WORDS OLLY RICHARDSDirector Hany Abu-Assad
does things the hard way in
The Mountain Between UsHAVING A STORY with just two characters
should make a director’s job easy. No extras; fewer
angles to shoot; very short queues for the catering
truck. But Hany Abu-Assad, director of The
Mountain Between Us, decided to put the kibosh
on an easy life. How? By filming his tiny ensemble
piece in the freezing conditions of Alberta, on
Canada’s snowy peaks.
Based on the novel of the same name by
American writer Charles Martin, this is the
saga of two strangers, a doctor, Ben Bass (Idris
Elba), and Alex Martin, a soon-to-be-married
photojournalist (Kate Winslet), chartering a plane
home after their commercial flight is cancelled.
Neither can afford to wait a day. Delays become
the least of their worries when their plane crashes
in the mountains, killing the pilot and leaving two
people who met mere hours ago relying on each
other to stay alive. It’s a bit like Alive meets
Homeward Bound, but with less cannibalism and
just the one dog (more on him later).
“I don’t like to make things easy,” laughs
Abu-Assad, who has been Oscar-nominated twice
for Best Foreign Language Film, for Paradise Now
(2005) and Omar (2013). “I never shoot my films
anywhere comfortable,” he says, “because I make
films about people in difficult circumstances.” The
director shared his tiny cast’s hardships. “Therewas very little oxygen up there and we’d get home
at the end of every day feeling like we’d been
beaten up. Really.”
Even more daunting than the sub-zero
temperatures was the challenge of keeping a film
with just two characters cinematic. “It’s very
different in a book, where you can use description
and the characters’ inner voices,” says Abu-Assad.
“Conflict is what keeps the story interesting and
trying to create that with two characters is
something we had to do a lot of work on.”
Part of the solution came from casting Elba
and Winslet — “both are actors who are
automatically intriguing”; part came from eking
out secrets about the pair as the film progresses;
and part came from adding another cast member,
whom the leads happen upon: a dog named Riley.
“That dog made my life so hard!” says
Abu-Assad. “The dog is cold! The dog is tired!
But he gives the movie a great feel. He’s the comic
relief, which a movie this tense needs. You need to
release the tension sometimes in order to build it
up again, and that’s what the dog does.”
When everything else is frozen, you can rely
on a dog to warm the heart.THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US IS IN CINEMAS FROM
12 OCTOBERSNOW PATROL
Alex Martin (Kate Winslet)
and Dr Ben Bass (Idris
Elba) get the drift.
Below: Ice-cold Alex?Cat people (left to right):
Black Panther and T’Challa
(Chadwick Boseman),
director Ryan Coogler,
Okoye (Danai Gurira),
Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o),
Ayo (Florence Kasumba)
and Erik Killmonger
(Michael B. Jordan).6
Among that force is Letitia Wright as
T’Challa’s tech-genius sister Shuri, and
The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira as
Okoye, a loyal ally of T’Challa’s. The final key
Dora Milaje warrior is Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia.
In the comics Nakia overreacts badly when
T’Challa rejects her and becomes the villain
Malice, working with Killmonger.7
Forest Whitaker plays Zuri, a Wakandan
elder statesman and T’Challa’s mentor.
Coogler says that Whitaker’s character
plays an “Obi-Wan Kenobi” role for T’Challa.8
Much of the conflict is driven by
vibranium, the (fictional) metal on which
Wakanda’s fortunes are based. It’s the
material of BP’s catsuit and claws, making him
largely bulletproof. Could misuse of vibranium
be the cause of this potential world war?9
Which other Marvel characters might
appear? We last saw Bucky ‘The Winter
Soldier’ in cryogenic storage in T’Challa’s
backyard, so there’s a possibility he could be
thawed out. More likely, however, is a link that
builds towards Infinity War — which leaves the
MCU cameo field wide open.BLACK PANTHER IS IN CINEMAS FROM 15 FEBRUARY 2018