Last week the crew shot its final scenes in Kawkaban and surrounding villages. Now Dr. Roes, Mr. Smith and Mr. Hagbeck are heading for Germany where the material will be edited. They are looking back on seven turbulent weeks and extraordinary time in Yemen. YO met them for a look back at their experiences in making a film in Yemen.

Photographs: Hagbeck

How did people abroad react when hearing about your film project?

Our vision of producing this film project was met with skepticism and curiosity by other film-professionals in the West. Good friends told us "This is too crazy to be realized!" or inversely: "This is so crazy that you have to do it." And this is what makes art! It is not a commercial project. It is, you could say, 'radical'. Being an artist, one puts all one's efforts into a vision and one follows it to the end. It is actually very good that the project was not sponsored or supported financially. Money coming from outside would denote external influences on the project. One might even be forced to compromise to the interests of such sponsors. The only compromises we had to make were technical issues. Aesthetically it became our project, our film. A more commercial producer may not have accepted the more 'radical' traits of this film.

Some scenes might be regarded as too dark, too weird, and so on. Maybe that's what makes the film so special: there were not lots of people who might have had different opinions on how to realize the project. This could have lead to a film lacking a profile. Thus, we could realize our goal to produce a piece of art and not a commercial film for to a mass audience. The film uses theatre-like symbolism; we did not include scenes with brutality even though many scenes of the original play include war actions. We do not show shootings even though there are war scenes. We don't show blood or murders. Everything is implied. The whole film uses this technique. The reasons for this were that we did not have the special effects budget, and in producing a piece of art we were not striving for such.

Why did you engage four actors for the role of Macbeth.?

Our first Macbeth had become very ill when we were preparing an important scene. He had to be brought back to his family so they could take care of him. Everything was ready for the scene, but we were lacking our main actor. Also, it was one of the most important and expensive scenes as it dealt with the preparations of a festival. It would have been very difficult to repeat it. The scene also was very complex. I had learned during my work in Yemen to immediately search for alternatives. Otherwise, the other actors might have lost their enthusiasm in the project. Thus it was very important to find a substitute as quickly as possible.

I trusted 'instinct' and asked the son of Muhammad al-Hamdani. He is a very clever, sensitive young man. Al-Hamdani surprised us by saying "No problem!" and acting brilliantly as Macbeth, even though he had never read the play before. He quickly learned the script and settled into the role. It was amazing to us as professionals to see his interpretation of Macbeth. This positive experience resulted in our decision to make a virtue out of what we had needed before, so we engaged several actors to play Macbeth.

The changing actors became the visible symbol to Macbeth's changing character. Thus King Macbeth is played by the oldest of our Yemeni Macbeth actors, a 20 year old. As the final scene resembles the first, the plot itself could be described as a circle. Yahya, the same actor who had played Macbeth in the first scene, plays Macbeth of the final scene. He had been acting with an admirable consciousness and presence and powerful expression. We are very happy with all our Macbeths, of which Abdallah and Yahya were the most extraordinary ones. They knew their passages and improvised spontaneously. They provided elements that could not have been artificially produced. Due to their creativity and sensitivity you could not have done any better with professionals.

Your Macbeth actors are between 18 and 20 years old. Was there a specific reason for engaging young actors for the film?

In western theatre the actors who play Macbeth are actually too old. This is a result of the time it takes to become a professionally trained western actor. When looking at the character of Macbeth however, it seems to be more appropriate to choose a younger actor. A crucial element of the play Macbeth is the seductiveness of power.

Macbeth has the character of a young man; if he had been older he might not have been seduced to misuse power under the influence of his wife and the witches. He might not have acted in contradiction to a major trait of his character; he actually wanted to be good and carried out all these cruel deeds against his will and beliefs. These traits seem to advocate the assumption that Macbeth had a young, insecure and weak inner constitution. Thus a young man playing Macbeth seemed appropriate to the original text.

