{"id":55890,"date":"2025-02-21T14:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T12:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tamperefilmfestival.fi\/?p=55890"},"modified":"2025-08-14T16:44:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T13:44:29","slug":"pirjo-honkasalo-and-that-which-you-cant-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tamperefilmfestival.fi\/en\/pirjo-honkasalo-and-that-which-you-cant-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirjo Honkasalo and That Which You Can\u2019t Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Director Pirjo Honkasalo moves fluently between fact and fiction, but has no interest in stories. \u201cI think I have a Ural kind of head,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nPirjo Honkasalo in Saint Petersburg in 2011. Photo: Kati Sinisalo<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

WRITTEN BY
\nKati Sinisalo<\/strong>
\n<\/span>Producer at YLE Kulttuuri and Curator for YLE Teema Film Festival, former film journalist<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When boiled down to its essence \u2013 when it\u2019s at its most liberated \u2013 what is film? Having made both fiction and documentary films for over 50 years, Pirjo Honkasalo<\/strong> has found the answer. But you can\u2019t really say it.<\/span><\/p>\n

And still, this interview tries to do just that. And instead of a linear story, it goes back and forth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the story.<\/span><\/p>\n

A shared element in both Honkasalo\u2019s fictive works and documentaries is a resignation from traditional storytelling. She points out that the concept of a story is entirely informed by our culture. Hollywood has spread the same dramaturgic tradition to all parts of the world, though traditional Finnish story-telling isn’t usually too linear.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey say that the languages of the Ural mountains, which use grammar modifiers, create a story through relations. Stories go back and forth. They were created in forests. Indo-European languages rely on prepositions, and came about in steppes. There, a story requires that forward-moving momentum, linear storytelling. I think I have a Ural kind of head.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese days everything\u2019s a story. I\u2019ve never been interested in them. There are stories in my films, but they\u2019ve never been the starting point or the end goal. I\u2019m not even that good at listening to stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI also don\u2019t remember a single famous line from a movie. Apparently I\u2019ve been preoccupied by watching someone in the background.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA film can be made without a story, or its story can be built off of real human lives. A story can arise from the way you carry thoughts and feelings, how you seek them out, the tensions they hold; from the mirrored images of the meaning of life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Honkasalo says she loves words, though living with a writer has taught her to tone that side of herself down a bit. \u201cAnd Pirkko Saisio<\/strong> used to take really great pictures before we knew each other. Not anymore!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut in film, I don\u2019t look for words. Image and sound are the first means of expression for me. A film can express what words can\u2019t. To me, that\u2019s the beauty of film, the thing that makes me passionate about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHuman beings have divorced from themselves and become objects of their own selves\u201d<\/h2>\n

According to Honkasalo, documentary filmmaking is fundamentally immoral. It\u2019s an ethical extreme sport. This is what separates it from fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat gives you the right to express yourself through other people\u2019s lived experiences, even when they consent to it? A documentarian mixes real, living human beings on their palette. It\u2019s kind of odd, ethically speaking. You can justify fiction because it\u2019s made up: everyone knows this isn\u2019t actually happening.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen again, people have a desire to be seen, especially now when it\u2019s normal to be nonreligious. It used to be that people were seen by their gods, now they\u2019re kind of not seen by anyone. That\u2019s why they may agree to do something they shouldn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHuman beings have divorced from themselves and become objects of their own selves, only seen by themselves, analysed by themselves. This creates a state of emptiness and meaninglessness. That, too, makes the part of a documentarian an ethically tricky one. Who\u2019s speaking through her?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter the setup, the ethical responsibility of a documentary film falls on its director. You have no way of knowing what you\u2019ll end up having to be responsible for when you start making a film. Doing this takes either great courage or a great deal of obliviousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDocumentary films may also lead to real-life consequences for people. How do I take the ethical responsibility for that? It\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Honkasalo says that the only way you can<\/span> afford to justify this moral weight is by respecting the humanity of your subject.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily the people being filmed will let you know if you’re being respectful. If you\u2019re not worth anything, they shut down. People aren\u2019t stupid. If you observe and read people as a director, you shouldn\u2019t think they\u2019re not reading you right back.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis Sudden Feeling of Life Force, This Return to a Great Connection\u201d<\/b><\/h2>\n

