Kamouflage

On our way back from an extended family dinner with my siblings, mom and dad, sometime in the spring of 2019, my brother asked me a question. We sat cramped in my parents Volkswagen, my brother turned to me and said: “How are you always such a good person?” I was taken aback by his earnestness. What was I supposed to answer? I told him that I don't always feel like a good person. That I guess I try to be honest, and think about how my actions have consequences. My answers seemed too thin to fulfill the expectation of his profound question.

The question followed me for days, and laid way to other questions. What would’ve happened if I answered well-meaningly, but told him something that set him on the wrong path? What if my answer hurt him? This interaction was the origin of the scene between Elliot and Joel. When Elliot asks his brother how he got so skilled at shooting, he’s really asking him how to live. He’s asking him how to make his dad proud. The scene is my nightmare scenario: The older brother guiding Elliot on a horrible path because he thinks it’s the only way to live. The scene is a microcosm of the entire film, an extreme scenario of boys being taught how to be adults by broken and damaged men. This is the core idea behind Kamouflage.

I think it’s important for men to talk about their relationships with their fathers and I want the film to catalyze this conversation. A way to break the cycle of inherited pain and the silence that follows the traditional male role is to talk about your own experienced pain. I hope that the film can help men talk about the pain they're camouflaging with rituals, alcohol and chauvinism

- Joaquim Berglund, Writer/Director