The Director Behind a Trilogy of Films About Evil Thinks Humanity Is 'Not a Nice Thing'

Ask a random group of people what evil is you’ll no doubt receive a varied, contradictory and confusing set of answers that vary from Hitler to Minions. In a nation where genocide takes place you’ll still find someone who thinks true evil is to be found elsewhere. Evil by definition is to be “profoundly immoral and wicked” but in an increasingly messed-up and polarised world it’s a definition more ripe for subjectivity than ever.

One person who has been exploring evil is the Academy Award-nominated film director, Barbet Schroeder, the Iranian-born Swiss director that has worked with the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and also made Hollywood movies such as Single White Female, Kiss of Death, Murder by Numbers and the Charles Bukowski biopic with Mickey Rourke, Barfly (as well as a documentary on Bukowski).

On top of this he also has been working on a series of films that began in 1974 that he has dubbed his “evil trilogy”. The trilogy consists of an intimate portrait of General Idi Amin Dada, the Ugandan military officer synonymous with corruption, ethnic cleansing and mass murder; 2007’s Terror’s Advocate about the controversial lawyer Jacques Vergès, renown for high profile cases where he would defend terrorists, war criminals and holocaust deniers, and his most recent film The Venerable W, in which Schroeder has unprecedented access to the Burmese Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, whose anti-Muslim preaching has been accused of inciting racial violence against Rohingya refugees in Myanmar – something which he denies.

After his film screened at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, Schroeder talks through his lifelong voyage through evil.

VICE: Hi Barbet. Do you find it depressing that nearly 45 years since making your first film about evil that you are still having to make films about such horror?
Barbet Schroeder: No because as long as you're dealing with humanity you're going to be dealing with evil. I'm totally fascinated by humanity and evil and humanity are intrinsically linked. I think Dostoyevsky was one of the very first people to put it explicitly in such terms but that's very much what it is. My films are about humanity.

Has your definition of evil changed?
A little bit, yeah. I was looking at American movies, which project the idea of the good and the bad and you can't help but be a little bit influenced by that approach. Slowly when you start to come into contact closely with evil you realise that it is part of humanity and the distinction between the good and the bad is more of a grey zone.

You remove yourself in these films and have a very non-confrontational approach. Do you find that easy or do you have to bite your tongue and hold back?
For me it's easy because that's just my approach. It's a combination of two things: I hate power, I have an instinctive hate of power, and I also don't want to ever judge anything. This combination of those two things makes it very easy for me.

Your films present people and situations that suggest there is no such thing as typical evil but have you found anything in the personality types that connect these people?
No, I’ve not.

Idi Amin for example, he comes across as incredibly insecure, someone very eager to please and show off and be liked and respected. Is insecurity a root of his and others' actions?
Same as Trump! He's very insecure.

Without meaning to trivialise the seriousness of the situations, what's been the most evil thing you've witnessed?
I don't know [laughs]. For me, what I feel is evil and it terrifies me, is when I have to do a discreet walk through a crowd of extras to decide which one we will selected. For me, I feel this moment is horrifying. That image is horrible to me. So when I say I hate power it is to the point that it is a problem for me as a director. When I do casting it is very hard and I look stupid complaining about it but that's how I feel.

Just so we're clear, are you saying that you find it more troubling to have to cast extras for films than you do filming death in real life?
[laughs] That would be a little excessive, no. I was just finding a way to mention that as something I find tough [to illustrate my aversion to power].

Have you ever felt in genuine danger making these films?
Danger is always something that you imagine. The last film I had someone texting me and telling me that “military police is onto what you're doing in Burma and they have photos of you filming”, so that then tells you that something could happen. I imagine all kinds of bad things. With Idi Amin there was 18 attempts to his life and because I was filming him and close to him I could have been part of that explosion.

Did you like any of the people?
Not really. Although Idi Amin I found likeable – innocent in some way. He had some sort of innocence and humour and good spirits but this was of course hiding something much darker. But he had that aspect of being likeable at first sight. So he was likeable but that was part of the problem. That was part of the movie, the idea of “oh my god this person is capable of doing this?” Maybe you could be filming Hitler talking to his dog and find it moving.

So would you say likeability is almost a necessity of evil because people need to warm or relate to the person in order for their message to be affective?
Yes, very much.

How about intellect? Do these people need to be smart in order to get people on side and manipulate them in order to buy into their evil beliefs and ideas?
Cunning more than intelligence I would say. There is a lot of brutality in evil, so it is something where you don't care about the others and you can be brutal to other human beings. Being brutal is part of being evil but you don't need to be intelligent to be brutal. You just need to know what you want.

The role of religion is a theme in these films, either a central one or as a backdrop. How do you feel religion has factored into your explorations of these people?
Religion is also a human thing and so every religion has its bad aspects. There is not one religion without its faults. Buddhism was the last illusion that it was without the defect of the other religions. But this really proves to me that there is no such a thing as a religion without a bad side.

How did you leave things in Myanmar after spending a lot of time there? What does the future hold?
It's absolutely horrible and nobody knows what is going to happen. The worst case scenario is that there is a million people stranded and there is a horrible succession of typhoons and then the diseases that spread. This is an incredibly dangerous situation; those people are in real danger. Anything can happen to them outside of the worst of what has already happened to them. They are terribly exposed to all kinds of horrors. As for the illusion that the Chinese are trying to create with the Burmese government that they are going to arrange some kind of return to their homeland, is some sort of cruel propaganda joke.

You film some horrendous things in Myanmar, including burning bodies in the street. As a person, do you feel harder and tougher or gain more love and compassion as a result of making such films?
I think that it makes me more aware of the horrors and more aware of the horrors of humanity. Humanity is not a nice thing.

Have you found that the way we are programmed that we are destined to repeat ourselves when it comes to this sort of thing?
Yes, things are bound to repeat but improvement is possible. For me, it's always worth fighting, there's always a good reason to keep trying, even if things are very desperate.

Your rule is to never judge but do you find that hard when you are dealing with such extreme characters?
The lack of judgment is only in the filming. I mean otherwise, ask me what I think about someone like Trump and you'll see how judgmental I can become [laughs].

Okay, what do you think of Donald Trump?
The situation is catastrophic. It doesn't concern only America, it concerns the whole world and how the rest of the century will play out. Which then means maybe even the rest of humanity's time left on this planet. It is nightmarish.

Would you consider Trump to be evil?
Well, obviously. Unfortunately, he takes care of his own portrait every day. He's made it a daily television series. He's already making his own documentary; he's taking care of everything.

Can evil be cured?
Very temporarily. It's human nature I’m afraid.

Do you feel any sense of hope or optimism for the future?
Not very much, no. I mean considering the reality we have in front of us, you have to be very optimistic to imagine the solving all of the problems that are accumulating. I would be very happy to be proven wrong. I'm trying to force myself to make an optimistic exploration of the future. That's what I’m working on now, so we'll see where that leads me.

@DanielDylanWray