The Best Day of our Lives
Wrestling with modernity
Directed by Arne Gjelten
Director Arne Gjelten prompts us to question the relevance of marriage within the diverse communities shaping our society in The Best Day of Our Lives. Through an intimate portrayal of gay married life, Gjelten skilfully balances drama, satire, and absurdity, inviting viewers to contemplate the complexities of modern relationships. The film serves as a poignant reminder that structures, once effective, should be courageously challenged and restructured in the present context.
The Best Day of Our Lives started as a satire about marriage, capitalism, and the gay rights movement. Yet it feels very intimate and real, exploring an all too familiar dynamic. Can you share with us if and how your initial idea and intention developed and transformed?
I knew I wanted to make something in a single location and I’ve always been stuck on the family drama. I tend to get lost in the thematic sauce so I worked to keep the story as bare as possible. It all plays out in a kind of domestic theatre; the set up, the props, the guests taking their seats for the show. It also begins where it ends, the opening images are actually the chilly wreckage of the morning after. Initially I wanted to make something about how our social and political notions dictate who is allowed to have the home, the family, and what they are allowed to call it but ultimately the focus is on whether or not this one relationship could survive the revelation and whether or not it should.
Without giving too much away, as viewers there is a tendency to get fixated on the “but what actually did happen”? However, as queer viewers our reading fell more on the ”why should marriage matter to us?” Obviously this is a complex topic, but what’s your personal view on marriage and what it represents for us?
I think it’s important that it’s an option. I’ve thought a lot about how our conversations regarding identity have expanded over the last decade in particular. Historically, it’s been really necessary to have a clear definition of the community; to organise for healthcare, resources, and equal government protections. But now our understanding of gender and sexuality has so greatly expanded. I had dinner with a family friend and when I told him that in the film I used the term “gay community”, he objected. Who does that represent? Who does that leave out? How has the function of our community changed? The conversation has gotten so much bigger than marriage and more about uncovering new questions.
In terms of visual language, what was your approach and how did you work with cinematographer, Kyle Smolic to achieve this level of closeness and rawness?
I really wanted the style of the film to speak to the subject matter. As we’re addressing changing attitudes towards home and family, why not make the film somewhat anachronistic visually? We fashioned a world that didn’t look quite modern because the couple at the center were wrestling with what “modern” meant. I love the grain and the texture of ‘70s films, especially the starkness of Ingmar Bergman, who’s my biggest inspiration. When I sent the movie to an acting teacher I studied with in New York he wrote one of my favorite reactions I’ve heard yet, “the quality of the rooms seem to enhance the feeling of being in a space that’s supposed to be real, but just isn’t quite real.” Esten doesn’t feel at home in his own life so it’s all a little stilted and stylised.
“We fashioned a world that didn’t look quite modern because the couple at the center were wrestling with what “modern” meant”
Equally, as the writer of the short film, how did you balance this sense of drama, satire and absurdity?
That’s so nice that you think I do! I’m so stubbornly severe but also want everything to be funny and I’m also terrified of attempting proper jokes. So my aim is for the behavior, the situation, and the discomfort to provide the comedy and for the premise to take care of the satire. The drama feels closer to the surface. I definitely find my insistence on this kind of gravity as a reaction to so many gay parts in film and television being trivialised and reactive. I want to put gay characters in heightened, thorny, mainstage situations!
The cast (including yourself as the lead) plays a key role in the correct delivery of the message. How did you decide to cast yourself? And can you share with us how your collaboration with movement director and choreographer Ryan Walker Page came about?
I’ve been so lucky to work with Ryan on many performances over the years. We met doing a fashion show for the Los Angeles based Skingraft and went on to collaborate on dance pieces we performed in the basements of shoe stores, warehouse rooftops, parks, and the dance floor of our local gay bar. When he hired me to assist him on his choreography for 80 for Brady, we had achieved such a working intimacy it felt obvious to ask him to do it and he agreed. As for casting myself, I auditioned and got the part.
Lastly, how has The Best Day of Our Lives been received? Are you also screening across the film festival circuit?
We were lucky enough to premiere at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival last spring, which was beautiful because that’s where I grew up, and we played again in their Best of Fest program which was exciting. Directors Notes selected the movie for an online premiere and I’m thrilled to be talking to you at Curation Hour. We’re still waiting on a few more festivals to get back, but it feels prize enough to have the film finished and out there.
Director: Arne Gjelten
Writer: Arne Gjelten
Producer: Daniel Smith Coleman
Producer: Arne Gjelten
Producer: Monk Henshaw
Producer: Lauren Ellis Matthews
Producer: Kyle Smolic
Key Cast: Cathy Cooper
Key Cast: Reshma Gajjar
Key Cast: Arne Gjelten
Key Cast: Katie Malia
Key Cast: Ryan Walker Page