CARLOS REYGADAS Author(s): , JOSÉ CASTILLO and Camino Detorrela Source: BOMB, No. 111 (SPRING 2010), pp. 70-77 Published by: New Art Publications Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27801132 . Accessed: 24/09/2014 22:14

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CARLOS REYGADAS

BY JOS? CASTILLO

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Stills from , 2007, color film with sound. Total running time: 136 minutes, above: Maria Pankratz as Marianne and Cor nelio Wall as Johan. All images courtesy of Mantarraya Producciones.

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Born in City and trained as a law JOS? CASTILLO: wouldI liketo ask you about chosen yer specializing in armed-conflict resolution, your choice towork with film. Could you have this of cre Carlos Reygadas was inspired at age 30 to a different art form? And how does notion own to try his hand at film out of his appreciation of ating a world of your relate film specifically? the films of auteurs such as CARLOS REYGADAS: Forme thissimply and Michelangelo Antonioni. He has been has been a consequence of being alive, livingmy life, never making films ever since. Having released more than of any specific search. I've program three feature-length films?Jap?n (2001), matically set out to make movies that reflect my world (2005), and Silent Light somehow. Now that I'm building a house, the idea of a (2007)?as well as two shorts, Reygadas's wanting to live ina particular way is also defined pos to make has become a unique voice that stands apart teriori. But going back to film,when wantedI from the filmmakers commonly associated my firstmovie wasI a lawyer and indeed liked law, but with the New Mexican Cinema movement I remember wanting a change of life. wantedI to feel of the last decade, whose productions are more freedom on a day-to-day basis. a more in sync with Hollywood norms. Actually, though, wantedI to make firstmovie Over the course of his career, Reygadas's in order to see if I had any talent for filmmaking?that off or not. technique has become more sophisticated was it. I had no idea whether I could pull it a and his vocabulary more controlled, achiev Iwent ahead and tried my hand at making movie, This determined ing sublime moments of beauty and the gro but Iknew nothing about the system. turns tesque. His films are neither autobiographical what I've been doing ever since. As it out, the nor self-referential. They construct a plat film madeI ended up reflecting my personal vision. I'm form inwhich visual language is the medi convinced that to be original all you have to do is be um that produces affect. Their severity and yourself: we're all original. It's like people's fingerprints. power arise from the fact that they address So, automatically I reflected a personal world. serious matters?love, death, faith, fear, sex, JC: There's an interesting relationship between sacrifice, and redemption?through everyday your characters' internal and exterior lives. Inyour films a miser experiences, and in the process of doing so, there seems to be moment inwhich personal become they put forth a new type of humanism. Like ies, tragedies, anguishes, and other feelings a modern-day, cinematic Holden Caulfield, public. And there's also redemption, through love and a scene in Reygadas seeks the authenticity of unme intimacy. There's I find quite compelling a in the diated experience. Steering away from the Silent Light, film about personal relationships involv predominance of narrative and profession tight community of inChihuahua, a on the al acting in film, Reygadas has developed a ing a family bathing in pool. Can you elaborate and on moving and arresting body of work seem issue of making what's private public making ingly devoid of artifice. visible those private emotions? : a It's all Reygadas's two most recent shorts have C R It's all consequence of action. about enriched his repertoire of techniques and spontaneity forme; Inever put theory before practice. scene inSilent subject matter: Serenghettif a montage of I'm thinking concretely of that bathing views of a women's soccer match, and Este Light? all wantedI was to transmit the sense of peace es mi reino, a 12-minute film (for Revoluci?n, and quiet that a family might experience when engag a such a compilation of shorts commemorating the ing ina daily ritual in place of continuing beauty, as a bicentenary of the Mexican Revolution) that as that pool. These are feelings Imust have had and exposes the paradoxes of community and child, I've had moments of complete plenitude individual freedom, celebration, and melan tranquility, where nothing but the present mattered. : to attain such choly in Mexican society. He seldom talks J C But do you think it's possible about his work, and theorizes about it even a state through collective experiences? Your characters own so for in less; he prefers instead to let his films evince seem wrapped in their emotions, when, from the ideas and experiences he wants to con stance, suffering turns outward, it's manifested same with their vey. Regardless, we met at his six-acre prop one character to another; the joy. never even this. erty in Ocotitl?n, Morelos?a village an hour CR: I'm sorry, I've thought of me outside of where he is building I just don't think it's my forte. For community is a house?and talked about music, literature, nothing but the sum of individuals. Of course society and film. Our conversation made itapparent as a whole has its own laws and such, but rather than to read Elias to me that for Reygadas, the road ahead is trying to reflect that inmy films, I prefer ? wide and clear. Canetti's Crowds and Power. What I'm interested in ?Jos? Castillo not dogmatically, but on an emotional level?are those

