, and sci-fi galvanizes those types of questions.
Ivie: I think in many ways, life is more mysterious than we give it credit for. I wanted to tap into that deeper longing and ache we all have. In particular, I love sci-fi because it allows me to still communicate things that I want to say without it feeling didactic or preachy.
