Originally published in Griffith College’s The Circular, 2006
To look at Richard Jobson you would not think that this was a man who had just written and directed a sci-fi film. Sitting in Brooks Hotel in Dublin, drinking sparkling mineral water and dressed in a khaki jumper and cords, he looks more like a school teacher than the spotty nerds associated with sci-fi, but make no mistake, Richard Jobson just wrote and directed a sci-fi film. And he loves it. A Woman in Winter is the third film by Jobson, ex member of Scottish punk band The Skids.
A Woman in Winter is a hard film to define, it is an interesting and enticing mix of astronomy (not astrology, Jobson fucking hate‘s astrology), time travel, fate and science fiction, with a ghost story subplot for good measure. Physicist Michael falls in love with a mysterious woman called Caroline when their paths cross, seemingly by coincidence. The film explores the notions of obsessive love, of parallel worlds, and of fate bringing people together. Jobson’s last offering, children’s film The Punishers was a far cry from A Woman in Winter, so where did it come from?
“After [my last film] I really wanted to do something grown up again and I wanted to show Edinburgh as a city of enlightenment.” Jobson says. “I think often Scottish culture is shown as being very downtrodden and marginalised. It’s often stories about people on the periphery of society, its not big ideas. What I found is that, although those are great stories, that there are other great stories to tell, and no one seems to be that interested in telling them. Edinburgh has a history of enlightenment and I think it is going through a modern day period of enlightenment, so I wanted to capture that in an odd, sci-fi story.”
But why science fiction? Well Jobson has always had a soft spot for science fiction, and seeing as physics and astronomy have a strong base in Edinburgh, where Jobson lives, he found it be the perfect time to show Edinburgh in a light other than that portrayed in Trainspotting, to show a world other the one of drug abuse and violence.
“I see the city in a very clear way, I see it as full of exciting people who have big ideas and the only time I ever see it on screen its got people shooting up heroin or its period, costume dramas and its not the world that I see. So I wanted to paint it in a very positive light. I actually live right in the heart of it and the city is part of my daily life. So the way I shot some of those ghostly qualities of it, that’s how I see it. Its not like I was trying hard to find that, that’s how I see the city. When I walk around and do my day-to-day domestic things, that is the world that I encounter. If you are going to do a story that’s got all the underlying qualities of a ghost story then it’s not a bad backdrop to have.”
A Woman in Winter is a film about questions and brings up as many as the cult film Donnie Darko did. Questions on the nature of time, does it flow forwards or backwards or any way it wants? Questions on parallel universes that brings up the whole other question of are there an infinite number of universes differing from ours only by the choices that we make? And questions of fate, can we escape our fate or by struggling against it are we only being drawn into it further? Another question that is raised is will A Woman in Winter be as accepted as Donnie Darko? Richard Jobson hopes so; “I hope the movie has the success that Donnie Darko did, but it probably won’t, because it doesn’t have that same sub-cultural vibe that Donnie Darko had, kicking off with Killing Moon, it had that teen movie vibe to it…. And I love the movie very much… Mine is slightly different, I think its more in the mould of the Tarkovsky Solyaris, although not in the same class, but its in there somewhere, but I can see the counter point with Donnie Darko…“
Another question raised when looking at the previous work of Richard Jobson is why do a romantic film? Sixteen Years of Alcohol, Jobson’s first cinema release was semi -autobiographical and if truth be told, a little violent, and his offering before A Woman in Winter – The Punishers – was, as Jobson says himself, made for his son and his son’s little skater-punk friends. So where did the move into romance, albeit not conventional romance come from? Jobson felt that after Sixteen Years of Alcohol and the kung fu violence of The Punishers that romance was something that had to be done…
“There is absolutely no violence in this film, apart from cosmological violence… Its extraordinary because the two films I am about to make – I am doing two films back to back – are so violent, that even I am scared of them! So I think A Woman in Winter was something that I needed to do… I think all my films are romantic, even Sixteen Years of Alcohol was romantic in a way, but I have never tried to do something as openly, gushingly romantic as this.”
And Jobson’s children, what do they think of the film? Jobson says; “I went to the one of the screenings with my son, who’s 12 and I could tell he was like “What? This is so boring!”. But my daughter who’s 14, really liked it, she dug it and understood it and the implications of it. She also loved the mystery of it, it was offering you something but it wasn’t telling you anything.” This reinforces the opinion that Jobson holds about A Woman in Winter, that women relate to it more so than men. Nevertheless if you like your films to make you think, your romance tempestuous and your settings ghostly, then A Woman in Winter is the film for you, whether you are male or female.
A Woman in Winter premiered in Ireland on February 22nd 2006 as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.
