'Ted K' provides different perspective on familiar story

As "Ted K" opens, a text crawl explains Ted Kaczynski's backstory before giving way to scenes of mountains covered with deep snow and blackened, burned trees.

The stark scenery is punctuated by a group of colorful snowmobiles, the sound of the sleds follows them as they dance through the tree trunks and travel trails. As the group crosses Keep Cool Lake, a spectral figure appears from behind a tree. It's one of the few times Ted Kaczynski, as portrayed by Sharlto Copley, appears as just a small part of a scene.

'Ted K' which filmed in and around Lincoln in 2018 made its debut on the big screen at the Wilma theater in Missoula Tuesday, Feb 15 for members of the cast, crew and locals who helped bring the movie to fruition.

"We were at the Berlin Film Festival, which was considered the premiere of this movie, but it was actually a virtual festival," producer and Helena native Matt Flanders told the audience before the movie began. "So, this is really our premiere. It's so amazing to be

doing it here in Montana. We wouldn't have it any other way."

Unlike other films about the Unabomber, Stone and Flanders made the decision to film on location here, getting permission to film for a year on the property once owned by Kaczynski, something they thought was just a pipe dream.

Although the topic of Kaczynski is still often a fraught one here, the production found quite a bit of support - all be it sometimes grudgingly - among members of the community. For some it was a chance to help tell the story and depict Lincoln as accurately as possible for a change.

"I hope the film does show Montana sort of the way you guys see it," director Tony Stone told the audience before the screening, "It was truly important for us to document the land and the place, and this I feel like is a pretty close depiction of what it's like to be in the wilderness here."

"I do feel like I want you guys to like the film more than any other audience," he added.

"Hopefully afterwards it won't be like 'what the f*** did you just do?' But I think you'll understand the physicality of it and the experience of it."

And the film is an experience. Pulling from FBI file photos and Kaczynski's own journals, Copley takes us inside the mind of Kaczynski from the time he made the decision to take revenge on the society that kept intruding on his solitude.

While other movies about Kaczynski focus primarily on the FBI's hunt for the Unabomber, 'Ted K,' focuses entirely on Kaczynski – often in intimate and uncomfortable closeup. Copley, who worked with a dialect coach to nail down Kaczynski' voice, narrates the story using his journal entries. Meanwhile the investigation plays out through the film entirely in background, as Kaczynski follows radio and TV stories about his bombings.

Other characters in the film are often unnamed or even unseen, their dialogue sometimes muted or overwhelmed by music, conveying Kaczynski's egocentric attitude and disconnect from other people.

Since the movie shows the world through Kaczynski's eyes, some things are depicted as more sinister that they probably were in reality. Did the Montana Power weed crews white hazmat suits and spray vegetation with a blood red mist? Probably not, but the imagery shows Kaczynski's perspective on what he believed people were doing to the environment.

While the intimate portrayal of Kaczynski provides a degree of empathy for him, probably the most uncomfortable aspect of the movie is that there is no hero in this version of the story. The main character of the film – the sole focus – is the antagonist, a lonely, deeply troubled real person who managed to justify doing terrible things

to innocent people.

"I think we kind of put forward a balance of who this guy was and saw his darkness. you saw what drove him mad as well," Stone said. It also gave them a chance to see things from his point of view.

"Some of his ideas, I just thought if this person hadn't been a murderer and hadn't used violence and done all of this stuff, we might be studying his work in a very different way now," Flanders said. "I like the statement it makes about technology and how ... we thought it would bring us together, but it actually sort of keeps us apart. "

The only other character in the film with as much focus as Ted is the landscape around Lincoln, where the peace of the forests is often interrupted by the din modern man, from skidders and sawmills to snow-mobiles and fighter jets.

"I've always said that Montana is like a second lead character in this film. You've got Sharlo and you've also got this incredible landscape. You've got the wildlife, the weather, all of it," Flanders said during a post screening Q&A.

"There are so many Montana stories that are shot in Canada and elsewhere, and I knew being from here, there was no possible way that I could help make this movie and not do it here. I would never be welcomed home again.

They considered using other locations, but Stone said from the beginning the idea was to make the movie as indistinguishable from the FBI evidence photos as possible, so shooting it somewhere else didn't feel right.

"We couldn't necessarily define what is in there that is important for us to be on Ted's actual ground, but actually it comes through," he said. "There are so many scenes that would derive from us find-ing Ted's artifacts."

He said the connections they made with people who knew Kaczynski were also important.

"So much of the movie is based on stories we heard," he said. "If we didn't have that background of people who told us what actually happened, we'd just be fishing the whole time for something that seems 'Kaczynski-like.' Since we were so secure in how Ted acted, how he looked, the physical environment, it let us have this confidence in the story telling."

Locals who attended the premiere appreciated the authenticity.

"I thought it was an amazing movie and I can't wait to tell my family and friends to watch it," said Wendy Gehring, who was one of Kaczynski's closest neighbors and aided the production. For Gehring, who had no love lost for Kaczynski, the only criticism was that Copley's portrayal of Ted, while excellent, seemed too personable.

"I thought it was probably as close to like Ted as I remember him," said Becky Garland, who dealt with him often at Garlands Town and Country "It was nice to see the neighborhood because it was realistic and ... where he lived and where he thought of all these diabolical things that he did. He loved the quietness of Lincoln. He did not like what was going on around him; he thought that little one acre spot was heaven."

Though the movie features a character named Becky - an imaginary love interest used to illustrate Kaczynski's social isolation and awkward attitude toward women - Garland said she's certain it's NOT based on her. "That was just pulled out of the air."

For Bobbie Jean Buster, the film resonated for a different reason. "It was a little bit more per-sonal for me and it will be for the Buster family, because Chris was such a big part of it," she said. One of the most prominent pieces of machinery shown disrupting Kaczynski's vision of wilderness tranquility was an orange skidder. In every scene it appears in, it was driven by her husband Chris, who died in a vehicle accident in 2020. "It was neat to see him alive and well and doing what he loved, and just remembering back to the friendships we formed and everything. that came along with filming of the movie." How "Ted K" will be received by a wider audience remains to be seen.

"Ultimately, this movie is not going to be for everyone," Flanders said. "It's a hard subject matter. There's violence, there are a lot of uncomfortable topics. I think it's really interesting to hear other people's reactions. Some people are very enthusiastic and others kind of need to step away and think about it."

"Ted K" will be playing at the Myrna Loy in Helena from March 4 through March 17.

It is currently available on demand through Amazon Prime, Apple other video services and will begin streaming on Hulu in June.