Because in addition, Blue Iguana is also a love story and a buddy comedy. It's about two very odd people who don't fit into the mainstream of anything. Katherine is very smart, but is under-appreciated and has been taken advantage of. These two characters, Eddie and Katharine, fall in love. I want people to have a big smile on their faces when these two have got together. But they are presented in a very odd way. We don't see them kissing once in the whole film. Usually in a film that happens half way through, but I wanted to keep it off, keep it off right until the last moment, and, even then, push away from it.
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And Eddie is also sharp, but has been used, probably by Paul in the classic best friend kind of way. Eddie and Paul are buddies but, like most buddies that age, it's like an extended childhood. When you're that age and you still have a friend like that, you need to grow up at some point. It starts out as a buddy movie: the hero who doesn't talk much and the other guy who won't shut up and who is a coward. And then it gradually becomes a love story between two losers who learn how to win.
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Q: How did you achieve the rough and ready look to the film?
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HH: My Director of Photography, Ian Howes, did an amazing job. I referenced all those '80s movies. I wanted it to look bright, colorful, and playful, have a slight American '80s indie feel to it, rough at the edges. I said to everyone: “This is an analog film! This is not a digital film!” Everything they buy for the surveillance operation is old rubbish, VHS cameras, cheap plastic. They're always out of place, which moves us away from the soulless slickness of so many contemporary thrillers.
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Those key 80s films looked slightly rough at the edges (of course partially due to budget), but there was a lovely naive human quality to them, they felt organic. So when choreographing camera moves – let’s say there was a slight camera wobble - I’d keep it in because I wanted that feeling of randomness, of freedom, of not being clinical with things. There’s something that is more endearing to that, more charm, it fits in with this world of characters.
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I could have framed things in a slicker more expansive way, digitally graded it within an inch of its life, used grander locations and been much flashier with the visuals but it didn’t feel right for this story. The framing and most of the locations had to echo the characters, rough at the edges, which appears to me more human.
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NEXT PAGE, HADI’S TOWER OF SONGS.
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