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brief moments inwhich the truth is experienced. The all music had to follow a given tempo! It's the same truth is never absolute; it's approached almost tangen as saying each page of a script equals a minute in the tially. Declaring a philosophical, religious, or social truth film. That's why even though Hollywood films can be will turn it into dogma and therefore will prevent itfrom comedies, dramas, or whatever, they all have exactly being experienced as real; itwill always be normative. the same structure. The characters and plots might On the contrary, what feels real is poetic, ineffable, change, but the films are all alike; people find repeti open-ended. Truth, by definition, is intangible. tion comforting, that's why the formula is successful. JC: Inverting Carlos Monsiv?is's phrase "only Anyway, although it takes me a few days to write the the fleeting prevails," what seems permanent tends screenplay, it does take me a while?a few months, to be contingent, temporary. sometimes a year?to decide where I'm going to set it CR: Exactly. I've always hated pronouncements, and what the film's engine, or central motor, will be. In militancy based on slogans, religious dogmas. Ethics are Silent Light the engine was the idea of death by emo the result of personal decisions; you ask yourself ques tional pain. There'd be a lotof intensity around the idea tions and try to solve them at a particular moment. of infidelity, in a moralistic sense. J C : Ethics become manifest inyour characters' J C :Meaning that you don't believe in infidelity? personal experiences. They hark back to Shakespeare's You don't seem to judge the possibility of being multi and Dostoyevsky's archetypes. How do their moral di amorous in the film. Your ethical position regarding the lemmas unfold? How do you arrive at your characters' character's being in love with two people is neutral. ethics? CR: It's curious, when you think about all this, C R : It's a silly answer, but basically, via my imag you understand why religion promotes monogamy? ination. But Idon't think like a novelist; if I tried towrite ifs complex. a novel it'd be a complete disaster. I'm terrible at con J C :Yes, it's people's way of resolving dilemmas ventional screenwriting. So by "imagination," Imean I like the one inyour film. imagine myself inconcrete situations: walking up a hill CR: It's not a way of resolving them; it's actu and running into people. Ican actually make myself see ally a way of avoiding conflict. Ifyou firmly believe in the colors, feel the wind and the temperature, hear the dogmas, you'll never experience conflicts, but that's steps of the people around me. So Iproceed by having reducing life to nothingness. It's like a friend of mine these sensations and letting things happen as Igo on who never wants to have a dog because she thinks writing the screenplay. This forme is the quintessential she'd suffer too much when itdied. I understand why creative moment. writeI everything in one blow over there'd be a book such as the Divine Comedy and so a few days and then make very few revisions?I'm in many representations of the devil and religious punish a state of trance. ment; when something goes terribly wrong it seems You must have noticed that all of my films spring as though the cause is divine retribution. I understand from a male lead character. At some point I'd like to why there are rules regulating human drives, but I'd start offwith a female lead character... ithasn't worked much rather embrace human nature with caution, set out for me yet. So this male character begins acting, ting limits formyself depending on where I'm coming moving, and feeling, and in the process, begins to from and what my goals are. emerge. That's when the questions spontaneously J C : The critical reception of your films tends to arise, once I enter that character's imagination: That emphasize the potency of your images. Where do you human being encounters problems, hurdles, moments stand in regard to the art of cinema? You've said else of pleasure?he faces ethical questions as well. Idon't where that "there are few films, there are more mov need to think about this much; it's like a dream in the ies, and plenty of illustrated literature." sense that it reflects everything the person dreaming CR: My screenplays are not literary in the way has ever lived, everything he or she will become. But that most screenplays are literary.Mine are images and ? again, it's not as if I'm taking notes all year long , think sounds, and because of that, they're closer to film ing about how I'd like this or that character to... Icome they're not merely translating literature into drawings up with them as I'mwriting the screenplay. for a storyboard. Inmy opinion most screenplays are, JC: How long are your scripts? basically, literature, in a structural and finally even an C R :Very brief: 50 or 60 pages. That Hollywood ontological sense. As Isaid before, formy screenplays idea of a page per minute is one of the stupidest I've Ienter this vision, a hypnotic, hallucinogenic, or dream ever heard: it's utterly uncreative and noxious. like one; writeI itdown, but the result isnot literature. J C :Yeah, like the notion that films need to be 105 As writeI I imagine I'm already seeing the film: minutes long or should never exceed two hours... CR: It's absurd to think that all films have to A black square appears, a cinemascope, or a 1:1.33 have the same rhythm and duration; itdestroys the es screen ratio, a text in a bright-blue Bauhaus font ap sence of film's conception of time. Imagine saying that pears, it remains on screen for only two seconds. Cut.

