Director Luis Gerard On Death and Brotherhood for Live Action Short Contender, ‘The Wake’

The Wake will keep you on the edge of your seat. What starts as a carefully drawn family drama plunges into a heart-racing thriller in a matter of minutes. On the surface, it is the story of two brothers taking what doesn’t belong to them, but it also shows that gun violence knows no bounds. Director Luis Gerard’s film is well-crafted and deeply emotional.

The Wake centers on two brothers, Walter and Martin, whose family owns and operates a funeral home. Martin, the younger of the two, is deaf and follows his big brother around whenever he can. Their town is small and sleepy but large enough that no one notices when they break into a dead person’s home to steal some family heirlooms as they bury their loved ones.

Gerard revealed that he wrote the screenplay a few years before he filmed it, and he was interested in a different kind of gun violence tale. We often see films tackle these stories in a big city or by alluding to events that have recently happened in the news. Gerard wanted to take a different approach.

“I wrote this a few years ago before I shot it. I wanted to make a film revolving around death, and it was a combination of ideas. I thought it would be interesting to touch gun violence that wasn’t related to a mass shooting but more about how kids perceive guns. Kids that live in an innocent environment. I had another story about adults who break into people’s houses when they attend funerals, so I combined the two ideas. The fact that these kids grew up around death, I wanted to explore how that molded their personalities.”

The Carpenter family is providing an essential service to those who are grieving, and Walter’s thievery almost mocks that. As a family is trying to say goodbye to a loved one, he is sneaking into people’s homes and taking even more from those who are in pain. He butts heads with his father, but they have more in common than they think.

“As much as the film is about the relationship between the brothers, it is about the relationship between the eldest brother and his dad. I wanted to explore so men different things, and the fact that they don’t get along was something I needed to include. Walter butts heads with his father, Gary, and he does things that he wouldn’t approve of. He drinks. He smokes. Walter is taking from the dead whereas his father is legally taking from them, so it’s a lot about how you can become your parents even if you criticize or even hate them.”

Gerard spoke extensively about the chemistry between his young stars, Zander Colbeck-Bohla and Isaac Kragten. There was no way that Gerard was going to cast anyone but a deaf actor in the role of Martin, but there needed to be a connection between these two brothers.

“The casting was one thing that I needed to finish and get right before I shot anything. I had to push the shoot several times, because I couldn’t find the right combination. For me, I was looking for kids that resemble each other, and building the chemistry was part of the process. Zander [Colbeck-Bohla], who plays Martin, is deaf in real life, and he had just turned ten when we started shooting while Isaac is fifteen. That’s a tough age, because when you are fifteen, you don’t want to hang out with someone who is ten unless you are brothers in real life. At the same, he is a bit of a sociopath and does some questionable things, but the audience needs to connect with him in some way. I did two things to build the bond. Rehearsals were very key to that.”

“The other thing I did was let them hang out, and they visited escape rooms. They became friends even though they couldn’t speak to one another. I didn’t go, so they could connect together. Casting Isaac was one of the best things I could’ve done not just because he is a dedicated actor, but you have to remember that he had to learn and study ASL on his own. We had a deaf person record all of his lines and he would study that. When we shot the film, that person was with me and looking at all the takes to make sure that it was authentic. It couldn’t be phoned in or seem fake at all.”

Throughout The Wake, you can hear the wind blowing–sometimes loudly but other times it’s faint. It almost feels like the wind is following Walter and Martin around or as if it knows their secrets. Coupled with the moody score by Jay Wadley, it adds to the unsettling tone.

“Both music and sound contribute to tension or our own discomfort. You can feel something is going to happen. I want to use the sound to help make it feel unsettling when you take into account that it’s set in a funeral home and they are breaking into people’s houses. When I was prepping and scouting locations, it was very uncomfortable, and sometimes I would be in a morgue with a body covered up by a sheet. It was draining and sometimes very exhausting. I wanted to transmit that feeling into it.”

The last third of the film trick you with the tension. As Walter and Martin assume they might get caught, Gerard plays with our expectations of other thrillers and changes focus or intention. He uses silence effectively well, and he switches our perspective from what Walter can hear to what Martin can’t. The director viewed the final section as a test for himself as a filmmaker.

“That was very deliberate, and I viewed that as a challenge for myself. When he is under the bed, he realizes that he left his backpack, and you think that is going to give him away. But then you hear the owner crying, so it’s very unexpected. I didn’t want to make anything predictable. For me, there is one thing with the films that I make, and I hate when I sit down and watch a movie and know what’s going to happen. If you watch a superhero movie, you know the villain is going to be defeated and return for another chapter. I don’t like to be obvious, because being on a rollercoaster is way more exciting.”

Gerard wants to leave you in the grey when it comes to his characters. Walter is defiant towards his parents, so that naturally makes him obnoxious in the eyes of some. Instead of being offended, Gerard told me a story about one of his favorite post-screening reactions.

“After a screening, someone came up to me and told me, ‘You know…I hated that kid, but I didn’t want anything bad happen to him.’ I am not sure if this person liked the film or not, but I took it as a compliment. Walter doesn’t think that what he is doing is wrong, because these people are dead already. What are they going to do to him? For an audience member, that makes him unlikable, and I am fine with that. I don’t like things to be black and white. When you have a character like that, it creates feelings and more tension. I will never forget that reaction to the movie.”

Towards the end of our conversation, I mentioned how I could feel the weight of the gun when Martin held it. Any time a gun is fired, it felt like the triggered was pulled right next to my head.

“I wanted to make it more about how kids look at guns. I wanted to go to the feeling of holding a gun for the first time. We have seen guns in movies and in media all of our lives. They haven’t seen it as much.”