Nadine Whitney: Silver Haze is your second collaboration with Vicky Knight after Dirty God your English language debut. It was something you were working on for a long time before you met Vicky. For her it was an essential part of healing from trauma and being perceived as monstrous. The film also helped to usher in significant change in the British Film Industry and created a long overdue discussion of how people with scars, disabilities, and noticeable facial differences are used in media. Silver Haze again stars Vicky. In this film you are partially drawing on her own life experience with the fire which caused her burns as a child. You also reference her work in healthcare and acknowledge her queerness. The film is filled with damaged and damaging people. Yet it also has a core sensibility of forgiveness and moving on from the thing you believe defined you. Can you tell me a little about the process of working with Vicky and how you collaborated with her to speak a kind of truth about her life?
Sacha Polak: This film was written for her and loosely based on her own life stories. After Dirty God, Vicky and I traveled all over the world to promote the film. I was so touched in the way Vicky spoke to people telling them her life story and comforting them. We had a lot of tears in the audience and Vicky was so powerful. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to make another film with her.
After I wrote the script we improvised around the scenes. For me it was important that we have lots of time to find honest performances but also playfulness and humor.
In the there is also a lot of anger and people hurt each other, it’s a harsh world. I hope the characters have both sides though. Franky’s mother Jenn is traumatized and there is choice there between moving on or being stuck in the past. Franky in the end chooses to move on.
NW: Through Florence, Franky manages to escape not only the heteronormativity and violence of her East End community but meets Alice and Jack in Southend which seems like a magical place for her. For a while Franky is bewitched by Florence and the kindness Alice shows her. For the first time in years someone is taking care of her instead of her carrying the weight of others. How did you fashion the golden moments with Florence, Alice, and Jack?
SP: Franky falls in love with Florence. Although it is her first romance it is overshadowed by her breaking up with her family. She comes to Southend, a place full of kindness. Something she is not used to at all. With Angela I spoke a lot about making Alice human, not an angel. But somebody who does take care of Franky who was taking care of everyone in her work, her family and Florence. I spoke a lot about how it feels like to fall in love for the first time with both Esmé and Vicky.
NW: Without spoiling too much of the film, Florence is more than mercurial. She’s mentally ill. She thinks herself an evil person. Yet Florence can no more control her actions than Jack can control his neurodivergence. Nor Alice stop the cancer which is killing her. You give Florence a space of grace despite her behaviour and eventual turn on Franky. How important was it to you to show that Florence despite her cruelty, is also living with internal scars which she can’t keep hidden?
SP: Silver Haze is a love story, and it deals with trauma. In the beginning of the film Florence doesn’t want to live anymore. She has already given up. Franky is a fighter; she solves everything with fighting. This is why their relationship can’t work. Florence does love Franky but doesn’t love herself.
NW: Silver Haze is about the importance of letting go of rage. Franky’s mother, Jenn can’t let go of the fire because it wasn’t even so much the moment when she almost lost a child, it was the moment she felt betrayed by her husband and best friend. Leah feels a quiet guilt because she was supposed to be in the pub that night. Franky needs to know how it happened because she was a small child at the time and no one’s stories align.
In letting go of her rage, especially against the people she was told consistently were responsible, she has a chance to heal. She also has the opportunity to extend her kindness to people who deserve it. Her found family, and Leah who has somehow found herself in an unusual manner. Can you tell me a little about building the process of self liberation for Franky and Leah?
SP: Franky and Leah have been taught to constantly fight. I believe that rage is not a way to overcome trauma. Franky has a chance to heal and finds love and warmth in Alice and Jack even though she loses Florence in the process. Finding a family even though it’s not blood resonates with me since both my parents have passed away.
NW: Your work has been compared to Ken Loach and early Andrea Arnold. It is social realism, yet it is never exploiting the people it is depicting. How do you create the balance between realism, authenticity, and avoiding poverty cliches?
SP: It was very important that this film would never be “poverty porn” as they call it. That it would be a film full of light and love and humor. Because this is how I see Vicky and her family.
NW: Your cast is excellent. Vicky was not a professional actor before she met you. Leah, played by Charlotte Knight is Vicky’s real-life sister. Archie Brigden as Jack was not a professional actor. The most experienced cast members you have on the film are Angela Bruce and Esmé Creed-Miles who grew up around the film industry. How do you collaborate with emerging talents. How much of the script do you give to them to improvise?
Thank you. It was helpful that I knew Vicky and Charlotte before from working with Vicky on Dirty God. So, Charlotte had seen the process with her elder sister. We spoke about what this film would be about. Which scenes were important to me to keep as written and what would be the scenes to play around with. We shot a lot in Dagenham where they both lived. Esme I also knew from the tv show Hanna I directed. Vicky and Esme immediately hit it off. For me it is important that the actors feel safe, and they trust me and each other. That there is space to try things. Working with Archie was especially tricky for me because he is autistic, and I found out that I need to be very precise in how I direct him. It was confronting for me to find out how sloppy I am with words. Also, he found it important that the character of Jack would not be a victim and would be portrayed in a way that would be respectful to people with autism.
