After three screenings at the Milwaukee Film Festival, the co-writer talks with us about his Maine-set coming of age story.
The Milwaukee Film Festival’s “Cream City Cinema” program draws all kinds of Wisconsin-based artists, but the local lineup is often dominated by short film programs. We’re not complaining (just ask LakeFrontRow Cinema alum John Roberts), but it’s always worth checking in on the longer stuff.
Neptune, which screened three times at this year’s festival, gets its Wisconsin connection through co-writer and co-producer Matthew Konkel, a Milwaukee native. Konkel met filmmaking partner (the film’s director and co-writer) Derek Kimball in Maine, which is the setting of their first feature. It’s the story of Hannah (Jane Ackermann), a young girl who experiences a sudden shift in perspective after witnessing a boy take a fatal tumble into the sea. Hannah’s story weaves through the island’s church, and the priest (Tony Reilly) who’s raised her to young adulthood, and its salty East Coast waters, where Hannah takes a job on the lobsterboat of the deceased boy’s father (William McDonough III). Arrestingly blunt, Neptune can also be dark and lyrical, realizing Hannah’s haunting dreams in cerulean clarity.
Over email, Konkel talked with me about community, writing out dream sequences, and never truly escaping adolescence.
It definitely seems like Hannah is driven by guilt, but it’s not an overarching “Catholic guilt.” It’s why I don’t think the “But if I die it’s your fault” line later phases her. She genuinely wants to know Michael [the boy who dies].
Matthew: Driven by guilt is certainly a valid interpretation. I don’t see her driven by guilt as much as by an unexpected haunting by the unknown. For me I like that idea that there’s a sudden ellipsis in her life and she wants to (perhaps a subconscious want) see it completed. Her obsession with—or possession by— Michael is not conscious thing. And, in my opinion, it’s not so much Michael she wants to know about, but more of what happened to him and where did he go that rattles inside her brain.
I love the dream sequences in this. The darkened visuals are haunting. The sequence where they’re washed ashore on the beach with the boat on the cliff is particularly wonderful. How did you envision these sequences in your script?
Matthew: Originally, in the script, it was one long dream sequence. And we had planned and written two other completely differently sequences for Hannah. Two dreams were cut for time and production limitations but the first remained and was segmented at appropriate times in the story. We knew that we wanted Hannah to be affected unconsciously by the missing boy and dreams seemed to be the most logical way to show that visually. Derek is a master visualist. The strange and surreal mandala was Derek’s idea from the start and always meant to be a way to depict a climax in Hannah’s emotional journey.
Do you see Hannah’s dreams as driving her motivation in this? Or are they therapeutic?
Matthew: Both. Her dreams are the manifestation of her subconscious reaction to her missing classmate. They also serve to heal Hannah by calling attention to things in her life that have gone unaddressed, like where she came from, what is she meant to do and where should she go?
Nobody seems to have any answers in Neptune, which is refreshing in a story that so prominently features religion. There’s a reliance on trusting in one’s work and finding guidance in that.
Matthew: I’m glad that comes through. Adolescence is, necessarily so, a confusing and frustrating time of any one person’s life. There are no answers when you’re going up, there are only questions and amazement and wondering and pain and sometimes unexplainable euphoria. In a way, none of us ever get out of adolescence. The film is told so pointedly from Hannah’s perspective because we really wanted that confusion and wonderment and the “looking for answers and discovering only a world of question marks” to be a distinct part of the story.
Let’s talk about the role of church, which is so prominent. There’s a sequence late in the film where a trip doesn’t work out so well for Jerry (Tony Reilly) and Hannah, and then such a falling out between the community and the church, too. Do you see the church as having failed this community?
Matthew: Not at all. The church and organized religion of this community in the film and in others are only acting on what they believe. But ultimately, I think the church’s crusade is limiting. I think it’s possible for some to rely too much on it or rely solely on it for how to live their life and get answers. Such is the case with Hannah’s situation. The point we hoped to make is that the path to knowledge about ourselves and the world cannot be a narrow one—it must be a wide as the sea. The truth is, at least the way I see things, there are no definitive answers or absolutes. In my opinion, all of us in this world need to have an omnivorous attitude when it comes to seeking knowledge, history, spiritually and the origins of life. I think we all should be open to learning about Hinduism as well as Catholicism as well as fundamentalism and evolution.
I also don’t think Jerry is completely in the wrong here. Yes, he’s overbearing and his aspirations for Hannah cloud his judgment, but he seems interested in her well-being ultimately.
Matthew: No, Jerry is not wrong at all in his pursuits. We never wanted him to come across as “the villain.” he just wants to see Hannah get the best in life she can. He’s not in the wrong so much as he is myopic and unable to see beyond his personal view of the world.
Did you and Derek go into this project knowing lobstering would take such a prominent role? From a production perspective, that seems like a lot to invest a film in.
Matthew: Because the story was somewhat inspired by an article Derek read in The Salt Book and because Derek wanted to make his Maine-love-letter movie, we knew that lobstering would play a part in the film. It was always an aspect that was going to be part of the backdrop in the story. And how could anyone make a movie about Maine without incorporating lobsters? Given our story being set off the coast of Maine, it seemed like the natural thing to do.
You book-end Neptune with news of the Voyager II mission, which marks a landmark moment for space exploration. There’s this idea of going farther than ever before alongside the year (1989) which I can’t help but feel signals the end of an era. The Reagan administration is over, the Moral Majority is phasing out. Like Hannah, the time period itself is on the precipice of change.
Matthew: Absolutely. Because we were setting our film in the late eighties while Voyager II was heading out beyond our solar system into the ever-mysterious cosmos, it worked perfectly as a metaphor for Hannah’s journey as well as functioning as an element to ground the film in a certain time period and reality. Interestingly enough, we couldn’t come up with an appropriate title for the film until we’d brought in the Voyager and Neptune pieces to it. That element is what was missing.