Talking Trash with director Stephen Daldry

SINGAPORE — Director Stephen Daldry may be talking rubbish, but we are most certainly listening. Because it’s one of those times when talking trash is actually important. Especially when it’s literally talking about Trash, the 54-year-old Brit film-maker’s latest film. It explores the corruption, injustice and brutality in Brazil’s political and police forces as seen through the eyes of three impoverished street kids in Rio De Janeiro who find a wallet in a landfill that holds the secret to one politician’s downfall.

Set in gritty favelas and landfills where pickers forage for a living, Trash was shot on location and primarily in Portuguese. The film features three young non-actors — Brazilian boys Rickson Teves, Eduardo Luis and Gabriel Weinstein — with English-speaking cameos from Rooney Mara, who plays an aid worker, and Martin Sheen, who plays a missionary priest. Lauded Brazilian actor Wagner Moura also costars in this film, which boasts a script from Richard Curtis (Oscar nominated for Four Weddings and a Funeral) and based on a book by Andy Mulligan.

“The reason I made this film is because it’s about the underbelly, the difficult side of Rio, the underexposed side of Rio,” Daldry said over the telephone. “But any social messages, any issues of right or wrong, issues of what Brazil should be doing now or not, it all just comes from the kids.”

Daldry revealed that his three young leads, who have never even been to a cinema before, let alone acted in front of a camera, had a lot to do with giving the movie its look. “When we started working (on the project), looking at Brazil and then finding these young performers, the processes of the film started to changed totally. Because even though the film is fiction — a fable and an improbable tale — we had to make it real for the kids who were performing it. And these boys brought all sorts of humour, observations about God and what is wrong and what is right ... All of that was brought to us from the boys themselves,” he said.

“It wasn’t written into the screenplay,” he continued. “We just tried to reflect their own feelings, their own optimism, their own sense of worth.”

A viewing of Trash brings to mind other critically acclaimed award-winners such as Fernando Meirelles’s City Of God and Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. With this movie, Daldry does what he has done best since his 2000 breakthrough cinematic debut Billy Elliot — deliver a heartfelt, well-crafted film with wonderfully raw and real performances from children and an underlying social commentary. Himself an award circuit favourite, Daldry has scored Oscar nominations for every film he’s ever made (Billy Elliot, The Hours, The Reader and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close). With a pedigree like that, does Daldry feel the pressure when embarking on every new project?

“Honestly I try to ignore it,” he replied with a laugh. “Trash was never meant to be an ‘awards’ film. It’s a film, I hope, that reflects the joy and hopes and sensibilities of the three young leads.

“The humour, seriousness and social message all comes straight from the kids. Nothing is impressed on them. So in that sense, I hope the film is seen as a fable and an adventure story. Well, also that it’s an important movie. The film itself is a strange, fantastical mix of genres. Is it a social film, is it a drama film, is it an adventure film or is it a comedy?”

Regardless of what genre audiences decide Trash belongs to, one thing is for sure — it was made with the people of Rio De Janeiro in mind. “We had to be very respectful of the community, we were filming where they work, sleep, play and live,” he said. “The actual community themselves we found to be incredibly supportive, encouraging and interested. We made sure we included as many real people in our story as we could, to make it feel like it was theirs.”

Daldry and his team even “built” a landfill just to make sure it was safe to work on. “Landfills are very dangerous places — there’s a lot of chemical waste and medical waste. It’s very hard work and a very appalling place to spend any time on, almost impossible to spend a week on it,” he said. “So we had to build what we call ‘clean’ rubbish. And a lot of people who worked with us, come from real landfill sites. They call themselves ‘recycling experts’ and they commented we had the most fantastic rubbish they have ever worked on in their lives!

“So when we finished, they all went pick, recycle, make as much money out of what we call our clean rubbish.”

Trash is out in cinemas now.