So what is it that this extreme sport tries to gain? Moments of truth that exist beyond words. Meaning what, and how?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean, how can a film reach that which can\u2019t be verbalised? Putting it into words is awkward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s try it anyway. Honkasalo has written this part down to make sure she\u2019ll get it right.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Ingmar Bergman<\/strong> was over 80 years old, he was asked if experience makes the work of a director any easier. He said that capturing a single moment of truth in film is always every bit as difficult. What is a moment of truth? To me, it\u2019s capturing even one single moment of animal silence in a person. You don\u2019t get that through closeness, you get that with distance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you love your subject the way a documentarian filming a person should love them, you have to both be them and be separate from them at the same time. These opposites existing simultaneously doesn\u2019t really fit into a Western world view.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou also have to love the other person\u2019s separate being and their solitude, their quiet. You have to dare to keep your distance. You can\u2019t intrude upon another person\u2019s solitude or you\u2019ll destroy it. If you step in, it\u2019s no longer solitude. Films might offer a careful reflection of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRecognising that you\u2019re one and the same, and the feeling of intimacy brought about from that recognition, is the first stage of likeness, the requirement for art. You can only achieve the second stage of likeness through distance. In art you can say it appears as this sudden feeling of life force, this return to a great connection. Its path is always present in the immaterial world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest thing about film is that through it, you can reach this path. But you can\u2019t plan or prepare for it. If one succeeds in reaching it, they aren\u2019t aware of it themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s most fascinating about film. Experience won\u2019t help you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

“One has the eye of an ornithologist, the other sees the souls of those who\u2019ve passed”<\/b><\/h2>\n

Honkasalo says that a documentarian should lust for that which they fear, and go towards that which they cannot understand. \u201cYou have to let go of thinking that your own feelings and reactions are right. It makes observing the world around you quite interesting!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy interest in documentary film was probably influenced by my mother. She was a social worker. Back then, home visits were very common, and I tagged along with her \u2013 which probably wasn\u2019t actually allowed. That made the different realities between different people very apparent to me from a young age.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I also got this certain type of fearlessness. In those times the protocol was that an unsafe situation was first seen to by a social worker, then the police, and as a last resort, a doctor. I might have been a shield for my mother, but I never felt \u2013 to use a current expression \u2013 that my safe space was at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe that\u2019s the attitude of every documentarian: to just get in there!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Acquiring the trust of your subjects, however, is just the beginning of the journey. People don\u2019t realize what they\u2019ve gotten themselves into. They get tired halfway through.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDocumentary films are often finished out of sheer pity, when the subjects see the crew working themselves to death,\u201d laughs Honkasalo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou also need to be quick and creative. We were filming Chechen children in Ingushetia for <\/span>The 3 Rooms of Melancholia<\/span><\/i>. We had a five-person crew. When we hit a bad day, everyone was exhausted. Our producer Kristiina Pervil\u00e4<\/strong> disappeared and came back with five chickens. The children were encouraged to name the chickens after us. They played with them, mocked them, and mimicked us. After that, everyone felt better and we continued. That was one creative producer!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Working in other cultures emphasizes these challenges. When filming <\/span>Atman<\/span><\/i>, Honkasalo hoped to reach at least one moment where she saw the world as the disabled Indian man in front of the camera.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHis state of mind was completely different from mine, it was symbiotic, seamless. The way Western people view life as a part of all of creation is at the very least fractured, if not destroyed completely.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSay we both look at the birds in the sky \u2013 what do we see? Our view of the sky is completely different: one has the eye of an ornithologist, the other sees the souls of those who\u2019ve passed flying in the sky.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

