One Minute to Nine is one of those documentaries where the right footage falls in the hands of a really gifted filmmaker who knows intuitively how to treat it, and creates something that will blow you away. It begins as the story of the last five days before a battered wife who killed her husband goes to prison. What it becomes is a Hitcockian thriller that leaves you terminally wondering about justice and how messily it’s dealt out.

I interviewed director Tommy Davis (Mojados: Through the Night - currently in my queue) about when he discovered this movie was going way beyond his original scope and why it’s causing him to “give a lot of bad interviews.”

 

 SXSW 2008: Tommy Davis interview [8:47m]: Play Now | Download

SXSW 2008: Tommy Davis interview
(Written transcript after the jump)

SXSW 2008 - Tommy Davis, One Minute to Nine

Paul Moore: So I am with Tommy Davis. And you premiered your documentary last night?
Tommy Davis: Yes.
Paul: It is called One Minute to Nine. I think your documentary One Minute to Nine is going to be–I think it is going to be the most talked about, I mean not that that’s like a trophy or anything, but I think it is so powerful.

Basically, what you did is, it looks like you spent the last week with Wendy Maldonado who, after meeting her husband when she was 15 years old, getting married when she was 17, and then subsequently living for almost 20 years in an abusive relationship, where he was violent to her and, subsequently, their four sons. One night, she decided enough was enough and she killed him and then she was convicted, sentenced to go to prison and you spent the last week with her before she goes to prison.
Tommy: Yeah. I started off, I just wanted to film some of the last five days to see how they say goodbye to their children and everything and then as we were filming everything, as I was filming everything, the kids started to show me their short films like, “Hey, look what we have directed, ” and then they kind of were fast forwarding and rewinding these VHS tapes, And Wendy would be like “Oh look at that, ” try and get the emphasis on the short film. I would be like, “What was that?”

And it was these haunting things, the dad was just crazy. I mean it is subtle. Everything is so subtle about him in the videos because he edited the videos so carefully not to include any real violence. So no one watching the videos would see it. But the little subtle things he does or how fearful everybody looks around him all the time everyday and something as little as opening his mouth and showing the food, there is just this morose feeling around everything. And there was evidence on these videos all the time of him filming them and just being subtle, but vicious, I guess. And so, it kind of just changed the scope of the documentary and it made it much more than just her last five days. It was kind of like the tales of brutality for 18 years.
Paul: Yeah. There were several things in this that seemed to just like blow the story up into such a huge scope. One were these home videos that it seemed like the father, whom she killed, it seemed like he was just constantly taking video from the time they met to the time he died. And also, I don’t know, it is not really explained, because I don’t think that you are it is not like you are a narrator that was stepping in and explaining things, you were just watching.

But there were a lot of people in the house and it seems like they are all talking for that last week, like they are all processing what happened and what went on. And a lot of the story comes out in the video footage, the home movies, these conversations with a whole bunch of people sitting around–friends of the family it looks like–sitting around talking. And then these statements that the sons read, where did all that stuff come from and did you ask for that?
Tommy: No, no, no, I tried to just kind of I think–it is easy to say that I tried to film everything as it happened. I think probably they wanted to talk more about things because there is an excuse in the room or maybe to get me to hear it. It could have been either one, but I think it was a little bit of both and the statements and the boys are reading them, that was a planned thing. They were going over to their advocate, Charles, that morning to work on the statements they would read in court because they just wanted help with–I guess just wanted to read them out loud in practice and kind of process, “Hey, Mom’s going to jail, we should go talk to a counselor.” I mean that was a crazy access to be able to let me go in there and watch them kind of formulate their statements which were pretty profound.

I made a documentary, Mojados: Through the Night, a few years ago and so the family, it was on video and so they saw that and that is how they kind of decided to let me into their home. They saw clips and stuff and so it was one of the reasons they trusted me, but they always knew they could toss me out if I was impeding on them or infringing on what they wanted me to be doing.
Paul: It sounds like so much was revealed to you just as you were shooting, was there a certain point when, I don’t know, you just thought to yourself like, I am way in over my head because I mean this is–I’ve got to say that, when I finish this documentary, I noticed I was physically shaking. And I think a lot of people last night at the premiere also experienced the same thing.

