Carlos Reygadas and "A Perfect Universe" By Jonathan Marlow February 15, 2006 - 1:13 PM PST "If you miscast, the film is lost." Carlos Reygadas, born in Mexico in 1971, started making short films in 1998, after studying international law in Mexico and London. These early works include Adulte (1998, short), Prisoners (1999, short), Oiseaux (1999, short) and Maxhumain (1999, short). Reygadas will be appearing at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on Thursday, February 16, 2006, for a screening of his first feature, Japón, and on Saturday, February 18, for a screening of his second, Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el cielo, 2005), which Dennis Lim, writing recently in the New York Times, called "an anomaly among today's explicit art films, which often deploy sex more as a stunt than a subversion. In the languid, graphic scenes of fellatio that bookend his movie, what is startling isn't so much the frankness of the sex as the glaring disparity between the participants: Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), the attractive young daughter of a general, and Marcos (Marcos Hernández), a homely, obese, middle-age man who is the general's driver." Jonathan Marlow spoke with the controversial director at the Sundance Film Festival in January. You started a in the legal profession, as a lawyer. How did you decide to pursue cinema as a vocation? I had liked cinema since I was a teenager and, although I liked my legal job very much, at a certain point I thought that it wasn't enough. I would read Jack London and would regret not living in that time. I felt that I needed something more and I had this drive evermore for cinema. You started making short films... I had been working in Belgium, in Brussels, so I decided to go back there. I did some short films over there the first year after I quit law, and then I prepared Japón on over there, which I shot two years after I had quit my job as a lawyer. What can you say about these shorter works? Are they similar, stylistically, to your features? I was really learning. Since I never studied cinema, I felt like I really needed to know quickly if I had any talent or if I'd even be happy making films. I quit law when I was around 26 and I just went forward and did all of the films in a year, in Super-8, black and white, all grainy and everything. Did you ever blow them up from Super-8? I never bothered to do anything with them, except that I have them on video now. Since I also had to learn to produce, I would shoot very little film. I didn't shoot a master shot and then shot/reverse shot, or anything like that, for editing later. I really didn't know how. I thought that you had to shoot the film as it would look on the screen and that method of learning is what I have used ever since. In a way, the short films are similar to the features in the way that whatever you see in the film is what I shot. That gives the film this rigid quality. Rigid in a bad sense, but also a good sense, in that it's something that is very well thought [through] and structured, visually. This is always shot in sequence? I always intend to shoot that way. At least each scene, I try to. Because of practical reasons, I cannot shoot the whole film in chronological order, but the internal part of each scene I always film in continuity. In your shorts, were you also focused on using non-actors in the principle roles? Actually, no. I learned that that's what I wanted... From working on the shorts? Yes, exactly. Actually, it's not true that I shot all of my short films in Super-8. My second short (Prisoners), which was the most ambitious one, I shot in 16mm, and I did Maxhumain in 35mm because a Belgian producer helped me out. That film has two Belgian actors and I rehearsed in the traditional methods. It was after that film that I didn't want to do any more rehearsals or work with professional actors. I suspect that you have an affinity for the work of Bresson and Kiarostami? Yes. The theories of Bresson have been especially important for me. Was your intent to get more "naturalistic" performances out of individuals who are not trained as actors? Not "naturalistic" acting but out of concern for the actual human presence. This is preferred to the technique of representing a person or character. This forces you to very carefully consider the people that you cast... Absolutely. If you miscast, the film is lost. Definitely. For me, the cast is like the location. It's the whole thing. I think much more like a "fixed" photographer rather than a traditional filmmaker in the sense of spectacle and show. For a photographer, a portrait photographer, it's the person that means everything. Of course, that same person poorly photographed would make for a boring photo, but it's the person that you care about and that's the same thing for me. The actual person or, if I took a shot of a landscape, it's the landscape that counts. You shoot another landscape, a bad landscape, and it wouldn't be interesting. This wasn't a theoretical exercise. This is something that you arrived at out of your experiences with these films. Out of the shorts. In Japón, I used this system but I went even further in Battle in Heaven. This is what you