Strawberry Mansion’s Bittersweet Dream Logic

Strawberry Mansion directors Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley reflect on their nostalgic influences, the patchwork magic of collaboration, and the shared erratic keys of filmmaking.

In the 90s, Doug Martsch of Built to Spill somehow distilled a whole ineffable feeling of concentrated yearning, wonder, and youthful grandiosity when he belted:

“I wanna see movies of my dreams”

This year’s Sundance standout Strawberry Mansion pulls off that same feat. In the achingly tender and whimsical film, directors Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley playfully manipulate the physical and spiritual realm to—quite literally—construct movies of their dreams. 

I’m not sure how kosher it is to disclose this here, but I teared up at several points during the movie. Endearingly bizarre visuals aside, Strawberry Mansion feels like peering into a beloved children’s book with a pair of brand new eyes; it is an extended romantic beginning that sustains its luster and child-like fascination with the oft-overlooked eccentric beats of the world.

“To watch images well is to submit to an exercise in vulnerability and care—it is a form of participation. Increasingly, as we’re asked to look at more and more yet with less and less of our minds activated, all the watching becomes unbearable. Strawberry Mansion takes a wild swing at yanking its protagonist—and us—out of this predicament,” film critic Cassie De Costa writes.

As the film steadily makes its way across the international festival circuit, I spoke to the film’s directors to gush about and discuss the conceptual process behind Strawberry Mansion, along with their equally colourful and extensive body of work. Oh, and of course, the kooky animals of the film.

Kentucker Audley

Leticia: Hey guys! I’m first of all curious to know if there was an image you had in mind for Strawberry Mansion, a jumping off point?

Albert: The first image was just a farmhouse sitting alone in a field with nothing but VHS tapes inside of it. Then the next image was of a man with a briefcase walking towards the house. From there it was figuring out who lived in this house and what was on those VHS tapes. 

I love the basic idea of having Preble as a dream auditor. That in itself feels like a playful encapsulation of the themes in the film. Which came first, this specific concept or the larger idea of overconsumption and surveillance?

Albert: Preble as a dream auditor came pretty early on, before the idea of overconsumption and surveillance. I think once we figured out that the VHS tapes contained dreams, it felt like a logical step that the government would want to tax the dreams. 

The film has such a distinct and stylistic visual language—with the interplay of effects, characters, and set pieces. How did you create such a cohesive atmosphere?

Kentucker: Yeah, that was a challenge. But I think just committing to the patchwork approach, and just allowing the movie to glide between styles and settings, and not getting too precise about everything being perfect. And just trusting all of our collaborators to do their thing, and to contribute their artistry in meaningful ways, whether it be in the props, or costumes, or stop motion animations, or computer animations.

Albert: We also shot the film digitally, using a variety of cameras, and then transferred the final edit onto 16mm film. This was something we knew we wanted to try before we even began filming. We did a few tests and they came back looking exactly how we had hoped. Knowing everything would be flattened onto film gave us the confidence to try mixing many different styles and effects. 

There’s a whole cast of animal characters in the film. Which are you guys’s personal favourites?

Kentucker: The rat sailors are probably my favourite. The artists who made the masks—Clockwork Creatures—actually played those roles and they were so good and such natural performers. It was great to act alongside them because the masks looked so real and their body language was perfect.

Albert: I like the Frog Waiter and think he could probably have a spin-off TV show following him around the restaurant as he deals with various mishaps. 

Albert, how was it like directing your uncle, Reed Birney?

Albert: It was a dream come true. I grew up watching a dubbed VHS tape of Reed in a movie called Crimewave. My sister and I watched this movie almost every weekend, partly because it’s a bonkers movie, but also because our uncle was in it. As I got a little older and realized I wanted to make movies I thought it made sense to put Reed in there. 

Kentucker, I’d imagine both starring and directing in the film requires a bit of a balance.

Kentucker: Acting and directing are quite different moods, so it’s hard to be in both mindsets at once. Most of the time, particularly when I had tough acting scenes, I would just get my mind right for the scene as an actor, and let Albert do all the directing. Other times I was able to contribute more as an on-set director. But most of my directing came with my one-on-one conversations with Albert before and after each scene.

The score! How did working with Dan Deacon come about? It feels like such a perfect match.

