An interview with Tickled directors David Farrier and Dylan Reeve about what happens when tickling goes bad.
“Being tickled when you can’t get away isn’t all that funny. You are laughing on the outside, but not in the inside.” —Dylan Reeve
Tickled began as a cheerful request by New Zealand journalist David Farrier to cover a “competitive endurance tickling” competition for television, but morphed into a deeply strange documentary film plagued with sinister threats and homophobic slurs.
Variety called Tickled “a humorously titillating entry hook that soon gives way to engrossing conspiracy-thriller”. Screen Daily said it was “compelling, alternately painful and funny and deeply sad” and Collider’s Tommy Cook praised it as “a terrific bit of investigative filmmaking—Errol Morris filtered through Too Many Cooks”.
For Pride month, directors Farrier and Dylan Reeve (a fellow Kiwi) talked to Letterboxd about tickling, bullying and clandestine cameras in coffee cups.
Tickled opens in US theaters on June 17. See if it’s coming to your town.
Tickling—how do you feel about it now?
David Farrier: I see it in a new light. I have an appreciation for the community of people that are into it. It’s easy to laugh at tickling as a fetish, but more because tickling is inherently funny to watch: I challenge you to watch anyone being tickled and not let out a little laugh yourself. Everyone we met from the world of tickling (well, most) were a pleasure to meet and learn from.
Dylan Reeve: Before Tickled I had never thought that tickling would have fetish elements. Of course in retrospect that’s silly—everything is a thing, right? It’s changed my behavior a little bit—I don’t tickle my kids much anymore.
The internet—how do you feel about it now?
DF: I feel like it will always surprise me, no matter how well I think I know it. This is both good and bad. But that’s the internet—or anything in life, really. It can be good and bad.
DR: The internet has been a huge part of my life since my early teens. My first job was on the help-desk of an ISP. I’ve met many of my friends online—including David. But it’s also a place where some people feel they are immune to the normal restrictions and conventions of human interaction. Where many people, for some reason, choose to be the worst version of themselves.
For a film that spends a lot of time shooting in a clandestine manner, it looks really swish. Tell us about your camera team and your directives to them.
DF: We had a number of people shooting things in here. Yves ed us on our first trip to LA and shot lots of our covert stuff. Dylan shot things. I shot horribly from a coffee cup. My friend Billy from TV3 shot with me at an airport.
Then there is beautiful Dom Fryer, our DP. He has an amazing eye. He’d force us to take time in each place to really capture it. While I was pressuring everyone to keep the story moving and meet more people, Dom made sure we captured things in such beautiful detail. He made this film what it is, with his cunning eye and framing. Each place we visit on this crazy road trip has a personality. You see it in a new way, because he sees things you don’t see. Dom does a thing that is so, so important: he listens. He knows when something being said is important, and he’s there to capture it. He also has a very gentle way with the talent. Everyone likes Dom. He is a calming voice in the middle of stress.
DR: The bulk of what you see in the film was shot by Dom. By the time we got him on board we were at the stage of aiming to make a visually arresting film and the look was a key consideration and something Dom just made second nature.
One of the most clandestine moments though—the studio stakeout—was shot by Yves Simard who brought a lot of great experience to the table. The night before that shoot we went to Walmart and picked up a few yards of black fabric because, although our vehicle was tinted, we’d still be visible from the outside normally. But putting the black fabric up all around the inside of the car made it impossible to see in—it was genius!
David, when was Dylan the most terrified during the shoot, and what’s he like when he’s scared?
DF: Dylan is actually an amazingly calm man most of the time. Logical, measured, smart. Just occasionally that falls away. But I think we were all scared at the same time, we just show it in different ways. I go very quiet and still, like what a mouse does when it’s scared. Dylan does what a cat does when it’s scared at the vet, and makes a bit of a fuss. He breathes heavily.
You both submitted to tickling in the service of the film (in exchange for an interview with a maker of tickling videos). What was that like?
DR: Awful. Terrible. The worst. Honestly, you think of tickling as something sort of fun and often quite annoying, and that’s true when you can get away or shout “stop it!” but when you’re restrained and unable to escape it becomes quite different mentally. You can’t protect yourself. I’ve joked that if he’d kept up another few minutes I’d have given Richard my s and pin numbers… it might not be a joke.
DF: It’s painful. Being tickled when you can’t get away isn’t all that funny. You are laughing on the outside, but not in the inside.
Which of the two of you is more ticklish?
DF: I think Dylan? He had the most explosive laugh. I was tickled for ten minutes, Dylan did two minutes. I don’t think Dylan could have done ten, he would have combusted.
DR: Probably me. I don’t like to own that, but in all fairness it was probably me. I seemed to find it harder to get through our tickling session than David.
Your funny TV story about tickling competitions became a dark film about bullying. What’s your advice to bullies and people being bullied?
DF: Don’t bully. Understand that bullying comes from a place of insecurity, and try and get over that insecurity. Fight it. Be yourself. Don’t take it out on others. Bullying breeds more bullying. But we all know this. As humans it seems as if sometimes we just can’t resist. But try and fight it. Teach your kids not to bully. Don’t let the cycle start in the first place. Be kind.
DR: What’s interesting, I think, is that if we think about it we are all bullies sometimes. Often we don’t even realize at the time. I’ve been trying a lot harder in the last couple of years to avoid that. To be a more positive voice overall.
How do we make the Internet a nicer place? (Or are we dreaming?)
DR: Be the change you want to see in the world… or internet. Right? We should just make sure our contributions online are the sort of thing we want to see more of.
DF: We can control the way we act. Don’t engage with idiots online. I seriously believe: don’t feed the trolls. And again, be kind.
David and Dylan also provided us with a list of other material from which they drew inspiration when making their film. Many thanks gentlemen!
