Four Lions: Chris Morris Q and A

Four Lions: Chris Morris Q and A

24 May, 2010
by: Lowri

Lowri Clarke attends a rare Q and A with Four Lions director Chris Morris.

Ever since word escaped that satirist and comedy genius Chris Morris was making a film about suicide bombers, fans have been intrigued and hugely excited. And the controversial film has been well received. After its première at Bradford International Film Festival, where a nervous Morris refused to “do the red carpet”, it seemed unlikely that he would give any interviews – much less make any public appearances. So when it transpires that the famously media-shy Morris will be doing a Q and A after the showing at the Curzon, it’s not surprising that the event sells out overnight.

The director walks into the cinema and everyone sits up a little straighter, glancing excitedly at him and breaking into involuntary giggles. When you finally encounter your comic idols it’s difficult not to laugh – even when what they’re doing or saying isn’t funny. Applause breaks out as he is introduced. “It’s the first time I’ve seen the film preceded by adverts,” he says. “And it’s good to see how many companies are happy to be associated with suicide bombing”.
 
Morris’ Four Lions – co-written by Peep Show and In The Loop writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong – exposes the comedy to be found within suicide bombing by focusing on a group of four from Sheffield. The script is hilarious, and the film manages successfully to highlight the comedy to be found in the detail of such a dark and brutal subject: the buying of the bleach, the school-boy fascination with the explosives, the training camp in Pakistan where they shoot a bazooka the wrong way into the Arab training camp, accidentally blowing up Osama Bin Laden. The film scrutinises the small details, the comedy of errors – it’s not the political movement being satirised, or the religion, but the human face, the cock-ups.

The release of the film has been met with very little criticism so far. When asked if he is ever concerned about people not seeing the funny side and becoming a target for terrorism himself he says: “You’re not dealing with something that goes to the core of the religion but a political movement – meaning you’re in more familiar territory and less likely to tread on religious toes.” So, he’s done his research yes, but he doesn’t really answer the question. Was he scared? Is he scared? Does he worry? We never get to find out.

This is Morris’ first foray into film – and two of the actors are present tonight; Adeel Akhtar (Faisal) and Kayvan Novak (Waj). “I was really scared,” says Akhtar when he’s asked what it was like to work with Chris Morris, “but then he invited me round for dinner and saw that he cooks with a pinny…and I thought he’s just a normal dude. He was just a really amicable, lovely person – allowing me to do anything I wanted to do. He turned everything I did into gold like some kind of alchemist.” “This is going to turn into a smoke-up-ass session,” warns a smiling Morris, seeming genuinely flattered by the compliments.
 
There are a lot of questions about the ending. If you haven’t seen the film and don’t know what happens, stop reading now. “We always knew they all had to go. You could make a realistic film in which someone like Omar (Riz Ahmed) changes his mind at the end, but what that would probably do would put you in a position where you retrospectively forget all you’ve been through; because him backing out would be doing the understandable thing – and in a way what you’re confronting in a subject like this is the harder to understand thing.”
 
Morris describes how there were funders who offered them half a million to change the ending but they didn’t want that influence. It is supposed to be shocking. It’s not supposed to be a happy, fairy-tale ending.
 
Co-writer Sam Bain is also present tonight, and provides an insight into the writing process: “It took us about three years to write the script. We sat talking for the first two, literally. The first thing we had to figure out was whether this kind of film would be possible to write at all. Can we do a film about suicide bombers? So that took about the first six months. It was a big challenge.”
 
With three writers working on something, does that mean there’s more crossing out? A plural veto?

Morris found it refreshing: “It’s great to see that you can fail to clear the bar of their standards. It’s a good rule to use in writing that if any one of the group says no – or does a body language no – then that idea isn’t in.” Bain follows: “one of the things about being on a writing team of any size is that you quickly realise what’s a fake nod and what’s a real nod”. “There’s a terrifying form of assent that Sam and Jesse give which is just lethal,” adds Morris.

So his next project? “I suspect it will take bloody yonks but it’s not necessarily going to be another film. An idea defines what it’s going to be. The next thing could be an eight-second podcast.”

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