It’s more than appropriate that the title for Reginald Harkema’s festival circuit favorite Monkey Warfare derived from a passage of Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book. “Monkey Warfare was a little section on lower level sub-guerilla actions that you can use to stub the big toe of the giant if you will: how to make molotov cocktails, spray paint, little tricks to monkey wrench the system more or less,” Harkema explains.

The film, a playful look at friendships and political subversion, follows social outcast dumpster diver couple Dan and Linda, played by Canadian darlings Don McKellar and Tracy Wright, respectively. When young-hearted and minded Susan (Nadia Litz) interrupts the mundane pace of the Dan and Linda’s lives, the story spirals out humorous and intelligent, questioning the lines of belief systems held too dearly.

In crafting the film, Harkema, primarily identifying with a position as film editor, allowed a great amount of freedom in his collaborations, hoping for and depending upon the varied ideas of his cast and crew. “Don McKellar is one of the finest screenwriters Canada has ever produced. There were a lot of scenes that he and Tracy weren’t happy with, so they rewrote them,” Harkema says. “In fact, the big reveal scene with the shouting and all of that at the end, I had written an idea for a scene, but it wasn’t really working. Don and Tracy took that scene, rewrote it and rehearsed it on their own to the point where when it came time to do it, I had no idea what they were going to do. They felt so much of the movie was riding on that scene, and they were so nervous about it where I was just anxious like a kid at Christmas. “Shoot the scene. I want to see what they came up with!’” In speaking with Harkema about the film, my thought was somewhat the same, tagging an exuberant focus on the moment. What follows are the answers that he came up with.

SM: What was a typical day on set for you like?

RH: Typically, I’d wake up and haul my ass up to (actress and girlfriend Cindy Wolfe’s) Mercury Parklane with a v8 390 engine and fire that up; pile Cindy into it; drive over to the actor’s place; pick them up; drive to our shooting location. You can actually see that car at various points in the movie.

Then you get your coffee, and I’d just sit in front of the monitor while my (Assistant Director and Director of Photography) basically set the shots up. I’m not very visually oriented; I’m from an editing background so the experience of sitting in front of a monitor is my experience of filmmaking. Imaging three-dimensional geographic space I’m not very good at at all; I depend a lot on the AD, DOP and Script Supervisor to figure out a shooting plan. As soon as they set the shots up and line them up on the monitor, I’m like, “Oh, we need this or we need that.”

They rest of the day becomes: figure out the shots, block, shoot the scene until I’m happy with it, always keep an eye on the clock. Tracy Wright, for instance…the first day of shooting with her, I shot ten takes of her doing something, and she pulled me aside and said, ‘You know, a lot of directors call me One Take Wright.’ I used that eventually because when I was under the hand of time, I would shoot her last, and I’d give her one take. So, it sort of backfired on her a little bit. Don would get three takes, and I’d be like, “Okay Tracy, One Take Wright…”

SM: As an extension of that, how did you find yourself working with the actors, particularly with Cindy because she’s your girlfriend?

RH: That whole thing with Cindy was a total disaster just because she wasn’t in the union. So, we didn’t shoot that scene until a month later, and we had to pick-up a whole crew. Then we had the shot with the baby, right? The shot of the baby in the movie is the very first thing I shot (on the production schedule that day.) My production designer (Andrew Bee) said to me, “Dud, you’ve got it. Let’s move on.” Being an editor, my editor instinct kicks in, and I’m like, “No, we’ve got to get close-ups of the action.” But, you can’t control when a baby cries, right? It’s all this downtime waiting for the baby so it ate into the time for the other scenes. We ended up doing the first two scenes Cindy was in both in an hour. Cindy, I think, is a very fine actress, but she’s only worked in a loose, improvisational fashion. So I approached working with her in this way on the film, but if you’ve got an hour to get to scenes, it’s not about improvisation; it’s about saying all those lines. The fucking lines—I gave her these massive monologues to do that mostly ended up getting cut out. (Cindy and I) shot that scene, and the next day we both cried all night.

Work with the other actors, they are total pros. My first film was with mostly non-professional first timers, and it was so nice to work with people who work on their own. I’m not a director who really understands the acting process enough to give them some sort of Stanislavsky technique. They have to really bring it there themselves, providing varieties, and then it becomes an editing thing, which is where I live. I’m very into sculpting performances, so I just encourage them to give me a lot of different varieties of material.

SM: The production design for the film is amazing. Every shot is detailed to the T. How did you go about working with production designer Andrew Bee? How did you go about saying, ‘This is what we want in frame,’? How did you find the Dutch dolls?

RH: (Andrew’s) actually an artist, and he found the house. When I got so flipped out about the house, he decided to leverage that into becoming the production designer. He’s also a director himself, an artist-director, so he kind of makes this production designer thing, but he’s this flakey artist, which I love, so am I. We really depended on Suzanne Ward, our art department chick who’s worked on sets, done art department work and knows the tricks of the trade. Then Cindy was the property master. The Dutch dolls she dragged down. Half of props in the movie Cindy owns, and the other half are from a woman who couldn’t do the design, and she felt so bad about it that she basically donated her Great-Uncle’s entire apartment full of stuff.

SM: The old posters and photographs were those from him?

