Battling the Armies of Realism

Except they're not visions really--they're real. People say they're visions, but they're not really because the film is his film. It's the other people who can't see them who are the problem.

Exactly. In the UK that was [on] the original poster. And I loved it.

Imagination, really. The armies of realism try to unpick [Damian's] world and make him join in the realistic world. But I always think it's a bit disappointing, the real world.

There's a bit in "Trainspotting" where a baby crawls along the ceiling. It's a scary, horrible image, and it's rather crudely done because we didn't have any money. I remember them saying to me, "We're not going to do it. It will look terrible." I said, "That's not the point."

Often the imaginative process isn't dependent on realism, on making things look like they could really exist. The imagination, and what we go to cinema for, is often about something other than that. That's why I always keep hold of that.

The idea of this film, in the end, is about what his mom says to [Damian]: you have to keep faith in people.

I link faith directly to the imagination because it involves having "leapings" of things. There aren't steps there all the time. Some of it is trust; there's a gap that you have to go over.

People say, "How come you made a religious film?" For me it's not religious. I can understand for some people it would be religious, but to me it's about the imagination, about faith and belief in a wider context.

He is an artist. You can see it, that's what he'll become. Those icons that he uses for saints, they'll be replaced by other things, movies, music, art, whatever. He'll move into that world.

I think regular people can see them. I think we don't often let ourselves.

You can train yourself to use it much more. Education can train people. A good teacher will reveal a good piece of work to you--a painting, or something--will teach you how to look at it.

No.

No. I think his mom brought him up religious. There is a hint that the father has lost his faith, presumably because of the death of the mom. And I imagine [his brother Anthony] has followed him in that...in the sense that there's no longer any pressure or any agenda in pretending, praying, or all the things you do as a kid when you're brought up religiously. [The brother Anthony] is "Great, I don't have to go to church anymore."

Whereas the little boy [Damian], you don't see him going to church, but he clings to that because it allows him access to a world beyond realism. In realism, his mom is not there anymore, so he's not interested in that world.

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