Article by Anna Takayama 

SÆKZI, a recent submission to the ÉCU 2010 Dramatic Short category, is an honest story of a woman’s battle with her lack of self-confidence through the eyes of her devoted lover. Director Lars T. Moen gives interviewer Anna Takayama his views on women, beauty, ideals, and love in modern times.

Q: What is your film about?

Sækzi is a film about self-confidence, and how it shouldn’t matter what you look like. The film portrays a female character, Tine, and is presented through the eyes of her boyfriend, Martin.

Q: Where is the location of your film?

We shot on various locations around the city of Oslo, Norway.

Q: How did you come up with your story?

This was my first attempt at writing something truly personal as a screenplay. I’ve been on both sides of the relationship portrayed in the film–as the one insecure in need of comfort, and also as the confident, comforting boyfriend.

Q: How much of the narrative is the way you actually feel about “beauty”?

I can’t deny that first impressions come from exterior appearance, but personality goes a long way. I couldn’t stand being in a relationship with someone I couldn’t relate to, talk to, laugh with, and share things with. It’s a cliché that beauty comes from within, but clichés are clichés because they’re tried and true.

Q: Tell us a little about the casting process.

Martin, the male character and the one who tells Tine’s story was the easiest role to cast. Mattis (who plays Martin) had a part in another short film from the same producer, and I cast him based on his performance in that film. Casting Tine was a much longer process… It’s easier when casting amateur actors, to find someone who already fits the profile of the part, rather than forcing them to “act”… Marie (who plays Tine in the film) was so close to what I had pictured Tine to be like that there was no doubt in my mind… It takes a lot of guts and a lot of faith in the director, to waltz straight into a sex scene without anything but my word that I won’t take advantage of it.

Q: How do you feel about the way women are portrayed in the media today?

Different medias portray women in different ways. But in terms of fashion, advertising, and general ideals, it’s worse than ever. I feel sorry for girls who starve themselves to death to look like the poster girls they look up to. It’s not pretty, and it’s not healthy. We live in a time when children are raised to be shallow.

Q: Do you think there is a way to overcome overly idealistic expectations of women?

The advertising industry (and the motion picture industry, for that matter) will always advocate exterior beauty as an ideal, because it’s the only thing that sells their product… I think one misconception about ideals is that women think men have overly idealistic expectations of women. But I think first and foremost, women have even higher expectations of themselves and what it means to be a woman… There is an increasing number of anorexic boys in the world, and the expectations of men have also reached a point where it makes a lot of men feel inadequate, in the same way Tine does.

Q: Tell about your next project.

I’m currently collaborating with a screenwriter on a feature film screenplay, working title: “793 Arizona”. It’s a teen drama about “going your own way” and finding out where you belong among your friends, [even] if you belong with them.