see in Battle in Heaven, for example, where people are even more static. I really like that static quality of the individuals that makes the empathy or the identification process for the audience more difficult. That's why a lot of people don't like the film. But, in my opinion, that gives you an opportunity of interiorizing the film further and probably keeping it inside yourself longer. It's not "Hot Cinema," as I would call a film by Clint Eastwood, for instance. His recent films are very "hot" when you're watching them. You're feeling a lot of things and you're very excited but, when they finish, that's it. It's not that I don't care about these feelings but I don't want to stress the actual feeling, the immediate associations, while you're watching the film. In the end, I think that is an obstacle to truth and authenticity. "Truth" and "reality" are not necessarily the same thing. Very often, they're different. When you decided to direct your first feature, why was it important to return to Mexico? Maybe it was because of practical limitations. To do a film in a country like Belgium, or anywhere that is not your country, with no money, is virtually impossible. In Japón, it was my parents' friends that helped me out with everything. All of the logistics were very much in control. At the same time, that's what came naturally to me. When I was making films in Belgium, I never had complete control, in the sense of completely knowing what I was doing. In Mexico, I did. Your family was very supportive of your shift from the legal profession to filmmaking? Yes. That doesn't mean that they pushed me. I remember my mother was anguished, but she wanted me to do whatever I needed. My father told me, "Well, this is a bit crazy." At 26, going into the cinema instead of following my legal career, which was going well. So he said, "That is very dangerous. I suggest not to do it but, if you do it, of course you know you can count on us." Japón The reception of Japón was, for a debut film, very remarkable. After premiering at Rotterdam, it was distributed theatrically throughout the world. Quite an achievement for a so-called "difficult" film. How did this success change your relationship with your work? Did that encourage you, give you the sense that you were on the right path with the type of filmmaking that you were doing? It would be a bit pretentious probably to say it had no effect but, to be honest, I think that it's true. I finished that film on video a year before going to Rotterdam and, during that year, I had to raise the money to finalize post-production. I remember showing the film exactly in the same way it was shown in Rotterdam to a lot of people - friends and other people - and, to be honest, the best reactions were, "Well, you really did your best. Perhaps you will have a promising future." Most people who saw it didn't think I would even get accepted to one single festival. But I knew, inside, that the film was good and this is why I'm being very honest in telling you that I don't think that the reaction changed anything at all. I remember I went to bed once with my girlfriend and she said, "How can you be so happy after all of this commentary that you've heard?" I had showed the film that night to ten friends and some of them really had a face of pity for me. I told her, "I know the film is good. It is very, very good, and I did exactly what I wanted. I know it is a good film." This is why, when I hear directors say that they think their films are shit and all that, I really don't believe them. If you think your films are shit, why do you keep making them? Why do you want to torture the world? I mean, I knew Japón was good at that time. I knew it was worth it. I knew it was what I wanted to make and that was really good enough for me. And then, of course, having a good reaction, rather than giving me a better feeling, just confirmed that the world still had a lot of hope. There would always be some people that would like something like what I like. When the film was released in Mexico, did it perform well? Did people know how to react to it? I could tell you it was an excellent response but the response was really relative. Most of the critics liked it very much; some hated it, of course. It was something special. It did 35,000 admissions, which is very little for Mexico, even for that kind of cinema. In Mexico, everything is oriented in amounts. Anything that does less than a million is like shit. For people that think that way, they believe that the film is nonsense. For the small percentage of people that don't think that way, but are more important in capacity of thought and opinion, they liked it very much. It created an effect and people knew of the film. On video, a lot of people saw it. And the new film has been seen already by 90,000 people and it's always the same kind of people. People that are interested in going to the cinema rather than letting cinema come to them. So that's good enough. For both of your features, you dwell on the intersection between sexuality and, for lack of a better word, religiosity. Is this an aspect of Mexican culture or is it specific to you as a person? It's me, yes. I remember, since I was a child, the main questions