Albert: Dan is a friend here in Baltimore. He was actually at the premiere of our previous film, Sylvio, at SXSW in 2017. Soon after the three of us found ourselves tubing on a river and I think that’s when we officially asked him if he would score our new movie. Dan brought so much to the film. He would really dig deep into the characters and figure out what they were feeling in any specific scene and then score with those emotions leading the way. He would send us emails that explained the characters and scenes better than we ever could. 

Kentucker: Dan is an incredible musician and a brilliant thinker. His music is the blood of the film.

I’m curious to know about both of your influences—films, books, music, art, etc. Anything specific, or even unlikely?

Albert: I’ve started playing a lot of video games this past year. Some old games and some new ones too. Replaying the original Super Mario Brothers and Zelda games this year made me realize just how influential they were to me. Also spent last year rewatching all the Miyazaki animations. They inspire me more than anything else. 

Kentucker: Recently, The Twilight Zone. There’s nothing quite like it. It’s always invigorating and unsettling. You’re seeing a new world every episode, and it just opens your eyes in all these fascinating ways. I love that show, and I hope our future work can live in that realm more and more.

Albert, I’d immediately recognised your name because of that one Peter’s Computer/Desktop Cleanup short you did that I think about way too often. Tux and Fanny is another one that always amuses me. Your work has a very distinctive sense of humour to it, is Strawberry Mansion a spiritual successor to any of your past work?

Albert: Might be a spiritual successor to the first movie I made called The Beast Pageant but also I think that all the movies live together in the same universe and one informs the next. Sylvio and Fanny even have small cameos at the end of Strawberry Mansion. 

Kentucker, what about you? Does the film revisit any styles or themes from past projects?

Kentucker: My work with Albert is completely different from films I made previously, which were very low-key relationship drama/comedies. It’s been fun to switch it up, learn new things, and try different styles.

You guys have been doing the festival circuit, taking the film internationally. Have there been any standout reactions from these screenings?

Kentucker: I wish we could have attended more screenings physically. It’s hard to gauge the audience reaction from virtual screenings. I don’t love to read tweets or Letterboxd reviews of the film, but I end up doing so, cause I’m so curious. We really had no idea what people were going to think of the film. I’ve been pleasantly surprised overall. I think we underestimated how much people were going to love Sugarbaby, the turtle. On the flip side, some of the negative responses have been pretty interesting as well. Sometimes you can just feel that someone is so mad at our movie, haha.

I’d read Kentucker’s moving essay on Talkhouse about the long and tough journey to making the film. You mentioned that if you had gotten the call about Albert winning a grant to develop Strawberry Mansion five years prior, you would have been way more excited to start. How different was it to work on the film during that specific time of both of your lives? 

Kentucker: It was different for a lot of reasons. First of all because I was less naive, or less delusional. I was more aware that indie films are usually failures, either in terms of not being seen by a lot of people, or not making any money. That’s a hard thing to be aware of, and still choose to make the film. 

It was also different in that our lives were more complicated. We had full-time jobs. We had gone through family ordeals, sick parents and siblings, lost a dog, moved cities, our friends were having kids. We were coming to terms with whether we wanted children ourselves. 

How have you done things differently as compared to if it started five years earlier?

Kentucker: It would have been a much different movie. Probably for the worse. As a director, I would have been much less patient. I would have been more insistent on everything making logical sense. Starting five years later, I had come to a peace of mind about the story that it didn’t always have to make sense. In fact, it was better that it didn’t.

Albert: The film took so many years to make, from the moment of the first idea to the final edit, that sometimes I think of all the different movies it could have been had it been made at different points. The movie changes with us as we change. Specifically, had the movie been made five years ago there would have been more animal characters and a less cohesive storyline. 

What’s a stage of both of your creative routines, if you have one, that you couldn’t live without?

Kentucker: Editing is where the film comes to life for me. And that’s the part I feel most confident in.

Albert: I also love editing. It’s when all the hard work begins to pay off and you can see the film start to come to life. It’s thrilling. 

And what about a project that you’d like to make someday, however impossible it may seem now?

Kentucker: I’d love to make a sports film one day.

Albert: Maybe a musical. Or a sports film.   

Thank you so much for taking time out to answer these. Lastly, what’s an image/video you’d like to end this off with?

Albert: https://www.instagram.com/rorykurtz/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=00f9dcf1-ea54-4adb-8929-53884e966c4c

Kentucker: https://www.instagram.com/not.dark.yet/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=735ab12f-b7fc-46d0-bed5-6287ded0978f