Director Tim Mielants adapts the stirring words of Claire Keegan’s Irish novella Small Things Like These establishing a visual language of willful ignorance in a small community ruled by religion. Offscreen Central had the opportunity to talk to Mielants about the importance of personal connection to the story’s themes of grief, using minimalistic storytelling to capture Bill’s vulnerability, as well as the film’s unique factor of the male perspective lensing the story of fallen women.

Jillian Chilingerian: I was a big fan of the book, so I was excited to see that it was being turned into a movie. After watching it, I was speechless and sat with my feelings about what a beautiful story it was.
Tim Mielants: Thank you.

Jillian Chilingerian: This is a book adaptation, and there’s one thing to read Claire’s words about, but seeing it visually was such a different experience of feeling what is going on in this town, especially the plight that Bill has as a character. When you were working on putting this together, what were the conversations you had or ideas you had about how to translate this idea of complicity visually and will for willful ignorance within this small community?
Tim Mielants: At the center of everything, the reason why I wanted to do this movie is because of grief and the pain of grief, and that’s something I understand, because that’s a theme that comes back all the time, and that’s something I’m trying to explore in different ways. That was a starting point for everything. A previous movie that I’ve done about World War Two is about, if you’re complicit, which was a theme that always comes back. So I was grounded in exploring or being experimental with this scene. It was kind of a personal approach, which is something you need to have when you’re adapting a book. It’s trying to make it personal because you can’t do it objectively. The book is the book, and the film is something else and then what I got from Claire’s writing is that it was so minimalistic and that I wanted to be I felt like there was no other way than being a silent observer and look at it. That’s the kind of camera that is always invisible in one place, the same living room, the same hallways. There’s a lot of emotion that took place in that living room, a lot of emotion that took place in that hallway. You went to funerals, you went to weddings, you went to you came back from a drunk night in that same hallway. Everything happened there so it’s always there at the same height, the same frame. So I felt like I was God’s eye looking at them and then at the same time, I felt certainly with the flashbacks and everything, I felt like the camera should be a spirit just flying. This is the way the camera is visually. It’s almost like a religious approach to the material that’s what I was working with and playing with,

Jillian Chilingerian: I like that you mentioned that because one of my favorite scenes is where we see they’re outside with the Christmas lighting. Everyone’s, looking one way, and then we’re bird’s eye view, almost like God, and Bill’s face is turned because we can learn so much about the character from what he’s doing in this community of people.
Tim Mielants: Exactly. It’s so nice that you clocked it.
Jillian Chilingerian: It’s one of my favorite scenes of the movie. I want to dive into this character of Bill and work with your actors. I’m a big fan of Cillian, and I think this is one of my favorite performances I’ve seen of his, he’s doing so little, but it tells you so much going back to that idea of grief and going through this cycle. Working with him as he’s also a producer and actor on this, how was it to craft Bill to come across? We see him very vulnerable, also because he’s, he’s a girl dad, and I think like those moments of when we see him with his daughters, and we think back to the women that have been taken from their families and to me read like this could happen to anyone.
Time Mielants: He is also a producer, which helped me. I believe that the camera can grab your thoughts and mapping out my trauma was the starting point of everything, and I did it, like, what was he thinking about everything? What’s between these lines? But where were you going from? So that was something I was able to share with him up front and that was also starting for storyboards and everything structuring that pain was the way to go. I think that’s the reason why I could share it before the movie starts. There’s a reason why these silences are so layered. I also brought him to all the locations upfront, which never, rarely happens with an actor and I shared with him everything I had in mind, so he knew what I was after upfront, and then he could only elevate it a little bit. I consider him one of the best actors on the planet, so being able to do that with an actor like Cillian is magnificent.

Jillian Chilingerian: I would agree, as a fan. Emily Watson is so amazing in this and with her character, it’s very much like she’s a product of this system, of this community. How did you approach working with her, I love the scene between her and Bill when he brings back the girl and they’re having the tea, and she slips him the money.
Tim Mielants: The convent and all that world was, for me, like entering his unconsciousness, because that’s a world that something happened with his mother there, and he never coped with it. He never wants to face it. So like entering that is starting to face trauma, a visualization of what’s happening internally inside of him that decision gave me some creative license to make it slightly bigger than life but still grounded at the same time. I think you need a talent like Emily to do both, I told her, you’ve been in the shit yourself back in the day, and he’s coping with his pain as we speak, but you never dealt with it. You’ve just blocked it, and a lot of people totally block their pain and push it away.

