Double Black

"The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite enough." - Germaine Greer

I drew inspiration for Double Black heavily from my early experiences with Multiple Sclerosis. There’s no reference to MS in the film, because I was only officially diagnosed 2 years after production had wrapped. It was a difficult time writing the film, my Dad had recently died from complications with MS, and I went quite insane trying to figure out the source of my symptoms and ultimately made plans to end my own life if the diagnosis was confirmed. My life was a shambles long after the symptoms abated and I struggled enormously with anxiety, depression and ultimately nihilism and unresolved impotent rage which reflected in many of the core themes of the film.

Confronting nihilism is often a case of establishing identity, gender identity is a huge part of our political discourse, and my experience with suicide meant that I felt I needed to talk about the correlation between being male and our extremely high rates of suicide. Progressive left wing politics argue that men's issues stem from rigid cultural expectations regarding masculinity, and that male (and female) suffering will be ameliorated just as soon as we dispense with these expectations entirely. The conservative right wing argues that a rejection of traditional masculinity leaves us weak, fragile and emasculated.

I used Double Black to satirize both these perspectives, because I think the reality is somewhere in the middle. Gaz is kind of that middle ground, someone who struggles with those feelings of impotence and deals with it with outbursts of crass humour and recklessness, and there’s a kind of messed-up love between Gaz and Michael that some have found quite beautiful, though they’d never admit it.

When faced with death and disability, I found hope in the ride, in letting go and confronting the things that made me afraid. I really wanted to try and capture the physical sensation of the ride rather than showcase impressive riding. Michael and Garry are less skilled than they are reckless, and this is also reflected in their antagonistic friendship. It's not a traditionally cinematic film and that's deliberate. I wanted everything to be harsh and uncomfortable. I wanted my light sources to be overexposed and harsh. We colour graded our beautiful footage from the Arri Amira to look like an early GoPro (and we also shot on GoPro's.) I wanted my characters to look sunburnt, tired and dehydrated. I want the audience to feel the dust up their nostrils.

The male form is presented with brutality and the sensitivity of the characters is made mockery. Everything in Double Black, from the script, design and cinematography is about getting back in touch with everything that is ugly and harsh, and finding beauty in that.