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it on Then, appears again the background and then A dissolves... The sound begins... The face of a dark DECLARING 30-year-old man appears. The camera moves... PHILOSOPHICAL,

That's how Igo about writing; I'd be happy to lend you RELIGIOUS, OR SOCIAL one of my screenplays so you can see how Igo about TRUTH WILL TURN IT numbering each take?that's what films are, sequences of takes. And so what Iwrite is images and sounds, INTO DOGMA AND basically. One of film's burdens has been that usually someone writes a literary screenplay and then some THEREFORE WILL one else illustrates it through the medium of cinema; PREVENT IT FROM sometimes it's the same person. It's a difficult idea to apprehend, because people think I'm just referring to BEING EXPERIENCED AS the adaptation of novels, but I'm not at all: a novel can a REAL; ITWILL ALWAYS inspire great translation into a sequence of images and sounds. In any case, my creative moment is reg BE NORMATIVE. ON istered in the script, because that's when Ihave a total vision of the film. THE CONTRARY, WHAT JC: I'm interested to hear how close or distant FEELS REAL IS POETIC, you feel to other forms of visual representation in film. I'll give you an example: ifyou think of certain scenes INEFFABLE, OPEN-ENDED. in the films of Peter Greenaway you have the sense BY that he's working in a painterly fashion. This is differ TRUTH, DEFINITION, ent from what you do, and yet, Iam interested in hear IS INTANGIBLE. ing how you work out the relationship between strong pictorial scenes, and the sense of experience. C R : The issue of and reality representation is in of attempting to translate literature into film?every credibly complicated because itoperates on many dif thing is reduced to the lowest common denominator, ferent a levels, among them philosophical one and even to what it's supposed to be instead of what it is. For a semiotic one. tend to They get tangled up. address instance, inMexican telenovelas, when they want to the which is simplest level, also the most complex. Film represent a rural tiendita (a bodega), they'll have three is based on the of principle photographic reality. Ifwe shelves stacked with the products that people assume were at a of even we looking picture you, though both are always sold there as well as a middle-aged se?ora know it's on ultimately nothing but pixels paper, we'd with an apron at the register. Everyone gets used to both that the is a agree photo representation of you. seeing that tiendita, the code representing it, that is, We know that the piece of paper is not Jos?, but we instead of the real thing. Ifwe went to a real tiendita know that Jos? was actually before the camera at the right now and the camera was rolling, we'd discover a inwhich the was point picture taken. With the moving number of incredible surprises there and people would as well as this image, sound, reality effect ismagnified. appreciate having access to a different visual experi When see a movie know that see you you what you're ence. Maybe we find a dead cat hanging from a wall, in a ing, effect, truly happened. or poster we'd never imagine we'd find there. Reality In this is art sense, cinema the of reality, the me has so many things to offer, things you wouldn't have dium inwhich reality's beauty is captured, where you arrived at via your own imagination. can film marble or a or record face, someone's voice, Often directors talk about how in their films they a the innate of sunset, beauty what you're contemplat managed to achieve about 60 percent of what they achieved this. I never ing. Tarkovsky remember the had envisioned, which always, according to them, far of his films. talk about men plots People Nostalgia and exceeds what you can actually do in film. I always say tion the part where so-and-so does this or that, and I the contrary; my films are always so much better than I fumble; even though I've seen that film about 15 times, could have ever dreamed of, not because the end result Iact like those who bluffwhen people they say they've ismagnificent, but because they utilize things thatwere seen that something they actually haven't. I have no unthinkable to me before making them: take Cornelio idea what about. What I they're talking do remember is Wall's wrinkles, his tone of voice inSilent Light. These the camera's a movements, the sound of saw up in the are things I didn't imagine before, I only allowed my I remember the textures hills; perfectly of the pool and camera to absorb them. Of course if Ihad imagined an those other things that were really happening. When I actor with such-and-such traits, and then had dressed attack representation in film, I'm talking about the issue up an actor so he looked like the character inmy head,

