BIG MUDDY written and directed by Jefferson Moneo, with Nadia Litz, James Le Gros, Justin Kelly and Stephen McHattie. A Union Pictures release. 103 minutes. Opens Friday (May 29). For venues and times, see Movies.
Jefferson Moneo’s Big Muddy has a pretty different vibe from most movies produced in Saskatchewan. Positioned somewhere between pulp thriller and character study, it stars Nadia Litz as a low-level outlaw who flees with her teenage son (Justin Kelly) to her father’s ranch when a deal goes bad, only to find herself confronting her past misdeeds.
It’s a hell of a starting point, and a terrific showcase for Litz, who rarely lands a leading role this vivid. A few hours before the film’s TIFF premiere, the director and his star are huddled in the Intercontinental’s restaurant grabbing salads during a press day and discussing the importance of Big Muddy’s location.
“I love film noir, westerns and crime films, and I wanted to do something to make it personal,” Moneo says. “And the way to do that was to do it in Saskatchewan, [in] this area that I knew and loved and thought would be great to see on film. Big Muddy is an area of badlands in southern Saskatchewan, and it has a really interesting history that I don’t think a lot of Canadians know about.
“The Sundance Kid, Billy the Kid, Sitting Bull and all these people who crossed the border to escape American forces hid out there, and it was a lawless part of Saskatchewan for quite a while. That’s where the movie came from.”
Moneo wanted to populate that landscape with modern characters in whom an audience could invest – which meant finding a star who could handle the shifty, emotionally fluid role of Martha Barlow.
“He contacted me on Facebook, actually, to offer me the role,” Litz recalls. “He was like, ‘Where are you? Can you get on a plane in three days and come out to Saskatchewan and start making this movie?’ He sent the script and [his] shorts, and it was so clear right from the get-go that there would be overlapping interests in terms of cinema references.
“I just got a very positive vibe. He very much knew the world he wanted to create, and was going to have a particular artistic vision of Saskatchewan. And I respond really well as an actor to those types of filmmakers.”
Litz also responded to the challenge of playing Martha.
“Women don’t often get to play anti-heroes,” she says. “The Clint Eastwoods and John Waynes are excused a lot more for their behaviour than the Martha Barlows might necessarily be.”
Martha’s anti-heroic actions tend more toward manipulation than outright villainy, though.
“There’s a performance element to her personality, in a sense,” Litz explains. “Depending on whatever man she’s with, she changes who she is a little bit, just to kinda fit into their storyline while still maintaining the upper hand, an awareness that she’s doing this and can kind of use it to her [advantage]. Like, The Marriage Of Maria Braun is one of my favourite films, and Hanna Schygulla does that a lot in that film. I do like the idea that that’s who she is.”
“We did actually talk a lot about Fassbinder,” Moneo says. “I don’t think that’s reflected in the film, though.”
“I do that anyway,” Litz laughs.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