I would ask of religion were, "What happens when you die? Why are we here?" As for sexuality, it's not sexuality that interests me, really, it's men and women and love, basically. But men and women together usually have sex, so that's part of it. They have breakfast together, also. I wouldn't mind shooting people having breakfast or walking in a park. And they also have sex. But I'm not really interested in sex in itself... For it's own sake. I'm interested in men and women as human beings. Of course, sex is very important to men and women. Battle in Heaven The lead actor in Battle in Heaven, Marcos Hernández, is someone that you have known for many years. He worked for your father in a capacity not entirely different from his role in the film. Both he and Ana maintain their real names, unlike the assumed names of the other characters in the film. Was it important for these two characters to maintain a connection to their "real" life? Actually, that is a whole misunderstanding accidentally motivated by me. I didn't study cinema and I didn't know the implications of using your real name. I remember every time I would see a film I thought, "Why did they change their names? What's the need?" I mean, he could be called Steve if his name in real life is Steve. For me, the name wasn't important. It was the easiest thing to keep their own names because, for me, the important thing is the result. Truly, you and every other viewer shouldn't know what the people are called in real life. Why should you? I don't think it's consequential. If you go to a restaurant, the important thing is that the food is good and well-presented. What's the name of the chef? Who cares? It doesn't matter. Although Marcos was called Marcos and Ana was called Ana while they shooting, that didn't make them think they were themselves. They were, of course, playing a role. Who cares what they were called? A lot of critics make an issue of it, but it is only an issue that comes from theories and not from reality. As a non-actor, the things that Marcos does in the film are obviously detached from his everyday life. There are things that would be problematic for his real life and yet you've insisted that what we see is real and not simulated. Let me clarify. Please do. It is not absolutely essential that things need to be real and not simulated. What I say is that you only simulate what you need to. If Marco had to jump from a third floor, and he would get hurt, I would definitely simulate it because I do not want anyone to get hurt. But if Marcos has to get naked, I don't want to simulate his penis. I mean, if he's going to eat a sandwich, I don't want him to pretend that he's eating a plastic sandwich. He eats the sandwich because that's the easiest thing to do. That means it's always better, if it doesn't hurt the actors, that he eats a real sandwich instead of a plastic one. Then you would say, "Well, but this [nudity] could have hurt him and his family." In a way it is true, but if I could have simulated that with an extra, without harming the film, I probably would have simulated it. But I insist that would have harmed the film and I don't think that it should have harmed his life. I don't want to say his wife has to be accepting, that she doesn't have to be jealous and possessive, as she is. That's her problem and I cannot get into judging that. That was outside of the film, anyway. That was something that was Marcos's problem. It's like saying that if James Stewart's mother hated him being in films, maybe they shouldn't have cast James Stewart in films. You cannot know. If it's outside of the film, what can you do about it? So, in the end, what Marcos has said to his wife is that it was all special effects. And his wife is willing to believe that? Yes, exactly. Even though she must realize that it cannot possibly be true. When people want to believe in something, they do, and I think she wants to believe. Or maybe she doesn't and she just wants to pretend she believes and that works for her. That's her problem. next >>> Index "If you miscast, the film is lost." "You're just creating a perfect unity. Perfect for you." "Honestly, I really feel that the film is larger than us." back to articles

Jonathan Marlow In addition to his persistence in acquiring obscure films for GreenCine, Marlow is a writer, filmmaker, curator and occasional critic. Not necessarily in that order. He is also a dedicated skeptic. February 6, 2007. Mark Savage & the D.I.Y. Aesthetic by Jeffrey M. Anderson February 3, 2007. Seeing the Humor in Sexual Identity by Michael Guillen January 29, 2007. Smokin' Aces with Joe Carnahan and Jeremy Piven by Sean Axmaker January 26, 2007. Include Me Out: Interview with Farley Granger by Jonathan Marlow January 25, 2007. Grindhouse: Chapter Four - The 1960's by Eddie Muller January 19, 2007. Charles Mudede: Zoo Story by Andy Spletzer January 19, 2007. Mark Becker: Merging the Personal and the Political by Sara Schieron January 19, 2007. Micha X. Peled: The Lives of the Sweatshop Youth by Hannah Eaves January 16, 2007. Djinn: A Taxi Driver Dreams of Perth by Jeffrey M. Anderson January 12, 2007. Clint Eastwood: Flags and Letters From the "Good War" by Jeff Shannon view past articles