Karim Aïnouz on ‘Rosebush Pruning’: «Privilege and isolation go hand in hand»

Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz has built one of the most singular careers in contemporary cinema. Since breaking through with Madame Satã (2002), he has moved effortlessly between intimate Brazilian dramas, documentaries, and large-scale international productions, always avoiding being confined to a recognizable style. His recent films include Invisible Life, which won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2019; Firebrand, starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law; the noir Motel Destino; and the documentary Marinheiro das Montanhas. Whether working in Portuguese or English, with modest independent budgets or larger productions, Aïnouz has consistently explored desire, identity, family, and power from unexpected perspectives.

His latest feature, Rosebush Pruning, which premieres on August 21 on MUBI, takes Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 masterpiece Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca) as its starting point, relocating its story to contemporary Catalonia. Written by Efthimis Filippou (Dogtooth, The Lobster), the film follows a wealthy American family whose apparent perfection begins to unravel under the weight of privilege, patriarchy, and inherited violence. Starring Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Elle Fanning, Jamie Bell, Tracy Letts, and Pamela Anderson, the film does not seek to remake Bellocchio’s classic so much as transform it into a savage satire of wealth, masculinity, and the mechanisms of power.

We spoke with Aïnouz about the challenge of reinterpreting a classic, his decision to replace the mother with a father, creating deeply damaged characters, and his conviction that cinema should always remain a place of surprise.

–What drew you to making a remake of Fists in the Pocket?

Karim Aïnouz: The first reason was Bellocchio’s film itself. The first time I saw it, I remember wondering, “How was this made?” It came out of a period in cinema that was incredibly inventive and full of possibilities. I think we’re currently living through a much more conservative moment in storytelling, so that freedom was enormously inspiring. The second reason was that it terrified me. It’s one thing to remake a B-movie from the 1940s, and quite another to remake a masterpiece. But I was always fascinated by the way Bellocchio looks at family and privilege. His family couldn’t be more different from mine, yet those dynamics felt universal. I began thinking about making a film about family during the pandemic, in 2021, and Bellocchio’s movie ultimately became the blueprint on which I could build that story.

–Was it difficult to free yourself from such a strong influence?

-That was the biggest challenge. The original film is so good that trying to live up to it is impossible. We constantly had to remind ourselves that we weren’t making Bellocchio’s film—we were finding our own path. His film is about revolution, about breaking free from an established order. Ours ultimately became a film about patriarchy. We replaced the mother with the father and imagined a wealthy white American family living in Europe. There’s a line that perfectly sums up the film for me, when Ed says: “I’ve been living here for six years, and I still don’t feel I fit in.”

–Why did you decide to make them Americans living in Europe?

-Because privilege and isolation go hand in hand. Extremely wealthy people don’t live with the rest of us—they live in fortresses, on yachts, in mansions. Setting the story in Europe added another layer of alienation. The way this family treats the locals—the butcher, the man delivering the car—says everything about who they are. I wanted the relationship between them and the place they inhabit to constantly feel uncomfortable.

–Why Barcelona?

-Honestly, it could have been almost anywhere in Europe. At first I imagined an island, and we looked at locations in Malta, Cyprus, Italy, and the Canary Islands. Then a location scout showed me this house near Barcelona. The moment I walked in, I knew it was the place. We kept looking at other options, but nothing had the power of that house. Italy ultimately became the only impossible choice because it would have brought us too close to Bellocchio’s film.

–How closely did you work with Efthimis Filippou on the screenplay?

-Less than people imagine. I basically told him, “Go.” I explained the basic premise—a privileged family isolated from the world—and suggested replacing the mother with the father. Then I let him write. The only thing he asked me for was five songs I really liked. When he came back with the first draft, I was amazed. It’s the film on which I made the fewest notes on the screenplay. Later we worked extensively during pre-production to adapt everything to Barcelona and to that specific house.

–These are pretty unpleasant characters. How do you work with people like that?

-I love them. That’s the problem. The only character I don’t love is the father, although I find him fascinating. But I genuinely love the others. People talk about a dysfunctional family, but to me dysfunction almost defines what a family is. They’re not monsters. They’re deeply damaged people who need affection and validation. If we only judge them, we understand nothing. What interested me was understanding how violence and abuse are passed down from one generation to the next.

–Tracy Letts seems like perfect casting.

-Absolutely. He writes these kinds of characters himself, and he never judges them. One of the biggest inspirations for this film, besides Bellocchio, was his Killer Joe. Tracy approaches morally complex characters with tremendous humanity and complete fearlessness. That was exactly what I was looking for.

–There are obvious references to films like Dogtooth or Festen.

-I understand the comparison with Dogtooth, although it wasn’t intentional. When I mentioned the similarity to Efthimis after reading the script, he told me it had never crossed his mind. For me, the major reference is Pasolini’s Teorema. That’s the real blueprint: a stranger enters a bourgeois space and, through desire, brings everything crashing down.

–What was your vision for the production design?

-I wanted the house to feel empty, much bigger than the family actually needed. Not ostentatious, but excessive in a quiet way. The same idea guided the costumes. I didn’t want them to look fashionable; I wanted them to look like collectors of wealth. Many of the clothes came directly from the archives of major fashion houses. There’s one detail nobody has asked me about yet: every character has one fingernail painted gold. I wanted to suggest that wealth had become part of their DNA, that they were literally turning into gold.

–The wolves in the film are incredibly convincing…

-Because they’re real. I don’t even know how to make CGI wolves, and it would have cost a fortune. We worked with an extraordinary German wolf handler who travels with his wolves. Most of those scenes were shot by the second unit, but everything you see on screen is real.

–Looking at your filmography, do you see a connection between your Brazilian films and your international ones?

-The connection is that there is no connection. I’ve never been interested in imposing an authorial signature on all my films. Every project has to find its own voice. I like to experiment. One year I make a $500,000 film, the next a $20 million one. One is in Portuguese, another in English. The one thing that has never changed is the affection I feel for my characters. They’re like the children I never had.

–Do you think an American director could make a film like Rosebush Pruning in the United States today?

-I don’t think so. The last American film to tackle these themes in a similar way was American Beauty. There are films like Saltburn, but that’s not even an American production. We’re living through a very conservative moment. I hope films like this encourage others to push a little further, because enough is enough. That’s what this film is about. I’m fortunate to be a free filmmaker. I want to keep making the films I feel I need to make.

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