‘Swiss Army Man’ directors hope audiences look beyond the gassy corpse

TORONTO – Directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert want moviegoers to know their new film “Swiss Army Man” is more than just the story of a farting corpse.

That was the descriptor that emerged in headlines after the fanciful film — in which Daniel Radcliffe plays a flatulent dead body that washes up on a deserted shore inhabited by Paul Dano’s character — debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Kwan and Scheinert, known for their collective nickname Daniels and their work on music videos including “Turn Down For What,” admit the gassy rep may have some judging the film from afar.

In fact, the film’s scatalogical elements had some Sundance audience members walking out early, before the bigger picture emerged at the end.

“I think it would be really upsetting if it weren’t for the fact that the movie is so much more than that and people are realizing that,” Scheinert said in a recent telephone interview.

“As long as people go and see it, I don’t care what they call it, because I think the movie speaks for itself, to a certain degree. But I think it’s important that the trailers and the journalism that’s coming out is helping colour in a little bit more of what’s there.”

“And create an interesting contrast and dissonance around the piece,” added Kwan, “because I think that’s why we made it.

“The world is full of contradictions and we wanted to make a film that reflected that, something that makes you think and basically forces you to turn off autopilot.”

“Swiss Army Man” is already open in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. On Friday, it hits theatres in Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Halifax.

Dano’s character Hank is suicidal in his deserted space until the corpse comes ashore. Hank takes the body on a wacky and whimsical adventure through the woods and at sea (in one scene, he rides the flatulent corpse on the water like a boat).

The story emerged out of a “joke,” said the directors, who won a directing award at Sundance.

They were on an airplane and came up with the idea for the opening scene, not thinking it could turn into a film.

“That very early stage, we were thinking of it in terms of music videos,” said Scheinert. “We were always collecting funny images that we thought we’d love to see onscreen but that’s simply what it was.”

The early stages of the film even inspired the video for DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s “Turn Down for What,” in which residents of an apartment building are at the mercy of their uncontrollable bumping and grinding body parts.

“We were probably two or three drafts into the script when we were sent that song, and so we had physical humour on the brain but decided to just turn our brains off and make the stupidest thing we could to fit that song,” said Scheinert.

“We did not expect it to become our calling card or for that video to help us finance the film, but it did.”

They initially felt “ashamed” making a movie featuring flatulence and other gross-out scenes, said Kwan.

“Then we realized that was kind of what the point of the movie was, where it’s like: ‘Oh man, the movie is just about shame, it’s about the things that keep us apart,’” he added.

“Overall the film is trying to force everyone to look deeply into ourselves and figure out what are those things that we’re holding back and the things society is forcing us to suppress — and see how we can, in a healthy way, start conversations about that.”