Irony vs. Cynicism – Director João Pedro Rodrigues on ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp’

by Elena Lazic

Faced with the consequences of climate change and at odds with his awful relatives, the son of a rich bourgeois family decides to become a firefighter. Providing most of the heat however aren’t forest fires but a hot new colleague, and the two embark on a torrid affair that defies class, race, and gender binaries.

Elena Lazic talked to Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues about his playful, seductive, and political film Will-o’-the-Wisp, now playing at the IFC Center in New York.

Elena Lazic (EL): The film has a wide scale in terms of the time it covers, but also in the range of sets and its changing focus: you have these very intimate conversation scenes, but also a big dance number, a forest fire, etc.

João Pedro Rodrigues (JPR): I think the film plays with the balance between the love story, the intimacy; and the more wide-scale things. Even the sex scenes, the most intimate scenes, deal with history and colonialism, via this idea of role playing. For me, that was important: that somehow, these two people pacified all of the past through intimacy. I think this might be the way to do it.