An interview with Greg McLean, director of MIFF feature Jungle.

 

 

BUNJIL PLACE: 

Hi Greg, thanks for speaking with us today. Jungle has been described as a departure from your previous films such as Rogue, The Belko Experiment, The Darkness, and the Wolf Creek franchise. How did you approach this script differently, especially seeing it is based on the true story of Yossi Ghinsberg’s terrifying ordeal? 

 

MCLEAN:

Well, the previous films are done in different ways. They deal with characters in a landscape who are in very difficult situations. So, I was drawn to characters who are in nature, and kind of using nature as a way to reflect on the character in the story. That was something that I've done before in Wolf Creek and Rogue as well.

Not so much in The Belko Experiment. So, I kind of had that interest for the outdoors and how people respond to it. So, it wasn't that much of a departure. You know, I still look at the story as pretty much a thriller, even though it's based on a true story.  

We were very careful to try and really capture what Yossi experienced and the relationships and friendships he had - what really happened. At the same time, we were definitely trying to craft an engaging thriller movie out of this story. So, it brought together a few different things that I'd been doing before but kind of in a new way. 

 

BUJIL PLACE: 

Yes, you can really relate through that travelling experience, in the sense of excitement and then how quickly something can go horribly wrong. 

Yossi Ghinsberg now lives in Byron Bay. Did you meet with him and spend much time to prepare for the filming and character development?  

 

MCLEAN:

Yes, when I first got attached to the film, at the time I was in L.A. and he was also coming through Los Angeles. So, we had a really interesting day together. We met and he pretty much just downloaded the entire experience over eight hours of just talking through the entire journey in a very personal and real way. 

I had read the book and read the script and all that kind of thing. There is a documentary also made about his and Kevin's story, but to hear it first-hand was really an amazing way to get into the story in a very real way. From there, he was constantly in contact with us while we were writing the script and getting it ready for production. The film was shot in two places, we shot first in South America, then we relocated to Queensland and shot the second part there. He came to Columbia and was there for that part of the shoot, and he came to the Australian part as well. So he was with us the whole time, which was great because it meant that the actor, Daniel (Radcliffe) who was playing Yossi, could go up and ask him about things, talk to him, and have access to him for scenes and moments.  Daniel was just trying to really understand what was going through his mind and what he was thinking in different moments. 

It was really good to have him around for me as well, just to be able to set up the scene and ask ‘is this right?’ We were definitely trying to capture the essence of what really happened. Anything is a creation or recreation, and I think it's so crucial to capture the essence and spirit of the moment. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE: 

That's really interesting, especially from the director’s standpoint. Where do you draw the line, between your vision and the true-life experience? Is it difficult to negotiate that?  

 

MCLEAN:

Well there are things that you have to edit. You have could have a chapter of the book in just a strand of the movie. If you're doing a 10-hour television series, you could do it that way. But you have to leave things out for a feature film because it's so short. So, you've got to make choices and you've got to say, okay this is the important part of this chapter. 

You’re constantly trying to make the right choice about what you leave in and what you leave out because there was so much more. There's so much more to every story, really. You look at people making that kind of film today and they would probably make a TV series. We probably would probably say, okay let's do 10 episodes. But in feature film making you've got to cram the story into two hours. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE:  

It seems like it was a pretty rigorous filming process as well. The film is set in the Bolivian Amazon, but you mentioned the film was actually shot in Queensland and Colombia?  

 

MCLEAN:

Yes, so all of the villages, towns and rivers were all filmed out of Bogota in Colombia. We based ourselves in Bogota and then drove out to locations within like three to four hours out of town. But when we did some scenes that were quite close up of characters walking through the jungle, we shot that in Mount Tamborine just out of Broadbeach in Queensland. When you walk into the jungle and look around they all tend to look a little bit similar. It’s a bit more controlled there because we're back in Australia. It was a really good, easy place to shoot, with very dense jungle. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE: 

There are some terrifying scenes with the river. How well prepared did you have to be as filmmakers to work in such an environment? 

 

MCLEAN:

We had a big emphasis on safety and wanted to make sure that no one got hurt. And obviously we were in the jungle, there’s no hiding, it's just dangerous. We do have an enormous safety crew and a very skilled white-water rafting team who helped us on the river. In my career, it's probably the most dangerous thing I’ve done and the most worried I’ve been about someone getting hurt, but thankfully no one did. We had a couple of near misses and we were very lucky, it's just a dangerous place to shoot. But we had lots of safety and lots of really good people helping us to stay alive, basically. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE: 

I can imagine, in one mind you'd be thinking, ‘are they going to survive?’ and at the same time ‘what a great shot!’  

 

MCLEAN:

Well, that's right while you’re drawn to the dangerous aspect of this very dangerous, raging river, at the same time you're terrified. I don’t want to be the guy who kills Harry Potter! That's the last thing I'd want in my CV!  

 

 

BUNJIL PLACE: 

Yes speaking of Daniel Radcliffe, you casted him as the character of Yossi Ghinsberg, which is a major break away from his most well-known character of Harry Potter franchise. Can you tell us what led you to that decision?  