It seems that it is just as I had guessed in the beginning: the character of Macbeth seems so close to the daily life in a village, even though no one might have the same amount of power as a king. Everybody knows that the striving to achieve power and its seductiveness means that a lack of dignity occurs as soon as facilities open up. None of our actors seemed to face difficulties in identifying himself with the role of Macbeth. I left them their space for improvising and finding their individual way of interpreting Macbeth. The result was most astonishing and could not have been done any better.

Do you think that they might choose theatre for their future careers?

This is very difficult in a culture in which the social status of an actor is rather low. However, I could imagine both of our Macbeth actors to be successful professional actors. They are more than just talented. They are capable of a great strength in their expression. To find anyone similar in the West you would need a lot time.

Yemen and the whole Arab World (with the exceptions of Egypt and Lebanon) do not provide enough facilities in this field. In other countries the language might be an obstacle. Abdullah wants to become a doctor and Yahya wants to become a lawyer. He is studying law. Both professions are highly respected. They still could do theatre as their hobbies. Who knows what is written in the great book of Allah to be their future? lf the film is successful it will be a chance for both of them to be invited for festivals and learn about the world of theatre and film in other countries. Of course these have a glamour and atmosphere, as good actors are highly respected in the western countries. I hope and wish that we all are together again at some great film festival: Manfred as cameraman, Andrea as American performance actor and our Yerneni friends.

What where the major setbacks you had to face?

Pre-production for the film started in Berlin. Right from the start everything seemed to have conspired against the project and us. Formerly promised technical equipment had been denied to us. Even good friends who had promised their assistance had left us. In Yemen the Ministry of Information had not given us the assistance it had promised to us. It took us three weeks to get a filming permit from the Ministry even though this had been promised to us months ago. In the end a permit was assigned to Mr. Hagbeck and me. However this permit was denied to our American colleague Mr. Smith. Muhammad Shamir told us that we, the Germans would be welcomed, however the American would not be accepted. This was like a slap in the face to us. We were shocked by this openly displayed discrimination against my colleague.

We decided to address higher-ranking officials in the ministry and went to see Deputy Minister Hamati. He finally helped us. We are very grateful to Deputy Minister Hamati. Ever since he helped us everything turned out much better, yet not lacking of conflicts with subordinate level officials. The first murafiq (supervisory companion) of the ministry for example had been totally corrupt. He did not care what we were going to do and did not want to accompany us, yet demanded a daily fee of 40$ US. Deputy Minister Hamati supported us by bargaining this fee down to 15$ per day. We managed to get a reasonable companion who controlled and supported our work. The preparations were delayed for weeks as we could not afford to bribe anyone. At this point I thought that making a film in Yemen would be impossible unless one had enough money to meet the demands for bribes as had been addressed to us.

Why did you have to leave your first choice al-Dhafeer?

As I had friends there, we had decided to start our film in the village of Dhafeer. We had a permit. However there was a handful of people who did not approve even though the sheikhs had welcomed us. After we had been threatened, we left the village. Later the board of sheikhs came to visit us and apologized. As they wanted us to come back, we tried to continue filming in their village. The sheikhs offered to give the names of the aggressors to the police for prosecution. But we did not want to cause any further trouble.

Then again, armed people turned up on the set and stopped any further film production. We left and again the sheikhs came to re-invite us. They told us that the aggressors had been insane and therefore were not representing the majority 's opinion, which wanted us to stay and continue. We tried again; however the gunmen reappeared to prevent us from filming.

Some people suspected that the aggression was initiated by a vice minister who originally was from Dhafeer village. Maybe there were internal competitions amongst the subordinate level officials who carried out their fights on our shoulders. It seems unthinkable that people might shoot at foreigners in a country like Yemen, the hospitality of which is extraordinary. We also had to face some rumours in Kohlan where we intended to shoot the final scenes. Because of its location, the beautiful palace seemed to be the ideal place. In the beginning we were welcomed. But then an old man spread the rumour that we were filming Muslims who pray to dogs. The security officials reviewed our material and understood that Macbeth was just sitting next to the dog. However they informed us that they would not be able to grant our safety. Thus we had to leave Kohlan without finishing our scenes.

