Behind the Magic of Edson Oda’s Nine Days

Left: Writer/Director Oda and I talk Magic; Right: Winston Duke and Zazie Beetz in Nine Days.

Image Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Filmmaker Edson Oda lights up when he’s talking Magic.  Not the Magical Realism of his award-winning first feature, Nine Days.  Not the sleight-of-hand in a twelve-year-old’s parlor tricks.  Instead, he’s discussing the addictively competitive trading card game, Magic:  The Gathering. 

“Magic was a big thing in my life from age fourteen on,” he admits, almost sheepishly.  Known for its detailed lore and strategic vastness—with over 40 million players worldwide, according to recent data—Magic (aka MTG) is a game that rewards originality … which was just what the young Oda needed.  “I was always trying to create strategies with unorthodox combinations that didn’t always work.  But sometimes they did.”    

As a teen growing up in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Oda dreamed of attending the Magic World Championship.  “I got close.  I was ranked top three in Type II in Brazil.  I was obsessed.  I think I’d stop making films if I start playing Magic again,” he laughs.  “I have dreams about it a lot.  I had one last night, actually.”

Oda is disarmingly earnest.  A self-proclaimed nerd whose Japanese family emigrated to Brazil before he was born, he credits his creativity, his worldbuilding skills, to the intricacies of the game.  “In Magic, you have an opponent.  In filmmaking, your opponent is the audience.  It’s not a duel, but you’re sharing your decks, trying to play a step ahead, looking for a reaction.”    

Oda first applied his MTG skills to advertising, then music videos.  After graduating from the University of Sao Paolo, he earned an MFA in Film & Production at USC; it wasn’t long before his inventiveness—unexpected camera angles, surreal juxtapositions, layered images and ingenious stop motion—nabbed him several Cannes Lions and a Latin Grammy nomination.  But then came a dark period.

“I was struggling, going through a difficult time.  There was this huge wall in front of me, it was difficult to see anything else and I suddenly realized:  I was becoming my uncle.”  Oda’s eyes shift slightly behind his glasses, reliving the moment. “My uncle was this great guy, a sensitive, talented artist who unexpectedly killed himself—and almost overnight, everything good that he’d been was forgotten.  He literally became the suicide, a figure of failure for my whole family … and I started writing Nine Days, both to help myself and to help others who might be facing a similar darkness.”

Oda introduces Nine Days at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Credit: Sundance

I first spoke with Oda at Sundance 2020, both before his premiere and, in greater depth, at the after-party.  During each encounter, his humility, his thoughtfulness was impressive.  This third time, the connection is virtual but a lot more intimate, just him and his laptop at home in LA:  eyes alert, face attentive, black hair lightly tousled, black t-shirt stark against whiteboards with rows of blue Post-Its.  The blue notes, he explains, outline his current work-in-progress; the occasional bright pinks and yellows signal ‘morning after’ epiphanies.  

Here, too, he draws inspiration from Magic.  “So much of Magic is structure.  You have lands, creatures, spells, you build decks with a certain number of cards, a combination that changes as the drama develops.  It’s a lot like planning a screenplay:  the first act will be like this, the second act will be that.”  

Oda’s Magic obsession soon expanded to Manga and Anime, the wildly popular Japanese graphic novels and video animations that span multiple genres.  “For a while, it was my ambition to be a Manga-ka, a Manga author.  I thought it was the coolest job in the world, drawing and creating stories,” he explains with a grin.  “I also became a huge Anime fan:  Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin.  Those characters became part of my family at some point.  I always dreamed about meeting Goku.”  

As with Magic, his interest is driven by the underlying psychology.  The philosophy.

“There’s something deep about all those Anime series:  an almost naïve feeling, a lot about mythological quests, a lot about helping people, about knowing yourself.  The introspective journey:  doing what’s right, not being materialistic.  Lessons in humility.  I think these ideas come from Japanese culture.”

He pauses, trying to explain his own journey.  

“American heroes are so much more cocky—Tony Stark, Peter Parker, all those great

Marvel guys—but Anime characters are humble.  They know they have power, but they don’t flaunt it.  It’s like the sword in the sheath:  that’s when it has all its power, not when you’re showing it off, bragging about it.  True heroes hide their real power because that makes them more powerful.”  This moment is priceless:  Oda at his most animated, pulling a hypothetical sword out of its sheath, waving it about, sliding it back into its leather with deference.  “The narratives I like are about something much bigger, more worthy, more universal than ego.  And that’s what Nine Days tries to be too.”

