Pulp Features

Last Exit, is a darkly humorous portrayal of a weak-willed and self-centred man falling apart in Copenhagen’s underworld. Well scripted, solidly acted and with an atmosphere that draws you in right from the start, this is a film that is well worth getting hold of.

And, with a Region 1 DVD release from Heretic Films now available, director David Noel Bourke kindly agreed to discuss the film, the characters and the future.

Paul: In a nutshell, how would you describe Last Exit?
David: You could say it’s a surreal journey through Copenhagen fuelled by sex, drugs, violence and philosophy!

Paul: Which films inspired you to start making films, and which films inspired you to make this one?
David: The obvious ones, going back were the big popular ones like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark that I saw when I was a teenager but before that, my father was a Clint Eastwood fan and loved crime thrillers, so he would watch all the Dirty Harrys, French Connections etc, all the gritty films from the seventies he liked - so I would end up just watching them too - when I could.

The inspiration for Last Exit itself was born from my diet of b-movies and cult films that I absorbed over the last 15- 20 years, overall I was very much inspired by the likes of Waking Life, Naked, Evil Dead, Bad Lieutenant, Pi, Natural Born Killers, Scarface, Reservoir Dogs, Tetsuo, Eraserhead and really countless other movies – I’m a movie geek admittedly and influenced by many – but when you’re a filmmaker you try to make your material develop into your own individual style too.

Paul: Last Exit was shot in Copenhagen. How easy did you find filming in the city – especially around red light district – and how long did it take?
David: We shot the whole movie in two weeks, and the days were very short, around 8 hours so we could cut back on catering costs – we were that low in funds.

Shooting outside was very nervous, most of the time we hadn’t official permission or anything. For example, the final scene in the shopping mall, we just shot without official permission, we shot it in 3 hours before we were told to pack up and leave. The red-light district scenes were shot in around 3 nights, we were always looking over out shoulders all he time, as there was some very dodgy people floating around in some areas had a large propensity for violence, but overall it went pretty smoothly considering everything.

Paul: What sort of problems did you encounter during shooting - and which one gave you your biggest headaches?
David: Usually technical issues were the worst. Mainly lots of small issues. We only had one portable microphone, that our lead actor sat on and broke in two days just two days into production…so for the whole shoot we had to do with a taped together flimsy microphone - it worked just about! We also had a wide angle lens on our camera so it was a magnet to dust every time we filmed outside, a lot of the shots we done were unusable, when checked the footage back at the office. When you’re shooting outside you have also the major problem of noise, passers-by and not to mention cast and crew freezing to death – it was mid winter November during the shoot and temperature fell to below zero, one of our actors couldn’t open his mouth when his line was queued because he said his lips were so numb!

Paul: When I first saw the film I was living in Amsterdam, and the character of Nigel reminded me quite strongly of several of the characters that I’d encountered there. Was Nigel based on a real person – or people – or is he complete fiction?
David: You know, when I wrote Last Exit, Nigel was more or less fiction, when Morten Vogelius came on board, we fleshed out his character a little more, talking about some folks we know. We visited some rough areas and studied a few characters , a lot of guys like Nigel around, struggling to make a living and seeing crime as there only refuge, its quite sad really, so we tried to tap into that.

Paul: Jimmy is an interesting character. I’ve never been quite able to decide whether he should be treated as a real person or as a representation of Nigel’s conscience. How do you see him?
David: I think it would spoil the mystery, if I told you and would rather let an audience decide who Jimmy is, but I can say there is hints in his dialogue (needs careful listening) especially in the final Jimmy segment - you will notice Nigel “looking” for redemption from Jimmy, I won’t say any more!

Paul: You managed to assemble a very strong cast for Last Exit. How did you find the actors and actresses involved, and do you have any plans to work with them again?
David: Basically published some ads in a local newspaper and also used a few websites and worked the phones telling actors about the project. There are a lot of professional actors in Copenhagen from around Europe so it’s a great place to cast a European project. We got a reasonable response, considering our budget and the subject matter of the film. Of all the actors that were in Last Exit, Peter Ottesen (the President) may come back for No Right Turn as a sort of cameo, but of course if the actors suit a particular role, I would love to work with them again at some stage.

Paul: Are there any actors – or other film professionals – that you would like to work with in the future?
David: There is so many cool actors out there, it’s every filmmakers dream to work with likes of Al Pacino, Harvey Keital, Sean Penn, Robert Rodriguez, Linklater etc - they are many filmmakers I admire and of course it would be fun to do something with them if I was lucky to get the opportunity.

Paul: Last Exit was re-edited and rescored for its Region 1 DVD release. How do you feel that this version compares to the original?
David: I like both, my distributor (Heretic Films) have promised a release a directors cut at some stage with original music intact but the Region 1 cut is cool by me. Maybe actually some of the music actually works better in the re-scored version to be honest, as Gry Bay got to sing on more tracks which gives more of a unified feel throughout the picture.

Paul: Do you have any plans for your next film?
David: I’m in pre-production of my next film No Right Turn and will be shooting at the end of January, if all goes well! Really looking forward to it, we got a superb bunch of actors and a fantastic crew. It will be very stylish and colourful in production design and the characters are very interesting, so it will be different than Last Exit in many ways but it will have dark themes too and a lot more direct humour.

Briefly it’s a story of one girls plan to kill off her pimp boyfriend and run off to pursue her life long dream, of course it doesn’t go according to plan with many twists and consequences for all the characters, its going be a blast!

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