Then we went to Kawkaban where we had a very positive experience. People remembered their traditional Yemeni hospitality and understood what we were doing, that we would rather exploit ourselves than gain any money from it. People in Kawkaban were supporting us generously and understood us in what we were doing. We are very grateful to Muhammad al-Hamdani who encouraged us to come to Kawkaban and told us that we would be welcome and safe to continue our project there. He invited us and introduced us to the whole village community. The whole family, mainly the sons, had been our steady companions and protectors. People were very friendly and helpful we shot the majority of scenes in Kawkaban.

One of your Macbeth actors said that for this scene you were using a musallah (rug designed for praying).

We were totally naive. We actually did not want to use a musallah. We just did not want our actor to sit on the cold floor. You can't even see the musallah in the film. Neither the local actors nor any of our companions who are pious Muslims had any idea of what might happen when preparing the scene. It does not include any sort of prayer. We never forced anybody to do anything that he did not want to do. Our companions Ahmad and our murafiq tried to explain this scene to the old man.

However the old man's imaginative view was adopted by the entire community. Even though we showed the recorded scenes to them it was not enough to overcome this misunderstanding. We received phone calls from Kohlan Muhammad Hamdal that he intended to stop the production. Deputy Minister Hamati was ready to take a look at the material. After watching the scene he confirmed that everything was all right and told us to be careful with delicate issues. Due to such experiences we realized that it must be the act of making a film itself which makes the people feel insecure. Even though we were watching what we were doing, we could not explain each scene to everybody. Thus they were observing strange things happening and started speculating. That's how you get all these rumours spreading around.

Did you see the film "Rules of Engagement"?

No! Hollywood does not interest me at all. "Rules of Engagement" is just another example of the commercial shit that is produced in Hollywood. Being German, I know the experience of being defamed by American movies. In Hollywood "German Bashing" (defaming Germans as Nazis by birth) has been a fashion over decades. In every other Hollywood production another country or minority is defamed.

Yemen is not the only victim of such productions. We cannot be upset about this every time we see a new one of these movies. The only healthy way of coping with it is to ignore these films. They are not dedicated to fairness or instructing anybody. They are produced for commercial and subjective reasons. lf people go to the cinema to see the crap then they qualify themselves as ignorant. Any state, any country should have enough self-respect and should know that these productions have nothing to do with the country itself. These productions are nothing more than the projection of some moneymakers who speculate on lower emotions. That is a part of the genre.

What will be your next steps when you are back in Germany?

The first steps that we are going to take in Germany will be editing. We have gathered some extraordinary and amazing material that we will show to other professionals. Editing will be a solely technical task. I hope that we will have finished the editing by summer and get a rough cut of the film. Then we will offer this to festivals and hope to be invited. The material itself is very sophisticated. lf the editing is as sophisticated and artistic I am sure that also the final film will be appreciated.

Is "An East-West Macbeth" going to be shown in Yemen?

I would like to show the film in Yemen. Also I would like to see everything that I have written on Yemen in Arabic as it belongs here. Our Yemeni friends, Yemeni artists and intellectuals surely would like to see it and I am positive that they also would appreciate it as a piece of art.

On the other side I could imagine that some people might not understand and approve of the film. The reason for this is that, as one might say, the medium of film is 'immediate and without mercy' to some extent. It records the visible things and preserves them. It might be difficult for some people to understand the film and to cope with the immediacy of the medium. I do not know whether this country will be mature enough and whether it has enough self-confidence to cope with that. The country itself seems to me like a young person. It seems that it easily feels puzzled and hurt. I would be very happy if I would be invited to show the film in Yemen and discuss it with Yemenis. I am hoping that the country will reach a point at which it is capable of coping with a differentiated picture of itself.




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