"This is a human, and in many ways very modern, story," says Alan Rickman of A Little Chaos, which is his second feature as director following The Winter Guest. "Any audience member will be able to enter this story, whether knowing a lot about the period or nothing at all. Some of what we are dramatising happened, and some of it did not. We are looking at history through a kind of prism."
Matthias Schoenaerts, who can also be seen in Far From The Madding Crowd, plays a famous and celebrated architect, who is tasked with overseeing the creation of an outdoor ballroom. The sparks fly when he turns to Sabine de Barra (played by a feisty Kate Winslet) , an outsider to court and a landscape designer, to bring a fresh perspective.
"While their respective visions of beauty for the garden might initially be seen as contradictory, a true meeting of minds begins to take shape, says Rickman, who co-wrote the screenplay with Gail Egan and Jeremy Brock.
The screenplay's key departure from the historical record was in the creation of the character of Sabine.
Gail Egan offers: "The character of Sabine is what gives our film such resonance. One of the things Kate Winslet said when she first read the script was that this was an incredibly modern story, only set in a different period. Sabine takes on life, creativity, and emotions in a very modern way; we can relate to her attitude, her pride, her pain, her hopes and dreams, and her redemption.
Given that A Little Chaos dramatises Sabine's drive to oversee a seemingly impossible construction project, it was perhaps only appropriate that one of the key challenges the production faced was securing locations for the tightly budgeted shoot.
Although the filmmakers considered filming some exteriors in France, establishing characters' worlds over there and then doing all the interiors in the UK, they realised that all the sets and locations were self-contained in their own world and that they had very good representation of that period of architecture in the UK.
Kate Winslet marvels: "We have such incredible palaces in England. There are these beautiful stately homes that we were very fortunate to access. Our crew cleverly made it feel like that opulent, decadent, French world!"
Gail Egan reveals: "Most of the places that we filmed in genuinely did have Louis XIV interiors: Blenheim Palace, Waddesdon Manor - so grand and beautiful."
The filmmakers invaded some of England's foremost stately homes; in addition to Blenheim and Waddesdon, including Hampton Court Palace, Cliveden, Ham House, Ashridge Park, and Chenies Manor.
Over at Blenheim, the production was able to film scenes in rooms that had never before been shown on screen; the rooms were used to portray The Louvre museum, among other locales. Alan Rickman reveals: "There is, in fact, a bust and a huge painting of Louis XIV at Blenheim; we couldn't show either of these, but at least we had a sense of the right world."
Rickman looks back on making the movie as a time of "collaboration, comradeship, mutual respect, finding things you never thought you would, things that surprised you, and experiencing moments of emotional commitment by an actor that made your jaw drop with their bravery".
"Someone said that making a film is like going to war. This one had huge set pieces, and every day was a challenge in very rewarding ways; you just had to be ready. I knew I had to rely on my team utterly, and as a director you need to be surrounded by a lot of truth tellers."
Schoenaerts enthuses: "I hope that A Little Chaos encourages people to, if they sense passion, jump into it even if they're scared. That's when life is worth living."
Rickman embraces that tenet, adding that he made the film because "it is the simple, age-old thing of Once Upon a Time. If we are able to engage you visually and emotionally then your defences are taken away, and you are reminded that you are alive. It's that great and distinctive phenomenon of watching a movie: sitting together in the dark with a bunch of people, all being told a story".
Read more about other new films opening this week at www.writingstudio.co.za
