The Blues Brothers, Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, Spice World. The band movie runs on a basic premise: songs and fun trump script and performance. The same rule applies to Autonomy and Deliberation, the debut film from UV Race and director Johann Rashid. Starring UV vocalist Marcus Rechsteiner on a journey to reunite the band, it features appearances from members of the Twerps, School of Radiant Living, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Woollen Kits, Lost Animal and Circle Pit.
It's obvious that none are professional actors. Rashid, who has created videos for Twerps and Eddy Current Suppression Ring, as well as directed a handful of docs for VICE's music channel Noisey, shot the film over the course of a couple of months, using just one camera and a shit load of patience. I caught up with him and UV Race drummer DX to talk about the film and working with Marcus as their leading man. VICE: What are Autonomy and Deliberation’s origins?
DX: Jensen from Deaf Wish, Al and Marcus from UV, and some other guys went to the country to shoot some scenes and the general idea for a film formed. The basic premise was that Marcus lost all the bands money at the greyhound races and the band broke up. There was no actual script until later. It kind of went into a box until Joey came on board and put the fire under it. Joey: Al and I started jamming together in our band Pine Gap, that eventually become East Link, and he was telling me about these songs that UV Race had recorded for a film that hadn't been released. DX: The script was loose as fuck. Al and I wrote it in an afternoon and we tried to incorporate all the songs into it. Basically there is a tribe, the idiot fucks up and gets cast out, the tribe disintegrates and everyone is lost. Then the idiot has this realisation and comes back to bring everyone together. It sounds biblical, and kind of like Blues Brothers.
*Joey: It's the simple story structure of a mythological journey, a documentation of a time and a place. It was never about ok, “Get your makeup on in the trailer.” It was more about rocking up and shooting for an afternoon. I wanted to bring one camera that was simple and unobtrusive for someone like Marcus who had never really acted before.* DX: In many cases it was like, “What are you doing Saturday afternoon? Come down and we will put you in a film.” UV Race has always worked with mates and other people. Not in any hippie idea that the audience is part of the band or performance, it's more we love the idea of working with and including other people. The bottom line of the film is that the songs draw the band back together. We are all lost, we’re all alone, and the songs bring us back together. Joey: That's the way I wanted to approach it from the start to make it unpredictable. Who can come down and dress like a prostitute? Al brought his Nepalese friend from work to come down and act as a pick pocketing victim. That's what made it fun. No one really knew how the film was going to turn out.
Joey: I think he did. One of the first dialogue scenes is him talking to his mother and he was very jolted, but over time he started to remember all these theatre techniques. Another scene had him staring into the camera nervously because he doesn't know what is going on. Dan was directing him but Marcus just thought he was talking off camera. Then the songs chorus kicks in and he switches on. That's my favourite part of the film actually. Marcus' personality comes through and grabs you. It's charming. He's like a performance artist. DX: That's his character. That's what makes Marcus beautiful as a band member as well. Working with him is an equal share of frustration and reward. He can be drifting off into space and suddenly he’ll flick back put the entire warmth of his personality into whatever he is doing. Some would say that making a film is ambitious?
Joey: No not really, I was interested in this from the start. I wanted to make a story, people don't watch film clips anymore. It used to be a bigger thing, you’d come home drunk and just watch Rage for hours, wondering what was going to come up next. People don't have patience now, it's just YouTube. I wasn't attracted to making another film clip. The ones I did for Eddy Current Suppression Ring were fun but that was a particular style that I didn't want to revisit. This was an opportunity to work on a film, a story and have more people involved. What’s next?
DX: There is going to be an OST and a Gate Fold LP. There's also a sequel, The UV Race Disgrace Space. It's going to be off the fucking wall. Joey: We need to find someone who can lend us a bedroom that we can turn into a space ship. Al told me that he didn't want to record another UV Race album unless there was a movie to go along with it and I was like 'Yeah why the fuck not?' We have the resources, we live in a pretty relaxed town and we can do it. So why not?Autonomy And Deliberation premiers in Melbourne Wednesday, October 24 at Palace Westgarth. TIckets available here. For everyone else, stay tuned for upcoming screenings.