Courage under fire based on reality

Parting is a heart-wrenching time for Marcus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Rebecca (Juliette Binoche) in A Thousand Times Good Night. Photo / Supplied

Courage under fire based on reality Director familiar with ravages of war, writes Dominic Corry.

The new drama A Thousand Times Good Night is a truly international production -- written and directed by celebrated Norwegian film-maker Erik Poppe (Troubled Water), it is set in Ireland, and its leads are Oscar-winning French actor Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Godzilla) and rising Danish star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (best known as Game of Thrones' Kingslayer, Jamie Lannister), both speaking English.

Binoche plays Rebecca, a courageous press photographer whose work in the world's most dangerous places, often during wartime, creates problems for her husband (Coster-Waldau) and her two young daughters.

The film is a particularly personal one for Poppe. He began his career as a press photographer and based the central dynamic on his own family.

"Eighty-five per cent of what's going on in the film is taken straight out of my life," he says. "And I had to turn myself into a woman because I realised that if it was about someone leaving to go to wartorn countries it needed to be a woman. We accept that men go out there leaving their kids to do this stuff every day. But when you see a mother of two small kids doing it, then you react."

The film explores Rebecca's intractable need to photograph violent parts of the world that are being ignored, and how that need conflicts with her obligations to her family.

"Beginning seven or eight years ago, I was able to use some of the time in between my features to do small documentaries. I felt that there were a lot of conflicts going on that were under-reported. It's almost like all the journalists were moving around in one bunch. So I would go to the other places like Somalia and Congo. But I had a wife and two daughters back home. It turned out to be more and more complicated for my oldest daughter as well as for my wife. They were getting into a situation where they were almost in a prison when I went out."

It's a dramatic dynamic that makes for potent drama in the film, but as it was based on his own life, Poppe felt the need to bring his wife and eldest daughter into the storytelling process.

"I asked them to read it before I started shooting it, and if they questioned anything I would take it out because I didn't want to make it too hard for them. And I also brought them in when I was editing the film. It turned out to be a process which has been really great for all of us."

Coster-Waldau's role as the loving father left behind couldn't be further from Game of Thrones' nefarious Jamie Lannister, which was how Poppe secured his participation.

"I'd seen him doing stage performances. So many parts that they are asking him to do are these sorts of masculine guys. I knew there was something really, really interesting about bringing him in to do an opposite type of character, and I knew he was interested in doing this sort of role."

One suprising face that turns up in the film is that of Larry Mullen jnr, the drummer for Irish rockers U2.

"Most of all, Ireland for me is the authors and the poets -- that's Ireland. But all of them are dead. So what else could it be? Then it's U2. I couldn't bring Bono into the film -- that would've been a bad idea. But who in the band really could it be -- that guy in the background. And he just fancied the idea.

"He was really nervous about this project, but he just turned out to be enormously supportive and one of the family. That's one the choices I'm really, really happy about. He was so humble."

A Thousand Times Good Night is in cinemas now.