Planet Earth, a timeless future

As a child, DRIFTER dreamt of becoming an astronaut and now, as an adult, it seems he has made his dream come true. Every day, he shuttles back and forth between earth and space to carry out his daily tasks. Together with many others, in the rhythm of the great stream, he has become a prisoner of the mantra of construction, of the constant compelling demand for more and better. One day disaster strikes. DRIFTER becomes detached from his station and is launched into deep-space. Kept alive by a mysterious green liquid, an amniotic fluid for deep-space disasters, DRIFTER embarks on an endless drift throughout the universe. At first, he is petrified. The universe is vast and overwhelming. But gradually, DRIFTER resigns himself to his fate. Far away from his daily routine, his view of everything and himself changes. With no other choice, he lets go of things in order to continue his drift full of wonder. Freed from time and space, DRIFTER is confronted with the void. When the futility of his existence forces him to leave behind dead weight, impending illusions are broken.

Interview with Joost Jansen

by Erik Quint

In the story, which can be seen as both a future fantasy about labor and labor migration and a metaphorical new age meditation on the meaning of being human, the protagonist is a worker on a satellite in space. The 20th century notion of the spaceman as a romantic hero is a vague memory. “The man in my story is a kind of satellite worker, a space worker who has to travel a huge distance to get to his job. Astronauts used to have great prestige, but in DRIFTER’s world, space travel has become very common. It is the middle class who work there. The work outside the atmosphere may not be very trivial but it is still ordinary executive tasks without any shine. I see the space worker as a symbol of today’s careerist, also a commuter who travels great distances daily to conform to the image of who and what he should be in our prestige society.
Today’s space missions, the exploration of Mars, the way we are engaged in that as something lofty are to me rather delusions that take us further away from what we ultimately are. Currently, we should be paying better attention to our planet, to be able to stay here as full human beings, while the rocket people present us with an opposite image, one of greatness beyond Earth. I find that dangerous. It is the multinationals and tech companies that compete for power and prestige with space tourism. But what does a 10-second space trip in the stratosphere mean to someone, is that really something of value? Yes, we can imagine that Mars could have a function in our future existence, but we as humans, could we be happy there?”

The beginning of the story refers to something universal: a child looks at the stars and wonders what might be there, far away. The protagonist in DRIFTER goes where no man has gone before, mindful of the first Star Trek television series that at the time so strongly appealed to the imagination of baby boomers in light of the Apollo missions to the Moon. “Just like then, space travel is still sold as something romantic and hopeful. In DRIFTER, that illusion is broken. The character becomes further and further removed from his core, from who he really is, because of the nature of his work. He has become a prisoner of the mantra of construction, of the constant compelling demand for more and better. In his pool, on a rainy evening against the backdrop of a starry sky, he has come to a turning point. He must adjust his course.”

One can reason that what DRIFTER is experiencing is a memory or a dream, a fantasy or even a psychosis, a burnout or a trip. “For me, the concept of DRIFTER is open. As a viewer you are not forced to read meaning into it. When he jumps into the water a journey begins. You could see everything that happens after his dive as a long train of thought where at the end he comes to a conclusion and undergoes a rebirth.”

An accident with his work in space precedes his wanderlust when, like Major Tom in David Bowie’s song Space Oddity, he drifts and loses touch with his world. “And ultimately with himself. But he encounters himself and realizes that the greatness and freedom he thought he found in the universe are ultimately contained within himself. People often don’t realize that they live a life in which they are forced by the construct around them. Is it a financial construct, is it ego, is it habit? Either way, they cannot free themselves from it.”

