Interview: hazart and John Berchtold on ‘A Hard Problem’
What would you do if you had the ability to bring back a loved one? That is the central question poised by filmmaking duo hazart, who make their feature-length directorial debut with A Hard Problem, which stars John Berchtold and Catherine Haena Kim, and recently made its world premiere at the 2021 edition of Cinequest.
A Hard Problem centers on Ian (Berchtold), a young man who is still reeling from the tragic death of his beloved mother. Shunned by his own sister and left to his own devices, Ian slowly attempts to pack up what’s left of his childhood home when he makes a shocking discovery that turns his world upside down; he is a robot built in the original Ian’s image after he passed away due to a terminal illness. With the help of a stranger (Kim), Ian must put the pieces together, and figure out the truth about his past and what it means for his future.
It’s a tale that’s been explored by many filmmakers, throughout the past few decades, most recently by the team behind smash hit TV series Black Mirror. A Hard Problem, however, takes a more introspective route with the material, opting for deep discussions and insightful musings over action sequences or flashy VFX. For hazart, the genesis of the film came from a simple question: “Could you convince a robot of an afterlife and thus, convince itself to shut itself off?”
“Could you give a machine religion to accept a sort of death? We quickly started to flesh out the idea,” the filmmakers explain. “We sort of just settled in this sort of family drama as a narrative structure at first. There’s a thread of that in the movie but it’s not really focused on that anymore; we were much more interested in it from a philosophical standpoint of consciousness, and how we can never really know. Those ethical and moral questions that we’d pose for society. That’s just what interests us. However, this technology seems to be coming at some point [in the future], whether fast or slow, we don’t know. But there are ethical questions with a lot of the technology in our lives that nobody seems to be asking, you know? The famous Facebook slogan of ‘Move Fast and Break Stuff’ seems to be sort of a running theme for technologists in general, and we thought posing that question with something that looks and acts human as a way to ask a broader question might be a way to inspire conversation.”
While A Hard Problem takes place in the future, a specific timeframe is never assigned or established by the filmmakers, who employ a combination of futuristic devices and advanced tech, as well as normal elements we currently encounter in everyday life to throw viewers off. While hazart attribute this creative choice to the film’s small budget, it’s one that ends up working in the long run, adding to the uneasiness of the experience of watching the film. “It felt more authentic,” they say. “The future doesn’t unwrap itself in some neat box. So we wanted to make it feel a little bit futuristic, but also we never really give a date. We try to just say, ‘in the near future’. I think that was the first line of the script. It just said ‘near future’. We really do think it adds to the mystery [of the film] as well. Had it been a really sleek looking future, I think it would have been harder to hold back the twist.”
In order for audiences to fully accept the truth about Ian, they’d have to empathize with him first. Thanks to an excellent performance from Berchtold as Ian, they won’t have any difficulty in doing so. Berchtold manages to find the humanity in the character, allowing for audiences to connect with a character who may not actually be a real person. “I think a large part of the story is a coming-of-age story,” Berchtold elaborates. “And so I really wanted to approach it that way. It is a story of someone finding out the truth about who they are and I think that’s very relatable. I think all of us have gone through that. A lot of us are still going through that, trying to find out who we are. So I was able to play off of the grief of the loss of his mom. We also had discussions about the way to approach it. I rememberm in the very beginning I asked [the directors], ‘Okay, how robotic do you want me to go?’ And they they told me that he believes that he’s human. So that’s how I approached it. I approached it as human as possible. And as soon as he starts to peel back the layers of the truth about his being, I got to play with the mechanics of of what makes him tick, what makes him alive in a sense. Then there was the fun part of playing both real Ian and A.I. Ian, and playing the differences between [the two] that we had discussions about. If you tried to emulate something that is human, how much of that can actually carry over? So different things like the way I closed door or the way I approached a joke, I got to play with. They were supposed to be the same being [but] they were still different, there was still a clear line there. So that was exciting to play with.”
While A Hard Problem marks the feature-length directorial debut of hazart, the duo have spent the past decade crafting a series of short films that allowed them to hone their skills and put their range as filmmakers on display. Asked if they faced any difficulties going from shorts to a feature-length project, they respond in the negative. “Feature films are just like short films but in longer form,” they point out. “The hardest thing was being able to handle the schedule and all of that. Our background as production assistants, and our training with directors that are much more experienced than us that were kind enough to mentor us over the years really helped. We’ve shadowed a number of really talented people over the years so we felt pretty well prepared. But it’s still hard that the all of your hopes and dreams of what you wanted to do from starting in this business and dreaming of making movies comes down to it, but it’s just a bigger jigsaw puzzle. It can be tricky at times to make sure you’re in the right tone because you’re shooting out of order. So you want to make sure you’re in the right point in the arc of the characters, and the narrative, and so that’s just inherently more complex the more pages you have. We had some sort of philosophy as directors that we weren’t really able to try out in the short form so a feature length film gave us more freedom. Being able to have a lot more time for things, being able to do a lot more takes. The first five days of shooting were just a way for everybody to feel out what we were doing, and then we really tried to dedicate a lot of time to the big scenes.”
A Hard Problem is also a first for Berchtold in many ways as well, marking his first starring role in a feature length film. After rising to prominence thanks to a series of Twitter and TikTok videos that attempted to flip movie tropes onto their head, Berchtold landed a role in Amazon Studios’ critically acclaimed series, The Wilds, which made its debut on the platform a few months ago. “That cast is absolutely incredible,” he gushes. “They’re all so talented. They’re just the most wonderful people so just to be a part of that was an honor. That show is so beautifully written. It’s so female focused and tells such thoughtful stories. I just loved being able to help aid in telling one of those stories and acting alongside Helena Howard, who is incredible.” Berchtold, a self-confessed horror fan, also found himself (metaphorically) rubbing shoulders with Jason Blum, head of Blumhouse and arguably one of the biggest names in the horror industry, who joined Berchtold for a series of hilarious parody videos during lockdown that involved Berchtold pitching several horror movies to Blumhouse. “That would be the goal,” says Berchtold when asked if he has any bigger projects in the works with Blumhouse. “It is a dream of mine to work with them. And I guess I sort of have already. That came about in such a funny way, but it’s been such a fun time making these videos with Jason. Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge horror fan. It’s my life. So Jason Blum is a dream person to work with so yeah, hopefully something bigger is in the works and I’m excited to explore that. Fingers crossed!”
A Hard Problem screened at the Cinequest Film Festival in March 2021.