Inside Producer Giorgos Karnavas Gives Insight on Film's Passage of Time (Exclusive)

Even with modern resources at his disposal, Nemo is never safe from descending into insanity throughout Vasilis Katsoupis's Inside. This 105-minute psychological thriller locks Willem Dafoe's art thief inside a luxurious New York City penthouse without any way to escape. While there are far worse places to be trapped, constant temperature changes, limited food, and an overall uncertainty of time create a foolproof recipe for madness.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Inside producer Giorgos Karnavas stressed the value of leaving the passage of time up for interpretation.

"This is a very important narrative element of the film and I think we took the very correct decision because sometimes you can construct narrative like putting [title cards that say] one week later, three months after July 2020, whatever, giving all this kind of information for people to relate and understand the situation better," Karnavas said. "It is very important for this film to lose track of time exactly like the character is losing track of time. For him, the important thing is to go out and to go out before he loses all hope of survival. Because the practical things that can keep him alive, they can still be available to him [out there]."

Beyond what this technique does for the viewers, Karnavas mentioned that messing with time created a unique post-production process.

"This kaleidoscopic way of stretching the time or condensing time, it's not only that it helped us create, I think a very interesting audience experience, it also helped us give a form to the editing," Karnavas continued. "Because when it's the chronological order of the film, the milestones of the changing of the conditions or the external conditions of him were the milestones that helped us cut it and give us an inner rhythm, which it helps the film flow."

That flow crescendoes throughout all of Inside while consistently maintaining a lurking sense of tension.

"You are watching only one person all the time for a hundred minutes. Nothing crazy happens in a way, but you are on a cliffhanger all the time," Karnavas noted. "All these elements helped us give an aesthetic, a format to the film. I think it's a big part of the viewing experience of the audience."

Inside hits theaters this Friday, March 17th. The film's collaborative merchandise line with SUPER YAKI is live now.