Jillian Chilingerian: It goes back to what you mentioned with grief, of how people process it, and how we get to see them in their worlds interacting with what they’ve both been through on very different sides, exactly. I love how textured and lived in this film feels to see Ireland from a small community, and how they have dealt with this intersection of religion and community and government. Cillian was quoted saying this is for the Irish people, was looking at their trauma their culture, and addressing it through art. I think that speaks about what this film does. What was your experience with diving into this part of the history of the Irish people, and your help in bringing that to life?
Tim Mielants: Where I come from, the Roman Catholic Church is an aspect of everything in life. It’s in every layer of society present, and we’re digging up our dirt in a similar way. I didn’t know the Irish culture so well, and I was very honest about the Irish people, are very nice, and they help me through it. I felt like there’s a universal story, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be Roman Catholic, but I think when an institution gets absolute power and you’re not able to question it, eventually abuse will happen in many places and in different shapes and forms. So I think that’s a kind of lesson we have to teach our children and everyone right now at this point.

Jillian Chilingerian: There’s that duality of it is specific, but also very universal. It is an important film for women, and I love that we get both of those perspectives, seeing the role of Bill as a father and distancing ourselves on the outside of what that looks like looking on the inside with these women.
Tim Mielants: What Claire Keegan does is and I think that’s brilliant, telling that story from a male perspective, which is I think it’s really important because by doing so, there are a lot of men who were silent and did nothing. What was going on with all these women? She tells it from a male perspective, and that therefore it becomes a collective problem and I think it’s all these things that are happening in the world are always collective problems, and it should be and, and I think that’s a strong point that she made. There’s the vulnerable, nontoxic man who’s quiet, and mostly these are the heroes that come to the surface, and I think we have to see more of that kind of man and role models in society.
Jillian Chilingerian: I agree with that statement, for sure, and that’s why I think I’m excited for more people to see this film. It’s such a unique perspective that we don’t often see from the male POV, but it’s still injected with that femininity and the care that he has from his own experience, and how that impacts how he has this view on the world and his community.

Jillian Chilingerian: Skipping to the end of the movie, I love that he acts in this way not thinking of the consequences, but his action goes back to the male perspective in this of if I can do this part, then it helps me feel like I’m breaking a system, or not contributing that.
Tim Mielants: It’s a full circle, isn’t it? It’s like, He’s saving his mother and it’s very subtle, like, her name is Sarah, and on the gravestone, you see that the mother is also Sarah. That’s when he hears, what’s your name? And he hears, Sarah. It’s like, okay, so actually, it’s more like I’m saving myself by saving her, and at the end, which is not in the book, I put it in the last scene because I wanted to see him smile.
Jillian Chilingerian: He’s been through so much, but then it’s also, like, just seeing someone that’s been through so much, putting themselves out there to want to save people and help and explore this.
Tim Mielants: That’s a good thing about grief. It’s not, it’s not always black. I think there’s been grief. What’s so good about it? There’s light at the end of the tunnel, and I want to share with everybody, like, keep this really, this beautiful light at the end of the tunnel, and you come out as you might come out as a stronger person, yeah,

Jillian Chilingerian: Were there any moments when you were adapting it and working through any scenes that you found challenging in how you wanted to communicate it, either visually or through your perspective as a director?
Tim Mielants: I think it’s more but as you said before, I felt what the rhythm and the tonality of the movie should be like, and then it’s like the big scene with Sister Mary was like mixing two worlds and making sure that works within the structure of the movie. In the tonality of the movie that was a challenge, but yeah, luckily we get Emily there.

Jillian Chilingerian: They’re just so good in that scene. In these settings, you feel the haunting of the trauma and the stories of these women and you don’t need to necessarily see it to be like, oh yeah, this is happening here. How was it in creating that essence and that aura, I think it’s so well done, whether it’s to the framing that we’ve talked about, or even the blurring sound, or how the actors inhabit these environments.
Tim Mielants: It’s going back to what are the thoughts, what’s happening inside of you, and what’s the unconscious thinking? What’s the brain doing? And then, of course, the sound is so important to as an audience, a minimalistic approach, but music is so loud, and I think Cillian is silent, but very loud because you have to understand that’s something Cillian knew very well, like these guys being in Ireland, in 85 you were not allowed to talk about your emotions, then you have the little kid who’s mother died and then stepmother says, okay, it’s been a week now and you go back to school next week. There is a concrete wall in front of him, and inside behind it is like a bursting volcano. So for me, it was a very loud movie.

Jillian Chilingerian: I love that you mentioned how he’s been through this, and he’s had to repress because of society. Thank you so much for the time to dive into the movie.
Tim Mielants: It was a great conversation as you went deep right away.
Jillian Chilingerian: It was such a very stirring movie and touched me. And again, I’m glad that we have this, and I can’t wait for more people to see it, especially women.
Tim Mielants: Thank you so much, you made my day.

Small Things like These is available to watch in theaters.
You can read our review of the film here.