- Spoiler warning! This interview gives away aspects of the story
As any documentary maker knows, a key element to a successful non-fiction film is trust; between director and crew, between film and audience and, most crucially, between filmmaker and subject. It’s a responsibility that takes on a particular weight when a film concerns itself with the story of a single individual, and a theme that runs to the heart of veteran British documentarian Brian Hill’s latest film The Confessions of Thomas Quick.
Little known outside his native Sweden, Thomas Quick – real name Sture Bergwall – gained notoriety in the 1990s as the country’s first serial killer. He revealed the gruesome details of 30 previously unsolved murders during long experimental therapy sessions at Sater’s forensic psychiatric clinic, and was eventually convicted of eight. Bergwall shocked the nation once again in 2008, when he retracted his confessions and claimed that he was merely telling his therapists not just what they wanted to hear, but what they deliberately encouraged him to say, the resulting attention – and access to unlimited drugs – fuelling his deceit. “I confessed to the murders because I wanted to be a more interesting patient,” says Bergwall in the film.
“He is the ultimate unreliable narrator,” Hill admits of his eponymous subject, whom he initially came across after reading a small piece about the case in an English newspaper. “But I had to make a decision to trust him. He’s the main character in my film, so I couldn’t have made it if I didn’t.”
Despite Hill’s faith in his subject, he made an early decision to use the uncertainty surrounding Bergwall’s innocence to structure the film, which blends talking-head interviews, archive police footage and dramatic reconstructions to blur the line between fact and fiction. “Thomas is a self-confessed liar,” the director points out, “and we needed to reflect that in the way we made the film. I wanted the story to unfold for a British audience just as the story had unfolded for the Swedish public, for them to watch the film and be utterly convinced for the first hour that they are in the presence of a serial killer before we pull the rug away. That meant that Sture had to play along with that, to some extent.”
Indeed, Hill gives a large amount of screen time to Bergwall – who he describes as “a bright, interesting man” – allowing him the freedom to narrate his experiences in his own words. “I spent three days interviewing Sture,” says Hill. “It was particularly tiring because while he understood the question in English, he would answer in Swedish. So he gave these long answers, and after each one I had to get a translation of what he was saying.”
While Hill admits that this language barrier was a challenge, the resulting interview footage – which often frames Bergwall in extreme, unblinking close-up – is utterly fascinating, and underscores the unsettling ambiguity that fuels the film. As Bergwall talks us through his troubled upbringing, supposed crimes and the therapy that shattered his life, he is both chilling and entirely sympathetic; a quietly spoken, articulate man who looks like a retired school teacher but may very well be a monster. “My aim was to have an audience walk out of the cinema saying ‘I don’t know if he did it or not,’” smiles Hill.
Alongside Bergwall, Hill also secured the involvement of an impressive roster of major players including journalist Jenny Kuttim who, along with colleague Hannes Rastam, originally unravelled the details of the case, and Bergwall’s consultant psychiatrist Goran Franzen. (“Franzen took quite a bit of persuading,” says Hill. “I had to convince him I understood that he and the others were operating with the best of motives, even though they ended up doing a terrible thing.”) And while some key figures refused to take part, including therapist Birgitta Stahle and detective inspector Seppo Penttinen, Hill has assembled enough frank and honest voices from both sides of the argument to ensure an essential narrative balance.
This ability to secure successful talking-head interviews should be at the forefront of any documentary maker’s arsenal but, as Hill laments, “it’s a skill that doesn’t get taught in film school. Some documentary makers don’t turn up to an interview with a list of questions, they turn up with a list of answers. I want [my subjects] to explain what happened in their own words, and as I’m listening to their responses I’m processing how it will work in terms of the film. You have to give people a lot of time, particularly with a story as complicated as this. I never take notes, I just sit and talk to people; if you make it more discursive, more conversational, you can get into areas that you never thought of.”
Of course, documentary filmmaking has its own creative constructs; a director can’t alter the facts for dramatic impact, for example. Because of this, Hill explains, it’s all about how you tell the story. “It’s more to do with nuances and how you keep the tension building. You have to be aware of the rules of cinema. I worked with an editor on Thomas Quick, Mags Arnold, who only really cuts dramatic features. She had a completely different take on things, and was thinking very much in terms of structure and pacing.”
Hill is all too aware of this need to entice and enthral an audience, particularly given the recent boom in the number of theatrical documentaries. And while he believes that television is the ‘natural home’ of documentary, he also feels that the dumbing down of small-screen content is driving an increasing number of documentarians to the movie theatre.
“There are a lot of great filmmakers in Britain,” Hill asserts, “and they are frustrated by having all this ambition but no canvas on which to work. TV has changed so much in terms of what it regards as documentary, so people are saying ‘I’m going to make my film the way I want to make it, and try to get a theatrical release’. With TV, a film has to be quick right from the start; you have to hook people immediately otherwise they are going to change channels. You can be a lot more reflective and thoughtful with cinema.”
The Confessions of Thomas Quick was backed by the BFI Film Fund.