 

MCLEAN:

One of the producers suggested him. He had been doing some amazing, small independent movies after Harry Potter, and I’d seen some. I, like everyone, loved the Harry Potter movies, I think they're incredible and I love that franchise and loved his performance in it. But then he's done all these really great, independent, fantastic films that he really chooses to basically show what he can do as an actor to break away from that huge franchise.   

I thought, well, let's talk, let's send the script to him and see what he thinks of it. He really loved the character. He just fell in love with the book and the story. We jumped on the phone, had a chat, and then we kind of connected on why we thought it was a great story and why were both drawn to telling it. And then it was, okay cool, let's do this. Once Daniel was locked in the film came together fairly quickly. He's obviously a world-renowned actor and his involvement helped us get it going.  

He just fell in love with the story and the character. He did weeks of dialect coaching for his Israeli accent before we even started shooting. He was a real trouper. If you didn’t have someone as committed as he was the film wouldn’t work at all. 

So, he really went all the way in terms of preparation you know giving everything to the character, trying to understand everything about Yossi and the real story, and then also physically just you know transforming for the role as well. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE:

Daniel Radcliffe did an amazing job in his portrayal of Yossi. Do you think he actually suffered physically and perhaps even mentally from portraying Ghinsberg in that role? You mentioned he had done accent training, what other kinds of things did he do to prepare?  

 

MCLEAN:

Well he did the physical transformation of working with the trainers and dietitians to get his body into a particular state. He had to lose all that weight, because Yossi was pretty much starving for near 19 or 20 days in the jungle. So, Daniel worked with his people do this safely. He looks completely emaciated towards the end.  He was having like a boiled egg and a bit of rice a day, for several weeks. When we first met him, he was really buff. Oh my God! We didn't realize how buff Harry Potter was! And then he basically transformed during the course of the shoot with this kind of very controlled but extreme diet, to get himself into the condition that he needed to play the role. 

I was really impressed by his professionalism and his dedication to doing it right. And to not make anyone else suffer for what he was doing. He was really respectful of the crew, he knows people are there to help. He’s just a joy to work with as a director. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE:

The Bolivian natives are also an intrinsic part of the story and indeed of Yossi's survival. How were you able to capture the authenticity of their presence in this story? 

 

MCLEAN:

Well we actually built that village in the jungle outside of Bogota. Then we cast for specifically Bolivian native Indians who were living in Bogota. We did this very extensive casting to get the right cultural indigenous tribal people for the movie. But we weren’t in Bolivia, so we put out a huge casting call and spent weeks and weeks trying to find people who were actually right for the story. It was amazing that we were able to pull it all together.  We were creating and recreating things that happened in different parts of South America, but bring it into the location were in. So, it was really a huge effort to be as authentic as we possibly could. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE:

It really did feel like you were in situ in the native village. The native people as well, they were really an intrinsic part of Yossi's story and survival.  

 

MCLEAN:

Yeah, the whole adventure for Yossi was to really meet the native tribes there, to try and understand them, and to learn from them. He did have a quite an amazing story, which is a longer story than we can show in the movie. But the essence of what we wanted to show was that it was a really profound experience for all of those guys, meeting those people, and having a tiny peek into their world. So, yeah it was an amazing process for us as well, as a crew, to meet all those people and have them participate in the movie. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE: 

It’s such a great movie and it did really well at MIFF when it premiered back in 2017. 

 

MCLEAN: 

Yeah, that's right. It was the opening night film for that festival, which was really great. It was a great way to kind of kick it off. I'm from Victoria, I come from Bendigo. So, it was really good for me personally to have the film premiere here.  

 

BUNJIL PLACE:

Now it's been picked up by Netflix and has rated as one of the must-see films. What do you think the success of this film has done for you as a director? What's on the horizon for you?  

 

MCLEAN:

I wasn't aware that it was on Netflix until someone said ‘hey your movie is on Netflix!’ I was like ‘oh, that's great!’ There’s a couple of my movies on Netflix now, so I was really excited. But then they said, ‘it's number 2! In the top 10 in Australia!’ I didn't believe them and so I jumped on to see and thought, wow, that's pretty cool. I was so excited about that because obviously Netflix is the biggest content watching platform in the world right now. And movies are hard to make. For a movie like this in particular, where you basically are taking donkeys into the jungle, and braving storms, and climbing up ladders, and trying to keep people from drowning… It's satisfying to feel like all that work and effort to make it as realistic as possible gets seen by people and appreciated. So, it was really satisfying to see that the film was getting a huge audience. 

 

BUNJIL PLACE: 

Thankfully no one drowned. 

 

MCLEAN: 

Yes, thank God we all came out of it alive. Yeah, and it was a great success.  

 

BUNJIL PLACE:

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. We are so excited to be presenting Jungle this Sunday evening as part of the MIFF Summer Residency at Bunjil Place.

 

MCLEAN:

Thank you! I’m looking forward to seeing on the big screen again! 

 

Jungle will be presented at the MIFF Summer Residency at Bunjil Place this Sunday 7th February! Be sure you book your ticket now!