Film-maker Zal Batmangli and
writer/actor Brit Marling lived 'off the grid' to make their
eco-rebel thriller, The East. Batmangli, whose brother Rostam plays
keyboards in Vampire Weekend, talks to Donald Clarke
It’s hardly fair to expect a
commercial drama about anarchist eco-rebels to be made by anarchist
eco-rebels. After all, it’s difficult to get your hands on the
required technology – and the required funds – if you are living
off the grid in some remote commune.
But Zal Batmanglij knows whereof he
speaks. Four years ago, he and actor/writer Brit Marling spent two
months living with followers of the freeganism movement. They bought
nothing. They travelled by hopping on railroad freight cars. They
retrieved discarded food from dumpsters.
Their experiences have now formed the
basis of a highly original thriller entitled The East. Batmanglij
directs Marling as a private security operative who goes undercover
with (according to your political inclinations) eco-terrorists or
eco-liberators.
So were their experiments in
alternative living research for the film to come?
“No. We were just fascinated by this
lifestyle and wanted to look within it,” Batmanglij, a passionate
32-year-old Iranian-American, enthuses. “Brit and I were fascinated
by the generational dissatisfaction around. A lot of our generation
thought we’d been conned.”
Zal doesn’t pause when I ask if he
would consider living that life permanently.
“Yes, big time,” he says.
So, what did he miss most when living
apart from conventional society?
“Nothing, really,” he says. “It
all went away. I didn’t need to shower. I didn’t miss movies.
Once you disabuse yourself of all that, it becomes easier. Actually,
it was harder to reacclimatise when I got back. I remember once
getting caught in the rain while riding our bikes. Not having a towel
was hard. But you get by. I find this life – living in hotels
promoting films – much more inorganic.”
The director is part of an Iranian
family that emigrated to France and then the US after the Islamic
revolution of 1979. Raised in Washington DC, Batmanglij studied at
that city’s Georgetown University and graduated in 1982 with a
degree in anthropology. Later, he attended the American Film
Institute Conservatory and teamed up with Marling (also a Georgetown
graduate) for an impressive debut feature entitled Sound of My Voice.
It sounds as if the Batmanglij clan is
a talented bunch. His mother, Najmieh Batmanglij, is a highly
respected chef and cookery writer. His younger brother Rostam
Batmanglij is probably the most famous of the bunch. He is the
keyboardist with arch pop masters Vampire Weekend.
“I didn’t expect that to happen at
all,” he says of his brother’s band’s success. “It’s really
fun. I’m travelling through Europe and one of the albums I’ve
downloaded is Vampire Weekend.”
Has it all gone to his brother’s
head?
“Oh, no. He still travels economy
when he flies to gigs. But then they were successful almost from the
beginning. I remember them driving in van when they were first
touring. By the time they got to us in LA they were already quite
famous. They offered a good example to us. They did it their way with
integrity.”
Batmanglij gives the impression that
politics got to him before film-making did. While still at
Georgetown, he remembers having this revelation that the straight
world was “a con”. The university was geared towards producing
solid professionals: doctors, lawyers, engineers. But somehow or
other Marling and Batmanglij saw through the tissue of conformity.
That generation does seem to be impressively engaged with politics.
Anybody who thinks that Generation Y is dozing its way to complacency
has not been paying attention. He points to Edward Snowden, the
former CIA employee who recently fed intelligence on surveillance to
the Guardian newspaper.
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OFFICIAL LINKS
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Permaculture Information Network
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Survivalist and Preparedness Circle
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Spanish Speaking Resistance
* Contacts: N-AM Links
National Geographic photographer Eric Valli typically pays his bills by working for the likes of Hermes and
Vuitton. But the most stunning photos he’s taken are far from the
mainstream. In a series called ‘Off the Grid’, Valli documented
individuals around the world that are living in the wilderness and
out of the system. From a group of autonomous nomads to a lone hermit
immersed in a forest, Valli has captured a world that some of us
might dream of, but don’t dare to live in (just yet). 
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