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italso points to personality. Can you elaborate on the relationship between actors and characters? And the second question has to do with how you understand representation, and with your interest inmusic. You've said that in terms of how it is experienced, film is closer to music than to theater. Glenn Gould stopped playing live at some point because he thought that perform ing music in a concert hall was like a staging?it in volved a degree of falsehood. So he began recording in his studio and broadcasting his music on the radio. He would record each Goldberg Variation many times over, until he got it right. CR: Well, a character in Spanish is called a personaje and that term also is related to personality. An actor is someone trained to represent a charac Hern?ndez inBattle in Still showing Marcos ter?a from the theater. We could into Heaven, 2005, color film with sound. Total carryover get running time: 98 minutes. Stanislavski's method acting: you'll play a soldier in the film, so you have to eat like a soldier, dress like one, and almost travel to Vietnam for a few days so you're able to get into character. Inmy opinion this is not only completely unnecessary in film; it's also quite sad, because when you see the film, instead of a hu man being, you'll only be able to see the character that the actor is representing. Just likewith locations, I'm interested in seeing human beings. Some people think that my films lack plots?they don't, it's just that forme the plot is a skeleton from which things are hung, and not the whole point of a film.When people talk about a film being "a good story" they don't get it.The story is there so everything else can be structured around it.The Surrender of Breda by Vel?squez is famous not because of the story; it's much more interesting to read about it ina history book. It's about how it's paint ed. The same can be said about Rubens's paintings of mythological figures. So when writing Silent Light (I'm talking about it simply because it's my more re cent I had inmind a character who causes his Still from Serenghetti, 2009, color filmwith film), minutes. sound. Total running time: 80 wife so much pain that she dies. I,more or less, had imagined who he was, where he lived, but had avoided wouldI end up with less than I had imagined. describing what he looked like because Iwanted the The camera is a funnel taking in reality. I be human being I encountered at a given moment to fill lieve in natural locations, inworking with non-actors. in that part. I'm often asked about how I cast people. The ten commandments of Dogme 95, the Danish film It's very simple; there's no technique. It's as ifsome collective, point to some profound truths even ifthey one asked me how Igo about liking a woman. There's might seem silly to some people. The idea of not bring no science to it.You've had certain experiences in life so ing anything to the set that isn't already there makes a that have determined your personality, and you sim whole lot of sense to me. All they're saying is let cin ply see a woman you like, and know that you like her, ema transmit the power of vision, the power of sound, you don't need to rationalize it. It's the same with my the power of feeling and being in the world we live in, actors. Imet Cornelio, ate some shrimp with him in instead o? representing literary narratives taking place Cuauht?moc, , and realized that the traits of inside cardboard houses. this character who Ihad imagined all of a sudden were J C :Two questions for you. You can answer each starting to fade and were being replaced by Cornelio's individually, though they're linked, so I'llask them at the humanity. same time. Inwhat you're saying, I sense that there's There's a chemistry between the actors and me seem the logic of the character versus the logic of the actor. that seeps into the films. If they funny, melan InEnglish the word "character" ismore potent because cholic, pleasant, or unpleasant to you, you'd be likely

