It started with one sentence that filmmaker Coco Schrijber heard when she wasin Mexico for the research of her film How to Meet a Mermaid (2016). Apsychiatrist who led a support group for battered women in Mexico City toldher, “Women kill differently than men.”
That sentence, there’s a movie in it, she thought immediately. It became thestarting point of her documentary Look What You Made Me Do , which premieredat Idfa and can be seen in cinemas from this week. In it, Schrijber followsthree women, one Finnish, one Italian and one Dutch, who lived with a violentman and eventually killed him. A fourth, unrecognizable woman, still in anabusive relationship, talks about all the ways she’s tried to find help.
In her Amsterdam apartment, Schrijber (61), who lives on the Canary Island ofLa Palma, talks about her film.
Do women kill differently than men?
‘Women are usually not strong enough to knock or strangle someone, they haveto be intelligent and inventive. As a result, they come across as calculatingand cold, and therefore extra malicious. But we make that judgment withoutknowing the facts.
“It’s not that I condone murder, of course, but there are times when you justhave to make that choice. And this film is about that gruesome choice.’
It is rare for women to kill their partner. The reverse, on the other hand,happens shockingly often, Schrijber tells the viewer. Worldwide, at least30,000 women are killed each year by their (former) partner. And of the totalnumber of women who are murdered, the vast majority are killed in their ownhomes. Schrijber: ‘We women learn from an early age: be careful on the street,put on a wide coat, and so on. We take everything into account outside, but athome we are much more in danger.’
Image from ‘Look What You Made Me Do’.
Your film is about violence against women and yet you choose to portray themas perpetrators.
‘I didn’t want to make a film about victimhood, about pathetic women cryingabout what happened to them. Many of these already exist, and rightly so. ButI wanted to show that there are also women who take a different approach, whoresist.’
Why are murderesses so interesting?
“Because our ideas about them say a lot about the way we look at women, aspassive and nurturing. Women bear children, they give life, how can such aperson take a life?
‘If a woman commits murder, we quickly think: then she must be a hysteric, orcrazy. Research shows that women who have committed murder are often wronglyattributed a personality disorder. All three of the women in my film had nomental health problems, according to tests they had to take during the trial.But they barely managed to prove: I’m not crazy, I did this knowingly becauseI saw no other way out. That’s a message that many people don’t want to hear.’
The women in your film talk about how they got stuck in their relationship.Italian Rosalba says her husband threatened to kill the children if she lefthim. Do you want to demonstrate that there was no other way out than murder?
“We are all so full of prejudices. When you hear a woman tell about somethingthat has happened to her, you immediately think: that would never happen tome, or: then you leave him anyway. I wanted to take those ideas away from theviewer.
‘Rosalba explains very precisely how the violence creeps in, theunrecognizable woman talks about all the failed attempts she has made to gethelp. In general, leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerousmoment. And of the women who do manage to escape, half are later killed.’
Coco SchrijberImage Renée de Groot
Women are often held responsible for their husbands’ violence, as we see inyour film.
“That’s how we are brought up. When something bad happened to me in the past,my mother always said: you must have made it. And boys get along: if you arebullied, you hit back.
‘In addition, it is a very human mechanism to blame someone else for youractions. When you cross such a high threshold as hitting your sweetheart, youthink: I’m not like that at all, so this can’t be my fault. Look what youmade me do. The roles are now reversed in the title of my film. There is akind of satisfaction in that. That’s not neat, of course, but you can stillfeel it.’
What was it like to be so close to those women?
‘When media reports about a murderess, they often portray a haggard woman,disheveled hair, wild look. That you think: what kind of person is this? I’malmost convinced myself. The Italian Rosalba was an ice-cold killer in thenewspaper. Oh, I thought, do I want to talk to her? But it’s a cutie. Such aloving, humble woman. The Dutch Rachel is a hard worker and a real motheranimal. Laura, the Finnish girl, has a sense of humor and is not easily put ina corner. And she was nine months pregnant, which I thought was a nice imagefor the film.
‘I wanted to follow them during their daily activities: shopping, putting ontheir make-up, feeding the ducks with the children. Because murderesses doordinary things. I also wanted to zoom in on the run-up to the murder. I wasconcerned with the mechanism of that decision, because that’s what it is, a’deliberate act’, as Rachel calls it.’
Image from ‘Look What You Made Me Do’.
Is it important for women to get angry?
‘The point is that you, as a human being, wrestle yourself from all thoseideas about what men and women are like. No, I’m not passive, yes, I also feelanger and sometimes I also feel like hitting on it. I don’t, but if I’m reallyin danger, I’m sure I’m going to hit back, right?
‘I’m not an angry person at all. At least, the research for this film made mevery angry: how normal we think it is that women should always be on theirguard, how little is being done about it. But I don’t hit and scream. Theangrier I get, the more icy. I also wanted to make a film like that, asubdued, ice-cold film that becomes increasingly suffocating. Until the momentthe water is up to your lips and you think: now it’s allowed, that’s it.’
Explicit violence can only be seen at one moment in Look What You Made MeDo. The film includes footage from security cameras, in which a Brazilianlawyer is screaming and resisting being pushed into an elevator by herhusband. Then you see her fall from her apartment on the fourth floor into thestreet, and a little later her husband drags her dead body into the elevator.
Why are you showing these gruesome images?
Domestic violence is invisible. It runs in one in five or six families, but wedon’t know who or what it looks like. I can quote that number of 30,000murders per year, but it’s hard to understand what that means. If I actuallyshow it once, you can do that in your head times 30 thousand. That has to comein.
“I have written a letter to the lawyer’s family and have been given permissionto use the images. They are just on the internet and had already been on TVeverywhere in Brazil. You see the evidence, you see the murder, and it stilltook him two years to be convicted.’
There will be people who say that your movie justifies murder.
‘Yes, people always want to be morally right, but fuck off I have nopatience for that anymore. Normally I like nuance in my work. My previousfilms are built up slowly, there is room for reflection. But this subject, itjust has to come like a punch in the face: that’s how it is, and it hurts.’