Cities crumble and souls decay on the set of The Divide
This week says producer Darryn Welch is when the decay “is really beginning.” Welch — whose credits include apartheid-era drama The Bang Bang Club (as executive producer) — is leading a set tour for The Divide filmed largely at Winnipeg’s Prairie Production Centre.
Previously screened at the SXSW and Fantasia festivals earlier this year and reportedly set for a 2012 theatrical release the post-apocalyptic thriller concerns the fate of several people holed up in a New York City fallout shelter after a mysterious cataclysm rocks the surface world.
Sitting across the table at lunch is co-star Ivan Gonzalez who’s among a cast featuring Michael Biehn ( Aliens ) Rosanna Arquette (David Cronenberg’s Crash ) and Courtney B. Vance ( Law & Order: Criminal Intent ). Welch explains the prescribed diet of tofu and vegetables: “We actually have a dietician on set — the actors have to maintain an almost emaciated look.” Key to the film’s grimness is an authentic sense of physical wasting.
It’s the story’s psychological dimension however that truly distinguishes it says co-writer and co-producer Eron Sheean. “For me it was always about inner turmoil” he says citing William Golding’s classic novel Lord of the Flies as inspiration. “People’s repressions come out in an extreme situation like this. In writing the script we kind of built on the idea of ‘let’s see how horrible things can go.’”
And the movie’s characters he continues may surprise you. “People may think they know who will be the heroes but….”
Essential to realizing that dimension was the casting of Biehn who credits the producers and director Xavier Gens ( Hitman ) with helping create the “great role” of his wild-card character Mickey. “They’re very actor-friendly” says Biehn looking lean mean and speaking with evident enthusiasm about the film. “Roles like this don’t come around often. I haven’t had one this good since Tombstone .”
The actor has an established history of playing antagonists perhaps most memorably in James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989) in which his navy seal Lt. Coffey went bugfuck crazy with paranoia and the literal pressure of being stranded at the ocean’s bottom.
Mickey Biehn says has a similar kind of complexity. “The thing about Coffey and what was interesting was that he thought he was doing the right thing” Biehn says. By contrast his character this time “starts as the antagonist and gradually becomes the protagonist.”
Standing on the mainstage bomb shelter set shooting day 13 of 31 one doesn’t even feel like breathing the air; the sour light feels downright sickly the space cramped and clammy. The art department has done a fantastic job and it’s no place for claustrophobics. All of which seems to be what the filmmakers are going for: faced with the challenge of shooting on a few limited sets director Gens has referenced the likes of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 Ridley Scott’s Alien and Steven Spielberg’s 2005 remake of War of the Worlds .
“The perspective in this movie is through the eyes of the characters” says Gens who filmed the scenes in chronological order to approximate the story’s intensity on set. “I’m trying to get the audience to react to the film like it’s a drama sometimes… but the action is also more heightened that way.”