Zazie Beetz in Nine Days. Credit: Sony Pictures Classics.

Initially, Oda set out to write something small, a script that he could shoot by himself if no one else liked it.  Something that dealt with issues he cared about.  His process was disciplined, but unfettered.  

“I was dancing with my subconscious.  I wrote every day, I read a lot, watched a lot, searching through clouds of ideas, looking for moments that resonate.  Echoes of the feelings that I hoped to evoke.”

The result opened doors, both mental and physical.  Based on an early draft of Nine Days, Oda was selected as a Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab Fellow; once the film was completed, it received a ten-minute standing ovation at its Sundance premiere, then went on to win the prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.  Since then, it was released in theaters, striking a chord with both critics and audience.  Ultimately, Nine Days was nominated for two Indie Spirit Awards including Best First Feature and Oda himself was nominated for Gotham’s Breakthrough Director Award.  

Here’s Peter Debruge from Variety:  “At the risk of overselling Edson Oda’s ultraoriginal, meaning-of-life directorial debut, there’s a big difference between Nine Days and pretty much every other film ever made.”  

At once personal and universal, enigmatic and deeply moving, Nine Days is a character-driven allegory that follows a metaphysical gatekeeper, Will—played by Winston Duke in a god-tier performance—while he tests five hopeful souls for the ultimate privilege:  to be born as a human.  Think Willy Wonka with “Gift of Life” as the golden ticket, where each soul strives for their right to existence.  Or, to use a term coined by Benedict Wong, the film’s warm-hearted supporting lead, think ‘spi-fi’— spiritual fiction—a genre with roots in ancient mythology … along with Manga and Magic.  

Oda elaborates.  “I try to avoid stereotypes—but each one of the souls in Nine Days represents a particular type, a lot like my Magic cards.  The deck I used to run in tournaments was primarily White and Red.  White is like Emma, the soul played by Zazie Beetz:  balanced, nurturing, healing.  Free-spirited.  Almost Zen.  She would be a zero-attack creature.  Red is like Kane, the soul played by Bill Skarsgård:  all fire, throwing fireballs, but pragmatic.  He’d be a two/two attack-and-defense, with first strike ability.  And Will, who thinks he’s controlling it all, at least on the surface, he’s Blue.  There’s a bit of me in each of these souls.”  Again, Oda pauses.  

“But Will…  Will is my mix of me and my uncle.”

This is where the mental doors opened.  The whole time he was writing Nine Days, Oda was trying to answer his own unresolved question:  Would Will choose my uncle?  If Will knew that a soul might choose suicide, was that soul still worthy of life?   

Beyond shaping his artistic approach, both Magic and Manga helped shape who Oda is now—the very essence that drives Nine Days.  

“For a long time, I was very competitive.  I was very Kane.  I was VERY Kane.  Everything I’d done in my life since I was a kid, I wanted to be the best.  But once I got to film school, I started asking myself, ‘What’s the point?  Where’s the joy?  And if pain is supposed to be part of the journey, was my uncle’s pain weakness, or strength?’”  

Oda’s boyish brow furrows, still feeling the weight of his own evolution.  

“My goals changed.  I no longer wanted to be the best filmmaker, I wanted to be a better being.  I started wanting to be more Emma.  I finally decided that there were so many billions of chances of my NOT being here, I’m actually lucky to be alive.” 

His plan for now?  He’ll keep evolving, a lot like the Anime protagonists he admires:  gradually becoming stronger, wiser—and flashing his sword only when needed.

Epiphanies notwithstanding, the success of Nine Days has surprised him.  

“When I was trying to get into the industry, I just wanted to fit in.  I wanted to write and create exactly what people wanted.  I ended up liking some of the stuff I wrote, but it wasn’t personal like this film—and I knew people wouldn’t connect in that deeper way.  So I decided to do what I believe in:  if people like it, great; if not, at least I will have done what I wanted.  Then I wrote Nine Days.  And suddenly, when I was no longer trying to fit the mold, that’s when I fit in.”

Oda shares a small smile:  the irony feels, well, magical. 

“When you’re the most yourself you can be, that makes the rest possible.”