Anyway the Wind Blows (BE)

Directed by Tom Barman
Antwerp-Belgium, August 2002

Tom Barman, director
“I chose this title over the others because there’s a song by J.J. Cale that I’d loved to have used here, it’s called ‘Anyway the Wind Blows’, then there was this character I developed about twenty years ago at school. A cartoon character called Windman, a sort of Superman for ordinary people and ordinary problems.
He has a problem too, and I liked the fact that he suffered from a bad back and had to see an osteopath when the pain gets too strong: you can help others but are unable to help yourself. So I created the other characters around him. We follow “Wind Man” around Anvers for 32 hours. It’s very windy and there’s lots of music; two things I try to include (in the film). A sort of desire, boredom, paranoia… and wind.”

 

Matthias Schoenaerts, male lead
“Chouki is trying to discover the meaning of life and death, and the relationship between the two and also whether or not life and death really exist. He knows life exists but isn’t sure about death.
That is why he experiments so much; he is trying to prove the existence of evolution and that it is a continuous process that never stops and is always transforming itself. Looking for proof both fascinates him and keeps him busy. Certain people consider him to be an artist while others think of him as a scientist. He does what he feels he must do because what he feels is stronger than he is”.

 

Natali Broods, female lead
“For the last two year (Tom) has been asking me to act in this film, so I ended up reading several versions of it.
I think that Natalie (the protagonist) is the most normal person in this film, she is fascinated by people and I think that she is also fascinated by artists and people whose lives are different from her life.
I can say that she works with computers and organises a party and…”

 

Alex Stockman, Producer (Corridor)
“We were lucky enough to produce this film by chance. We met Tom Barman, the director, at a party and that is significant in itself because there is a big party in this film, and that brought us luck. We talked about films.
I had just finished directing my first film, which I also co-produced with “Corridor” and told Barman about the way we usually worked. We wanted to share this thing we had created with other filmmakers because it often happens that filmmakers are not free to do what they want in both production and the way they actually make the film.
We asked Tom to join us. For some time, he had wanted to make a medium-length film, about forty minutes long, and instead and very quickly, we developed the idea of a feature and that is how we came to work together.”

 

Renaat Lambeets, Cinematographer
“Tom wanted a film that was very energetic and a bit neurotic, an urban scene somewhat in the style of… Woody Allen.
We wanted to go the whole hog, we wanted to make it in 35mm because we’d made a videoclip ‘Turnpike’ in 35mm and wanted to take it further. So we said: why not use cinemascope and also, in the end, some 35mm?”

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