almost a century ago, in Oklahoma, United States, a series of horrible dust devils known as the dust bowl, created chaos and horror for the inhabitants of the place. Not only because of its immediate effects, but because it is one of the most damaging and strange ecological disasters that have been recorded in that part of the world.
Hold your breath for part of these events and add to the terror with the story of a mother and her two daughters who, beyond having to face the walls of dust, begin to experience a kind of apparent madness for what could come with the phenomenon.
The feeling of “imminent terror”of knowing that something lethal is approaching but not knowing what it is, was the tenor with which we began the conversation with Paulson.
“Yes, I think that’s a very apt description of what I hope people feel when the movie starts. It’s just that something is a little outside of ourselves. You’re in the middle of this beautiful cornfield, you feel like you have children floating around and suddenly you get into the horror in Margaret’s mind and then you discover throughout the story that we’re not just dealing with the reality of these dust storms, which are really amazing and incredibly threatening to people in these rural communities, but it’s a woman who is in a lot of pain because she lost her youngest daughter.
The air and the pandemic
We asked him if he thinks that the fact that Margaret, his character, has felt a little of what we all feared in the pandemic, about not trusting even the air, and he responded: “Yes, of course, I think the pandemic, when we were filming the directors and colleagues were still wearing masks and we were still on the shores of the pandemic and that did not go unnoticed by any of us, the strange thing we found almost 100 years later, everyone was wearing masks, and the idea that the air itself could be dangerous was a powerful reality that we were dealing with with the film itself.
Another thing that the film explores is the idea that when you breathe that dust something could enter you and make you act in terrible ways, doing things that we would never do even to protect our loved ones. On this Sarah elaborated:
“I see it exactly that way, and that is why I say, in the origin of the films it is a horror film or a psychological thrillerand all of that is really true, and there are very crude elements of the movie, but you’re also dealing with a woman in crisis, in terms of, you know, desperately sad because she lost her youngest son.and she will do anything to protect the children she still has, and she has been trapped in the role of leader of the family because her husband has gone to look for work, to put food on the table, and so she is in an environment and in a world that has never been, and so she is trying to show all the strength and courage to do that while being satisfied with this pain that is very challenging to go through, and what causes it is losing control of her thoughts. .
Keeping score
Regarding how to know exactly what emotional state her character was in in each scene, the theater actress also told us: “We did it with something I had in my trailer actually, a huge schedule because we had gone through each scene with the directors and figured out exactly the timing of how long each scene was running.. And at what point we were in reality, or Margaret’s dream versus Margaret’s perception of reality. So, any questions, (not everything is filmed in order) I could go back to my trailer and look at the schedule and make sure I had everything in order before we went to film each scene because their reality was constantly changing
Actress and producer
About her double work as protagonist and executive producer, “It is a blessing to have the ability to be a producer and an actress, because at least you have a good seat at the table and you are not alone waiting for your opinion, your ideas, your thoughts or your notes to reach someone. But sometimes it was difficult because there were things that I needed as an actress and as an executive producer, I had to ask myself something for the good of the film, even though that meant that I wouldn’t have the amount of rest I needed, for example. But wow, it’s fun to wear both layers, because sometimes you have to sacrifice in one direction or the other, but I feel so grateful that I had the opportunity to do it.
Keys
Amiah Miller and Alona Jane Robbins are the young talent accompanying Paulson.
Will Jones and Carrie Crouse co-direct the film that arrives in Mexico via Searchlight label via Disney+
A.J.R.