“The lack of glamour has been a huge blessing to the industry”<\/b><\/h2>\n

Though in many ways this task is impossible, Honkasalo says you shouldn\u2019t back down from it. It\u2019s a huge possibility to see the world in a different light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDocumentary filmmakers have actually made it through this ethical challenge remarkably well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Honkasalo posits that this is due not only to the instinct to observe inherent in documentarians, but also because you learn from experience \u2013 the good and the bad. That, and the lack of glamour in the industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt documentary festivals, there\u2019s stern discussions about what the world is like. Fiction festivals too often discuss how and where to get money and success. The lack of glamour has been a huge blessing to the industry. Obviously filmmakers want to succeed and make good films, but their career awareness isn\u2019t too intense.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After Honkasalo won the Main Prize at Bombay Film Festival with <\/span>Tanjuska and the 7 Devils <\/span><\/i>in 1994, she was given the chance to see Indian filmmaking in action. At a Bollywood studio she met a movie star, dressed in a maroon silk shirt, with a bleeding woman being draped around his shoulders.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the man heard that Honkasalo makes documentaries, he lost interest, saying:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, if you want to make classroom films, you can make classroom films<\/span>.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But documentary filmmaking is greatly rewarding work. A fine and demanding profession, says Honkasalo. And it takes humility, unlike making fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does that mean that Pirjo Honkasalo, the fiction filmmaker, is different from Pirjo Honkasalo, the documentarian?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf I look at the themes present in my fiction and documentaries, I do see the same head at work. Possibly even the same heart. But of course the production setups are very different from each other, you\u2019re looking at five truckfulls of lighting equipment versus five chickens in Ingushetia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith documentary film, you go into the great unknown and return enriched. With fiction, you give from that which you\u2019ve already lived. Of course you also give through documentaries, the filmmaker\u2019s gaze has its own past, its own grief and sorrow and joy. But with making fiction, I\u2019ve collected a vault that I use for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t pitch, I\u2019m not a bitch\u201d<\/b><\/h2>\n

For a moment, let\u2019s return to the dusty memories of classroom films and the bright future of documentary film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Honkasalo, too, remembers the scratchy 16 mm educational films that everyone gathered to watch at the school\u2019s assembly hall. \u201cDocumentary smelled of old clothes, even the very word itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But now we\u2019re in a situation where documentary film is interesting, tempting and prestigious. It\u2019s hot and trendy \u2013 even a little glamorous!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe must beware of that,\u201d says Honkasalo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDocumentary film is doing fine. Actually it\u2019s blown right open, spread out in every direction. It can be abstract or anything at all. You don\u2019t have to draw specific limitations on it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You also shouldn\u2019t draw lines when deciding on how to finance your work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPitching is an unavoidable American tradition which favours easy stories, being able to tell what the film is about in ninety seconds. I consider that selling yourself. I\u2019m going to have a t-shirt made that says on the back: ‘I don’t pitch, I\u2019m not a bitch.’<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn a serious note, the danger in pitching is that young filmmakers are so hungry to make something, they\u2019re intelligent, and they know what kind of pitch gets them what they want. It might have the same effect as self-censorship. And then you don\u2019t pitch films like <\/span>The 3 Rooms of Melancholia<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the Finnish Film Foundation asked me what the target audience for <\/span>Melancholia<\/span><\/i> was. I said it\u2019s weepy middle-aged men, no one does anything for them!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is an updated version of an interview originally made for DocPoint Film Festival in 2022. English translation by Aaro Salokorpi, TFF.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Read more about Pirjo Honkasalo’s retrospective<\/a> and Carte blanche screening<\/a> at Tampere Film Festival 2025. Hear from Honkasalo directly at a symposium titled Pirjo Honkasalo: Film and Philosophy<\/a> on 7 March 2025, or at her masterclass<\/a> held 8 March 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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