Interview with Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Director of Award Winning Stop Motion Musical "The Burden (Min Börda)"

The Burden (Min Börda) main title sequence.

One might think that today – in the 21st Century – in places where, for a majority of the population, the basic needs to sustain human life are satisfied – food, water, heat, shelter – that much of the population would feel satisfied. Yet so often, especially when it comes to the line of work one takes upon oneself, it seems as if nothing could be further from the truth.

Sometimes it’s so strong that one can practically feel it when in close proximity with the sufferer, like a shock of electricity buzzing through the air. At other times, it can’t be sensed at all, as many try so hard to keep it buried so deep that they themselves are the only ones who know it’s there – a deep and unutterable sense of purposelessness.

The "Hotel LongStay" sequence from The Burden.

So often the thing that stifles the feeling of purposelessness is a web woven from thoughts, thoughts that tell the sufferer that they have nothing to complain about – that their needs are met and that they are, in fact, extraordinarily lucky to have their basic needs met. Oftentimes, this homespun web is also woven, at least in part, from fears, fears, quite often, that whisper the possibility that the deep sense of purposelessness might not at all come from one’s situation or surroundings, but instead from some place deep inside oneself. For many, that web of thoughts and fears is so debilitating that many never manage to untangle themselves from it, or to see whether or not they can satiate that urge to find greater purpose in the work-related realm.

It’s this particular kind of existential anxiety that Swedish filmmaker and animator Niki Lindroth von Bahr calls “the burden,” which is also the title and the main subject of her most recent stop motion musical short film, The Burden (Min Börda). In the film, Bahr tackles these issues face-on, and she does so masterfully, with a poet’s touch and an auteur’s flair.

Telemarketer dance sequence from The Burden.

The film itself centers around characters who are themselves a metaphor for individuals dealing with “the burden” – they are animals who, despite being incredibly adorable, personify the theme of “the burden” by also belonging to species of animals most often used in medial experiments and who, in The Burden, work low-paying, graveyard-shift jobs.

“As for the characters, I always work with certain themes when choosing the animal species,” Bahr tells Stop Motion Geek. “For The Burden I worked with the theme of animals that are often used in medical experiments. The fishes are called three-spined sticklebacks and are actually very common in experiments. I had to do a great deal of unpleasant research for this subject.”

The final supermarket sequence from The Burden.

Just as the theme of the “burden” and the physical appearance of the anthropomorphic characters are juxtaposed to one another, so is the way “the burden” is experienced by Bahr’s characters a juxtaposition – the lyrics of the songs the characters sing are a dark meditation on existential anxiety, yet, as they sing, they tap-dance and the tune itself is ostensibly happy, reminiscent of Singing In the Rain-esque Hollywood musicals.

The film is brilliant, in every respect, and it is a testimony not only to Bahr’s own artistic prowess but also the genius of the many animators, riggers, and the rest of the artists who helped to bring the project to life. Chief among the sound design of the project was composer Hans Appelqvist and lyricist Martin Luuk, and also the dozen-or-so members of the orchestra who performed the score.

Lindor Tidäng preparing the final supermarket sequence from The Burden. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

I have personally never seen anything quite like The Burden and it’s been a while since I’ve seen something that, at least in in recent memory, has moved me as much as it did. Audiences and critics seem to have come to a similar conclusion, as so far the film has been screened or are otherwise set to screen at Sundance, the Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes, Annecy, the Melbourne International Film Festival, as well as many others. In 2017, the film won the prestigious Cristal for Best Short Film at Annecy, as well as almost two dozen other awards at many other festivals in the mere year since its release.

Telemarketer dance sequence from The Burden.

In our interview, Niki tells us about her inspiration for The Burden and the process of getting it made, and her gripes with modern working culture. She also breaks down the specific materials and tools she and her associates used to make the film and she tells us about the challenges she met along the way to complete the project – both technical and personal. You can read the interview below in full.

A.H. Uriah: You mentioned in our previous interview about your film Bath House that, “When working with a new film, I always start with an atmosphere. The overall feeling is equally important for my films as the actual story.” Can you describe for me the atmosphere and world of The Burden and why it inspired you to tell this story?

Niki Lindroth von Bahr: For The Burden, I wanted to explore the outcome of colliding two very different atmospheres: the cheerful classical Hollywood musical feeling combined with the undermining boredom of pointless work and existential anxiety in general. Our littleness in the universe framed in joyful tap dancing. I thought it might be interesting.

Preparation from the "Hotel LongStay" sequence from The Burden. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

A.H.: In our previous interview, you stressed how important sound design is to a project and how it’s important to “make it good.” I think it goes without saying that you achieved above and beyond “good” sound design with The Burden. How did you go about collaborating with Hans Appelqvist, Martin Luuk, and Owe Svensson to design the sound and the music for The Burden? Did you present to them a script or a storyboard of some kind to try to convey thematically and visually the end product you had in mind?

NB: Thank you! Yes we did put a lot of time and effort into the music and sound design. Hans Appelqvist composed the music, combining his own unique style with inspirational songs that I provided, such as the West Side Story and Singing In The Rain soundtracks. Martin Luuk wrote the lyrics according to my descriptions of the scenes and characters. And finally, I decided to totally kill our very tiny film budget, choosing to record the music live with a 15 person orchestra. It was crazy expensive but really added an authentic soundstage.