It is just powerful, like taking something that is called domestic violence and actually putting like a real visceral like multidimensional story of a real human being around it, it is just unlike I think anything we have seen. Was there a point where you just felt like, “I either got to get out of here or I am just way too in over my head here?”
Tommy: The way you process it, I guess when you get to Q&A, they want you to reveal all that, but like last night I tried to ignore it, but then I remember. Like this morning I was thinking about it and I remember calling my girlfriend a night after shooting and feeling like I can’t even tell you, I can’t even begin to describe some of the stuff I have seen or heard and it is heavy.

And I guess, you log the tapes, you look at it, you edit it and then you put it away and you hope it stays away, but it always stays with you because it was pretty intense and it was pretty crazy and I mean…
Paul: I have gone to a bunch of film festivals and particularly documentary filmmakers when they get up to do their Q&A, it is like they have digested so much, hundreds of hours of footage and all sorts of research on a topic, it is like the Q&A is their time to just gush and get all this information out that they couldn’t fit into 90 minutes. But you, I can tell you were holding back. People would say something like, “So, how is Wendy today?” And your answers were like, “She is great, I think the boys get to visit her twice a month.” And then like your eyes would start roaming for the next question.
Tommy: Well, I mean the questions–in this case it feels very personal and it is like secrets, it is like a friendship you have with Wendy or someone and you are asked to like tell everyone about it and it is like, “How do I say that?” And I mean how do you describe Wendy? She is great. I mean like I don’t know how to describe. She is courageous, but you can’t really put it all into words. And you don’t know if you are revealing too much about their private lives.
They let me make a documentary and people always ask, “Can I have Wendy’s address, I want to send her a letter.” And she is always like just get Tommy your email and we will work it out from there, because I think it is almost like now, “Do I have permission to go talk all about you at a film festival and tell everyone about you?” And I don’t think they are comfortable with that, like they kind of let me have five days and I feel like I’d be stealing a lot more if I just went into their personal lives and what they are up to. I try to stay respectful, but I think I come off sometimes as a little simplified version of what is going on.
Paul: Well, I mean my take on it was stuff that you are dealing with like, everything from the home video footage to just hearing the stories, to the fact that they were so open in front of a camera, almost like they have been waiting for this confession to happen. It is like that stuff is so delicate and explosive and just… I don’t know if it is something that you can really, speak about so easily, like when I was coming to talk to you, it was kind of like, “What are we going to talk about?” Because really when I see a movie like this and I react so strongly to it, I mean pretty much the only questions I can come up with are like: why did you do this?
Tommy: Yeah. I mean you go to an interview where they haven’t seen it and they are trying to be real peppy like, “So how is it going, great audience, they laughed and they cried and they love it?” And you are just like, “What do you want me to say to you?” Yeah, they were saddened by it,” and then that just kills the interview right there. And then “OK, thank you for coming by.” I mean yeah, I have had a lot of these cut short

Paul: Tommy Davis, I think you are really a talented guy. I am going to be honest with you.
Tommy: I appreciate it, thank you.
Paul: And I think everyone should watch One Minute to Nine because I wouldn’t call this movie at all depressing. I feel like when you talk about a heavy documentary, they are sort of like that broccoli movie stereotype. I thought this was going to be so sad, but I think this movie is just really powerful on a level that most movies don’t typically hit you.
Tommy: Yeah. Well, it has a slow reveal and there is some mystery to it. So audiences seem to respond to that and then they are still left thinking which is nice. I mean it is not just a thriller, and it is not just some heavy morose subject, you get a little bit of both.
Paul: Yeah. Well, thanks again for talking to me.
Tommy: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

One Minute to Nine

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