RH: When it comes to photos, you have to clear all (the rights), so I think it was all Suzanne’s family. Cindy contributed a few of those. Andrew’s actually the one who got all the Car Free Gang, Toronto Public Space Committee and Critical Mass posters and all that stuff. So, it really was a three-headed production design monster.

SM: How many of the production design cues were written originally, or were there props that got into the script after they were found?

RH: Not much was in the script originally. I’d write, “They find a cabinet with a record player enclosed.” If we couldn’t find that, we’d use whatever was there. As pre-production was rolling on, we’d find crazy props. Our landlady downstairs was interested in what we were doing, and she offered us some stuff; she had the baby doll with the genitalia. Then that became a scene. It was like, ‘Oh, that’s awesome.’ We added the close-up of the baby’s penis just because it’s so offensive to Republicans.

SM: On that note, how political do you feel films are allowed to be these days? How much did you want this to just be a story that people would go along with, or how much did you want this to be a story that people politically rolled with?

RH: Films are allowed to be political if they are right-wing propaganda,…or if they are particularly pernicious American liberal advertisements. You’re allowed to critique the Iraq War by doing a sob story that reinforces the value of the family…The politics that I’m dealing with in my film is certainly off the grid of mainstream films.

SM: It’s also completely futile revolution in Monkey Warfare, even though (the action is) politically-charged and substantiated.

RH: The film politically for me—after watching it a few times and seeing the reactions—the politics lie in the fact that it’s anti-dogma. It’s anti-steadfast and unwavering belief. Somebody said, “I can’t tell if this is just a bunch of right-wing propaganda made to look the characters appear silly.” If anyone’s being made to look silly, it’s me—because I have those political beliefs. I’m certainly not going to uphold them as the only beliefs; there are many worthy beliefs out there. I’m constantly questioning myself, and I feel that’s the message of the film: Question your beliefs.

SM: In terms of editing, there’s the influence of Jean-Luc Godard, and I was hoping that you could talk about that.

RH: He plays in that tension between reality and appearance. His films are all about interrogation of the image, and when you’re working as an editor, as I did for over 10 years before I directed, a large chunk of your day is manufacturing realities with footage. I’m constantly aware of how two shots are put together to create new meanings. Most films that are made are just putting those two shots together to create meaning without dealing with the implications of that whereas Godard gets in there and deals with those implications. What’s lacking in today’s society is a great amount of critical thinking and theory. I don’t know if you’ve seen this movie Manufacturing Dissent. Have you heard of it?

SM: Yes, but I haven’t seen it yet.

RH: They followed Michael Moore around, and they found this interview that Michael Moore did with Roger Smith. In his movie Roger and Me, that’s the whole foundation of the film—

SM: That he can’t schedule the interview.

RH: I remember talking about this in a class, and one girl gasped. She couldn’t believe that Michael Moore had done that. For me, we as a society need to look at a film like Roger and Me and not presume that it’s the truth. We shouldn’t be surprised. We should look at it critically in terms of what he’s done to create this film, not just assume because it’s a documentary that it’s the truth. I don’t bat an eye.

SM: Also, much like early Godard films, Monkey Warfare is done with a sense of humor, and so the criticisms come from the humor. Do you think that these criticisms have to come along with a light-hearted sensibility tagged along?

RH: It certainly helps. What keeps the film from being didactic and pedantic is particularly the self-effacing humor. The characters deadpan these things that they really believe. As an audience member you’re once removed, and when Don’s character says, ‘Guilt is a construct of the ruling classes to suppress the masses,’ I think he actually believes that. Then he says it to Susan (Nadia Litz) who later regurgitates that left-wing speak to him with ‘There are no hierarchies, Dan.’ Honestly, that probably comes from me saying tons of stuff like that, and then later on catching myself, not going, ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous that I said that,’ but there is some humor to it. Quite frankly, in some ways, I do think guilt is a construct of the ruling classes to suppress the masses.

SM: There’s one great statement that Tracy’s character says that people think the world is going to end, but essentially it doesn’t. It’s not that these characters are complacent, they are still contributing to the society, but do you think you get to a place where you do become complacent, where you say ‘The world is not going to end?’

RH: In some ways, I’m starting to reach that a little bit. It’s when nihilism replaces idealism, and I’m starting to swing more to the nihilist side. I’m starting to be more of a person on the sidelines cheering on Don Quixote as he attacks the windmills, if you will… Ultimately, I see the human race—humanity is not the be all, end all of evolution. I see us becoming extinct very quickly, not in our lifetime perhaps. The issues that Dan and Linda are wrestling with in terms of being parents and having children are very much issues that I wrestle with that are part of a profoundly pessimistic view of the future. I don’t want to have children because of that.

SM: That harkens back to so many of D.H. Lawrence’s books. There are huge blocks of (Women In Love) right in that vein, that fear of perpetuating something that will eventually will destroy itself…Now, here’s the question: If we’re marching to the end, why do we do anything? Why do you make films? Why do we try to engage in discussion and dialogue which may not pan out to anything?

RH: I make films as much for the serotonin zap as anything. The most fun for me is being in the editing suite with my editor, wrestling with some sequence, disappearing for 15 minutes, coming back and she’s done something that’s so great. To get that rush. Coming up with a good answer in an interview is a serotonin zap, Q&A’s and all that. I guess it is very narcissistic and self-centered, and I’m not saying I’m trying to save the world, but it’s on my terms.

For more information visit www.monkeywarfare.com.