Shooting a single monkey dancing sequence from The Burden. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

A.H.: The world of The Burden is highly detailed and also extraordinary clinical and cold which is radically juxtaposed by the cute, furry, and scaly animals which occupy this world. The world of The Burden is, after all, a world of juxtapositions, just like our world. Can you tell us a little about the design of the sets and characters and what kind of materials you and your crew used to make them? What kind of research did you do on this project?

NB: I did a lot of driving in large highways and making stops at these kind of “middle of nowhere” shopping centers or market places, documenting the venues very thoroughly. It took me and my from-time-to-time set design assistant over a year to make all of the sets. The outdoor model alone, that you see in the end scene, took three months to build. It’s 2.5 meters in all diameter. I used many different materials such as Styrofoam, Forex, wood and cardboard.

The outdoor model from The Burden. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

As for the characters, I always work with certain themes when choosing the animal species. For The Burden I worked with the theme of animals that are often used in medical experiments. The fishes are called three-spined sticklebacks and are actually very common in experiments. I had to do a great deal of unpleasant research for this subject.

A puppet for one of the mouse characters from The Burden in the making. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

A.H.: The cinematography on The Burden is extraordinarily and amazingly cinematic - more so than almost any stop motion short film I’ve seen in recent years. Beginning with the first shot of The Burden where the camera sweeps across a nighttime cityscape, The Burden seems very reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood while also adding an element of the bleakness of the modern, urban world. Can you tell us about the cinematographic choices you made in both pre-production and during production and what it meant to you to film The Burden in a way that captures both the essence of the Golden Age of Cinema and of colder, darker age? Furthermore, from a technical angle, what cameras and lenses were you shooting with?

NB: I wanted to make a tribute to old Hollywood musicals, partly by letting it show in the cinematography. For example I tried to make a few long and dramatic camera movements, which to me is very typical for those kind of films. The modern, generic shopping area where The Burden is enacted, is in many ways the opposite of the romantic technicolor style, making it interesting to take on using that framing. Trying to force some soul into the perfectly soulless place was a very fun challenge.

Nicklas Nilsson (co-set designer) and the outdoor model from The Burden in the making. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

I worked with a Canon 5D camera, sometimes with a basic zoom lenses but mostly with an old lense used for film cameras. The camera movements were made with a Ditogear Omnislider. Working with the Hotel Longstay scene, when there’s a continuous movement with no pause for almost two minutes was an interesting experience for sure. We shot that same scene for over two weeks. I came to the studio every morning, just praying that nothing in the picture had changed too dramatically over night.

One of the storyboard images from The Burden. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

A.H.: The Burden seems like a laundry list of things that one wouldn’t think are possible in stop motion. One of the most ambitious and technically amazing sequences in the film is that of the tap dancing mice. Can you tell us how you went about achieving this amazing technical feat?

NB: Yes, there were a lot of technical challenges. For the tap dancing scene I was very lucky to work with the super talented animator Eirik Gronmo Bjornsen. He really struggled with that one minute sequence for over two months in a very tiny basement room and the result is amazing. To make the dance scenes look real, I asked a choreographer to make a few routines especially for this film and then record herself dancing so that we could use the live action footage to analyze.

Eirik Gronmo Bjornsen animating the tap dancing sequence for The Burden. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

A.H.: Niki, I must tell you that The Burden is, quite frankly, one of the most exceptional short films that I’ve seen...well, ever. As the results of The Burden’s festival run have shown, I’m not alone in thinking so. However, in your interview with Skwigly, you allude to the fact that simply getting The Burden made was, in many respects, your “burden” to carry, saying that, “it’s been such a struggle to make this film, I worked on it for two and a half years with no payment at all. We just finished it four months ago, so we’ve just been trying to cover the black hole, which are my personal finances.” While working on the project, how did keep from losing your belief in the project and in yourself or your enthusiasm about the film? Did you ever deal with doubt while working on the project?

NB: Yes, the production became very demanding due to our financial difficulties. I think that both my greatest strength and curse is my incapability of just letting things go. I would never be able to just give up on a project once I’ve started. And I also had a very strong feeling about The Burden that it would be worth it in the end. But sure, there were many days when I really doubted that choice. Especially when glancing at friends in my age, living “adult lives” with possibilities of shopping expensive stuff and saving money for their pension etc. I was very angry for a while, mostly at the conditions of working with culture in general. It’s not easy.

The monkey puppet from The Burden in the making. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

120 mouths for the monkey puppets in the midst of being painted. Photo courtesy of Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

A.H.: Have you begun to consider what’s next for you or are you still in the midst of resting after finishing The Burden?

NB: I actually thought that I would have had more time to start something new during the year, but The Burden is still taking a lot of my time. Which is of course a pleasant “problem,” that it keeps on its festival tour and is still getting a lot of attention. For my next project, I’m looking into making something longer. I will also go darker, would be interesting to make something animated that is actually a bit scary. Possibly an animated thriller, taking place in the financial world after the next big crash.

Niki Lindroth von Bahr.

If you’re interested in exploring more of Niki’s work, you can do so by visiting her website, Vimeo, and the website for Min Börda (The Burden).You can also read Stop Motion Geek’s previous interview with Niki Lindroth von Bahr (the focus of which was her film Bath House) by going here.

If you’d like to learn more about Bahr’s work on The Burden, you can go read and watch her interviews with Skwigly, Seventh Row, and Annecy.

The Burden has not yet been released online in full, but you can go watch the trailer for the film by going here.

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The outdoor set from the final sequence in The Burden.