Interview: Lady Puritan's co-director and editor Justin Streichman on the film's nightmare logic

Lady Puritan is a short film that follows Meredith (Gustine Füdickar), whose nightmare about an axe-wielding Puritan (Dorothy Dubrule) haunts her waking life. The film is loaded with intense and eventual bloody imagery that ignites a conversation about the challenges of womanhood in contemporary America and the pressure to adhere to historical notions of femininity. There are a scenes in which Meredith obsessively cleans within her domestic space, for example.

We recently interviewed co-director and editor Justin Streichman about the film, including its layered visuals and themes, prior to its screening at the Philadelphia Unnamed Fim Festival.

This interview was edited slightly for clarity.

The Horror Lounge: How did you get involved with this project, and what was it like working with Gustine Füdickar, both as your co-director and the star of the film?

Justin Streichman: Gustine and I both come from a world of theater and performance here in Los Angeles. We know each other through that community. We had an established collaborative connection between us. I was in grad school for theater and performance, but I worked a lot with video. I came out of grad school, and we started experimenting with the video camera coming into our work. That naturally led us into this project.

This project started with Gustine. She had read a text on the Salem Witch Trials. She was thinking about epigenetics and generational trauma. She started drawing up vignettes. It was originally for a collection of women in period dresses and originally a dance film. That was the beginning of this.

We went out to Ojai, which is an area a little north of Los Angeles. We shot some test footage in the realm of vignettes Gustine was working on. That started to become something else, which was the beginning of this film we made together.

The Horror Lounge: Can you talk about shooting the opening sequence? It works well as a kaleidoscope nightmare sequence that also introduces Meredith and the Puritan woman.

Justin Streichman: That sequence came together intuitively during the editing process. This film is largely image and action based. There’s very little dialogue. There was more dialogue in the original script, but it got cut down. Even though it’s not a typical storyline, we did script it out before shooting. For a very long time in the process, we knew it would open up with her [Meredith] waking up, out of a nightmare. We’re starting at the climax of these happenings in her life. She’s been having nightmares, and they become increasingly pervasive in her life and bleed into waking life for her.

We’re starting in this dream, so we’re intentionally starting from a destabilized place. This is not a film that holds your hand. It’s not a film about entertainment. It’s an uncomfortable watch, I think, for many people. In this world, there’s this juxtaposition of this pain and trauma and violence and mystery and also this beauty of the natural world that’s calling Meredith, our protagonist, closer to it.

The Horror Lounge: There’s a lot of powerful imagery in this film, but I was specifically struck by the scene in the kitchen with the milk and Gustine’s performance during that sequence. It also reminded me somewhat of the subway scene in Possession, especially the milk and white fluid. Can you touch upon shooting that scene and any inspiration that was behind it?

Justin Streichman: I’m happy to be compared to that work. [Laughs].

Part of it is Gustine’s background and training. She’s not pursuing a career in acting now. She’s a psychotherapist, but she’s still very engaged with her artistic process. She has a rich background as an actress, but also modalities of theater coming from Grotowski. Jerzy Grotowski was a well-known Polish theater director. To really simplify it, it’s a very physical modality and very physical process. She’s trained in that. Working with Gustine, you don’t have to warm her up to go there. She’s ready to go that visceral place.

We start with a nightmare that she wakes up from, and we closely follow up with this scene in which this nightmare territory is really coming closer to her waking life. That’s what’s happening there in the kitchen scene. We see her in the kitchen. She’s arranging flowers in this tense way. She’s scrubbing her already clean sink. We have her engaged in this stereotypical female role in the kitchen. She’s cleaning and arranging, and there’s this rigidity to it. What we have her doing there is that generationally passed down foundation of purity and Puritanism. What is a good life? What is the role of a woman?

Before this moment, it was more psychological. Then, it erupts out of her in that scene. It is really fun, though, because we had her vomit this milk in it. It looks grotesque and painful, but Gustine and I really get a kick out of it. We watch this stuff and laugh at it.

 The Horror Lounge: The unsettling score is also effective in this film. Talk about the collaboration Aaron Drake.

Justin Streichman: I love the score. I feel so lucky that I got to work with Aaron on that. I knew Aaron from a long time ago. He used to, and maybe still does, score dance performances in LA. That’s how I knew his work.

I knew I wanted a composer. I filled out a score for the film with found sound and recordings to create the tone I wanted throughout. I really needed that for the editing process. Ideally, I’d have worked with a composer early on. We really made this for little. I couldn’t afford the ideal, which is working with a composer early in the editing process.

On Facebook, I saw that Aaron has been doing commercial and film sound scores. I like Aaron’s background. He comes out of CalArts. He has a good grounding in both traditional and experimental technique. He had great ideas about blending in female voices. I really loved that element. Throughout, there is live instruments blended in. I never thought we’d be able to afford something like that. [Laughs].

The Horror Lounge: Thank you so much for chatting with us, Justin.

Catch Lady Puritan at the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival. The fest runs from August 25-30 at Theatre Exile in Philadelphia. Get tickets here.