The Curious Case Of Two Babies
Freezing a moment of memory
Koen De Vries' sculptures gradually won over our writer Maja Milanovic as she examined all of their layers. She was inspired by his interview to consider the roles we play in life, which prompted her to reflect on the moment she describes in her article.
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“I try to look at people while they are playing their roles and being really engaged in this play. At the same time I feel they are playing out their story within a bigger story.”
- Koen de Vries
The blue sky with not even a speck of a cloud floating by extended on the horizon into the greener than green grass. The view was obstructed by freshly washed white sheets that didn’t have the slightest stain on them. They smelled clean, like that old-fashioned detergent that takes you back to your childhood. And low and behold, it is a young mother with her hair immaculately put in a bun, dressed in a cardigan and an A-line skirt, hanging the laundry on a line. Her young rested face tenderly smiles at her baby, the most well-behaved-five-month-old who sits calmly next to her in the baby chair.
Let’s freeze this moment.
Where are we? If you thought that I am writing a modern screenplay for The Sound of Music, you were wrong. We are deep inside of an Ariel detergent commercial shot against the stunning background of the Slovenian Alps on an incredibly sunny summer day. After seeing the advertisement on your televisions at your homes, you will rush to the store to purchase the detergent not just to wash your clothes, but also for the promise of this unattainable beautiful existence.
Don’t unfreeze this image with no wrinkles or holes just yet.
Let the actors revel in their celebrity for a tiny moment, especially the baby who has only recently opened his eyes to the world and all its ways. Then slowly walk around them and see what’s hidden beneath all the make-up and CGI added for the sky and grass to create this faultless day. What happens in the 1425 minutes after or before the 15 minutes of fame?
As I was reading the interview with Koen de Vries at the beginning of the month, one of the drawers in my memory chest opened and presented me with “The Curious Case Of Two Babies,” which took place during the making of this co-production between Croatia and England. Let’s shatter the illusion, why don’t we!
Ten days before the described scene, I was standing behind a little hand camera in a stifling hotel room in the center of Zagreb, with the director and producer from team England by my side. In front of the camera, we greeted actors and babies as they came one after another into the room. The pros of being bilingual in a co-production was that I probably had a bigger role than most casting directors or director’s assistants. As I was talking and directing the extras, the director and producer sat back relaxed, chatting as the show went on. The room was filled with friendly banter, with room services visiting us from time to time to bring us refreshments … oh the luxury of a well financed shoot!
The director’s mind was probably drifting to the upcoming weekend. After we would find the perfect baby for the commercial with round cheeks and blue eyes as the cloudless sky, he hopped on a plane back to England where he would get married and begin his own family striving for the perfect Ariel-commercial-like existence.
A few days after his wedding, we were all reunited again in different production vans heading towards the Alps. Lulled by the different greens colouring the van’s window, I started remembering how when I was a child my parents took me here to see the source of the river Sava which began as a few trickling drops but meandered as a legit big river throughout the old country of Yugoslavia. I recall plunging into the lakes of Bled and Bohinj and feeling instantly chilly as my body submerged. I remembered the weird cave salamanders known locally as "humanoid fish" that Italians sought to bring across the border. I remember that this also used to be my country. My father's story about his own adventures with the boy scouts, when they decided one summer morning to leave the streets of Belgrade without notifying their families, cross the country, and climb Triglav, Slovenia's highest peak. A few days after hiking, they woke up on a nudist beach in Croatia with the news that Marilyn Monroe died. Her 15 minutes of fame (that lasted a bit longer) gone followed by an emptiness in his teenage heart just as an emptiness remained after he passed away last year.
What I didn't realize at the time, as I was recollecting stories and memories in the van on the way to production, was that just three years before his death at the age of 75, my father and three of his boy scouts replicated the same trip, leaving Serbia to go to Slovenia, back to Croatia.... now all different countries. Yugoslavia’s fifteen minutes of fame also extinguished. And three years later, so has my father’s role in life.
The van transporting the entire crew and cast arrived at a tiny hotel next to the lake, with the mountain as a backdrop. The water was crystal clear and as we were walking back and forth across creeks, though the trees, many tourists passed by us on their hikes, bikes, fisherman fished and we, the film crew filmed. Life was happening while we tried to create what life should be about and sell it to the consumers.
The baby and his real mom (not the ad mom) also arrived with one of those vans from Zagreb the night before the shoot. When a baby is involved on set, there are laws and restrictions. As well as some trepidation because one never knows how the infant will fare. However, as we were leaving the hotel for the location in the morning, I heard yells and disagreement coming from the production office. Some harsh words. I left without understanding what was going on so that I wouldn't be late on set. The stakes are high during production due to the tight schedule and large sums of money involved, consequently tension was not an unknown.
Finally, the scene with the infant was scheduled after lunch. The baby came on set with the Croatian team's producer. I looked at the tiny child and realized it wasn't the same baby who had been perfectly cast one week before in the stuffy hotel room, the baby who had arrived at the hotel last night to rest before the big day. The producer glanced at me and said that the chosen baby's mother was difficult and demanded more money. The mother knew she had the upper hand in the highlands, away from civilization, but the producer refused to bulge and fired her on the spot …. From then till lunch, some of the crew went around the mountains looking for a baby, from village to hamlet, door to door, and miraculously, they found one. While the clothing line and perfect sheets were being set up, the director was getting ready to direct the actress and the baby, the English producer was looking for answers.
He approached me while I was walking down the grassy slope. The con of being completely bilingual is that everyone wants to talk to me.
"Tell me, is that the baby we chose last week?"
I lowered my gaze and said "yes." And then I quickly stated that I was needed on set. I am a terrible liar but the directives from “upstairs,” from the man who hired me, were that I had to say that it was the baby that we brought from Zagreb. Just like things can be lost in translation, it seems that they can also be lost in co-production.
We can now unfreeze the image.
The commercial was shot and I am sure it was a success. It was showing in England, so I never got to see it. However, the sheets were perfectly white, the grass greener than green and the sky without a speck of a cloud in the sky. The mother hang clothes on the line while her baby sat calmly in the chair next to her side. The mom just got a Slovenian baby instead of Croatian one, which she was unaware of. On this set called life, this story had a happy end.