DRIFTER is also the story of a liquid. The protagonist immerses himself in a liquid in order to stay alive in space. Liquids have at the same time been important in shaping the visual virtuosity of his innovative animation, a mix graphics and live-action. The universe, the cosmos; in DRIFTER it is sometimes as if you are watching live through the Hubble telescope. “The visual effects are all shot analog. They have a human feel to them. The drawings are also all handmade, making the visual language more tangible. Digitally created animations always come across as a bit plastic to me whereas with DRIFTER I really wanted to convey the feeling of organic, analog tangibility. With a crew of five we shot fluids recorded in aquariums. Those images were mixed with the drawings. It was hard to find the right balance because it quickly becomes distracting when it’s obvious that something is from a different technique. I wanted to create one visual language. For the special visual character of the film, it had to be special that those two worlds, of animation and live-action, come together. It refers a little bit to older science fiction films. The whole movie has a retro feel to it, it was never my intention to make a new space movie. The visual effects are kind of linked to lava lamp effects, to something from the past. For five days we conducted experiments with oil-based liquids that dissolve in water creating certain visual effects. The liquid that really captivated me was a luminous, toxic liquid used for break lights and glow sticks. We used macro lenses for this; I was looking for spectacular images. I was concerned with the scaling that also plays a significant role in the story: the rain contrasted with the starburst. By working with macro lenses you can turn a drop into a universe.”

The liquid is like a magic device in the story or a conductor for the form of the animation. “The story of DRIFTER does not follow a linear line. In that sense, liquid is a beautiful metaphor, liquid flows and is constantly changing. Liquid has its own relationship with time and relates to other matter in different ways. The choice of liquid, in the creation process of the animation and in the story, has to do with the stylistic form I was looking for. In terms of content, I needed a magical element. The liquid allows the character to live on indefinitely, the liquid stops cell division. There is also a link to addiction. Could be alcohol or drugs, a substance that over time becomes a part of yourself.”

DRIFTER references such cult films as Silent Running and 2001: A Space Odyssey, the aforementioned television series Star Trek, and pulp sci-fi reading of the Amazing Stories type. More than that, the all-encompassing theme from Philip K. Dick’s literary oeuvre of what it means to be human plays the main role in DRIFTER. “I find it interesting to look at the space genre and use it to reflect on being human in our everyday lives. DRIFTER is about what is the place of a human being in our contemporary world. On the other hand, I try to make connections with the past. DRIFTER refers more to old sci-fi movies instead of trying to give a picture of the future. It also doesn’t matter to me if you could place the story in 2050 or whenever. DRIFTER is mostly metaphorical but then again you have to show a world that is believable.”

The voice-over fulfills an important function in DRIFTER, not in the least because of the atmosphere and the interpretation of the story. What exactly were you looking for in the narrative voice, what qualities did it have to meet – both for the English-language voice-over by Mike Ladd and the Dutch-language one by Jeroen Perceval? “The narrator embodies the inner world of the character. There is a metaphorical and poetic train of thought with room for interpretation. It’s not a classic linear story. The voice-overs had to distinguish themselves from a regular narrative voice by using a specific flow and the right timbre to create a poetic narrative. Therefore, I looked for performers with whom I could develop the voiceover role together. Both voices belong to people who are used to reciting texts in a rhythmic framework. Both Jeroen Perceval and Mike Ladd have a background in music and theater.
Jeroen Perceval has been involved in the development of DRIFTER from the beginning. I’ve been following him for a long time. He is an actor, poet and rapper. He makes hip hop under the name kRaMer. New York-born Mike Ladd is a key figure in underground hip hop. I have been a fan of his since I was a teenager. Some of the social themes of his concept album Welcome to the Afterfuture connect to the world of DRIFTER. Like the protagonist, both Mike and Jeroen have led turbulent lives and gone through rebirths.
As such, they immediately had a click with the story that connects to the universe they create in their respective work. They both put their personal stamp on their contribution. As a result, the Dutch-language version differs from the English-language one in the same way that the translation of a book can differ from the original version.”

The electronic music in DRIFTER, composed by Frédéric Soete and Wannes Kolf establishes a direct relationship with the kind of space movies you like. The clever thing about the score is that the music and sound design are recognizable, but stripped of clichés. Nowhere does the music seek to drive the viewer’s emotions with grand gestures. “I set up the film from the beginning in collaboration with the composers, with whom I had worked in the past. The relationship between the music and a certain genre of sci-fi films appealed to me but also that all the music was made analog. Those guys played and recorded everything live with synthesizers and vocoders. So again: handmade drawings, classically recorded special effects – and the music actually handmade as well. Almost nothing was computer generated for DRIFTER.”