Keith Bearden is the writer and director of Antarctica, a coming of age story that confronts what it means to be a woman, and a teenager, in America today. Kat (Chloë Levine) and Janet (Kimie Muroya) laugh through embarrassment, suffer under a Republican history teacher, navigate the minefield of pregnancy and drugs, and reunite as world-weary women on the verge of adulthood, having seen enough for a whole lifetime.
I chatted with Keith about his influences, choice of music, and all that went into Antarctica’s unique perspective. Antarctica is streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Spectrum, YouTube and more.
Cole Clark: What are some coming of age movies that shaped you?
Keith Bearden: There’s a bunch. It’s interesting because I made [Antarctica] in tribute to a lot of movies I loved, and also because there weren’t enough of the stories that I saw growing up.
Spirit of the Beehive, that weird Spanish movie about the little girl who falls in love with Frankenstein. Ghost World is one of my favorites. When the [Antarctica] script started going around, people were saying “Oh, it’s like Ghost World.” But Ghost World is twenty years old.
C: It’s interesting that you pull from these darker coming of age movies.
K: I think the whole idea that High School is the greatest time of your life is really deceiving. To tell everybody that these are the greatest years of your life is probably, mentally, not healthy. I’m not gonna write about something that I don’t know. I don’t think I could write a movie about being the homecoming king.
C: The film deals with some hard topics, like drugs, abortion, school shootings. Why go comedy with this material?
K: I think you can say a lot in a joke, and reach a lot of people in a way you can’t with a serious movie. I think it’s almost an indie cliche to have a movie about miserable people having a miserable time.
Also, politically, I don’t want to give people a pamphlet. I’d rather make a satire. At one of our preview screenings, a man laughed all through the history teacher stuff, even though this person is well known to be a Trump supporter and super conservative. I’m not gonna tell him not to laugh, even though I think what we’re doing is making fun of him. You’re not gonna change anybody’s mind by calling them a villain.
C: All the side-characters in Antarctica are written like real people, it really makes the world feel alive. Was that a conscious choice?
K: A lot of it was really subconscious. The scene where Kat comes home and her mother is completely drunk on the floor crying, I wrote that and didn’t even think about it. And then when we were shooting it, I just go, “Oh my god, it’s my mother!” It’s all about creating a world, and I want the world to be as connected to reality as possible. Obviously it’s all filtered through my
goofy imagination, but in that way, the personal becomes the universal.
C: When did you know Chloë Levine and Kimie Muroya would be your leads?
K: It was very important to me that the relationship played real, and that Kimie’s part was who I imagined her to be, a fat Asian-American girl. A bunch of young actors didn’t work, it felt weird.
When Chloë came in, it was instant chemistry. They actually became very good friends on set, and after. They talk all the time. There’s all these behind the scenes pictures of them hanging out on a couch, making each other laugh, snuggling, and that was important because if that relationship didn’t work, the movie was doomed.
C: Was it weird to watch scenes you’d written be acted out?
K: There’s a point as a writer/director where you kind of have to let go. The actors will bring themselves to it, and I’ll think it’s not exactly how I imagined it when I was tapping at the laptop, but maybe it’s more real. Everybody contributes their own vision.
Script writing is a lonely experience. When I’m writing a script, I hope it gets made, but you never know, so there’s moments where I put things in just for me, like the title sequence where the girls’ heads are in microwaves. I wrote that, it’s my movie.
C: I love the shot where the camera pans back and forth across a window, as Kat consoles her mother and time passes while her mom is sort of breaking down.
K: That’s where I look at the movie and I’m like, “I am actually a decent director.” I always think a good movie is a movie you can watch in another language, and still get what’s going on.
C: How does music impact your process?
K: The music starts with the script. When I was writing the script, I had a Spotify playlist and notes about music, so they’re very intertwined for me. The score was influenced by Chamber Pop, especially in the late 60s, like “Eleanor Rigby” or French stuff with harpsichord and cello, but still with a pop structure.
C: What song best captures Antarctica?
K: The last song, “Bye Bye Blues,” by Bert Kaempfert. There’s something really lyrical and transformative about that song. At the end of the movie when the bad things break loose for [Kat and Janet], having a song called “Bye Bye Blues” is kind of nice.
C: The ending, where Kat and Janet silently dance to that song in the old folks home, feels like something you could build a film around.
K: Usually what happens is the beginning and the end are really strong. I didn’t want to give them a happy ending, because I don’t think there is a happy ending in life. Especially when they’re supposed to be 18 years old, I wanted a reconciliation in a non-verbal way.
I don’t think people talk about their feelings as much as they do in movies and TV, and the worst thing I wanted to do was have it be like ABC Family. That’s one of the reasons I use humor, too, because if you’re insecure, humor is a good crutch.
C: What’s your next project?
K: I wrote this movie called Shaina. It’s sci-fi, like a female Han-Solo. I wanna see, like, a tough barmaid in space. It’s a bigger movie than Antarctica, we’re casting right now. I always say it won’t be as weird, but they’re all weird. If my stuff wasn’t weird, I would have a bitter career.
C: What about Antarctica do you think is missing from other coming of age movies?
K: Sadness. And failure. You don’t really get to grow without failure. Everybody feels like a nerd. Some are, some aren’t, but everybody feels like someone’s cooler than they are. And that’s OK. Antarctica is weird because growing up is weird.