This content downloaded from 128.95.104.109 on Wed, 24 Sep 2014 22:14:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BOMB 111 76 to feel the same way about them ifyou were to meet on the radio? I'm glad you brought up Battle inHeaven] I them in real life.Once meetI the human being, Ibegin it's my problem child, and therefore the film of mine of that of to adapt the character for him or her, instead of the oth love the most. It's full type juxtapositions. : Battle inHeaven is er way, which ismore common, of asking the actor to J C won'tI get intowhy your that's related to what some adapt inorder to complete the character. Some people problem child; probably ? as the film's shock value. I'd rather argue something that to me seems like a sophism people perceived of the human in the film. You they say that everyone is always acting, that we're all talk about the role body not characters in the theater of life.That's one thing, and depict a bodily humanism; inother words, it's only is a of acting, or pretending, when you've got a camera in that the body repository anguish, desperation, and front of you is entirely different. That frustrates me, and moral dilemmas, but also feelings expressed and wrinkles. because it involves putting on a mask. Imuch prefer experienced through sweat, groans, to see someone contribute their presence to a film. In CR: Actually I do want to address the issue of If think this sense film is like portrait photography; I'm thinking those images that people find shocking. you of Richard Avedon's work, for instance. When you see about it,what's so outrageous about a naked obese are of inoth his photographs the soul of the f lesh-and-blood person woman? There plenty astonishing images find in before the camera manages to emerge. To lose that er filmswith flying cars and such... What you my a a hunter in cinema is a shame to me. My actors are, say, like films you see any ordinary day: gas station, an love. I'm not to dogs, a sunset, or a tree?beings offering their pres killing animal, people making trying make sense ences. Iobviously do not say this pejoratively, on the impress anyone with those images; they feel uncomfortable contrary. I ask them to offer their presence; which is in the context of my films. People a What's the deal? With much deeper and sophisticated than their professional seeing beheaded pigeon. big some accused me of film acting technique. Battle in Heaven people JC: I'd like to connect your notion of presenc ingmonstrous people making love and then showing come with that? es in your films to the way inwhich your films are that to the public. How did they up never seemed monstrous or experienced. The imagery in your films is arresting; My subjects grotesque itovertakes the viewer's senses, not only their sight, to me. Mexico has the second highest rate of obesity are and I beckoning an array of emotions. This might be related in the world. My subjects overweight, yes, and I love them to music. The last take inJap?n juxtaposes Arvo P?rt's filmed them making love, and walking, I'm "Cantus inMemory of Benjamin Britten" with the im and that's it.Whoever thinks depicting something a that what he or she age of a train wreck which the camera circles, convey shocking is hypocrite who thinks not to see doesn't exist. For me ing the idea of a spiral leading to tragedy. would prefer simply if it's but a CR: It's a descending spiral. the real is beautiful. Blood is beautiful real, a are horrible to JC: Absolutely. The other scene I'm thinking of beautiful woman and beautiful house not All those is that of an engine running at a gas station and the me ifthey're authentic. feel-good things me falsehood is I chants by pilgrims walking on the highway inBattle to feel really bad?their depressing. birthed in Heaven, forwhich you chose Bach's "St. Matthew can't believe that in England, the country that Passion." democracy, Jap?n, to this date, is censored: they cut killed and the CR: It's actually one of his clavichord concertos. the scenes inwhich the pigeon is village's JC: I can't think of anyone who's been able to veterinarian tickles a little dog. The country with the thinks that censor articulate a moment of perfect attunement betyveen a most infamous colonial history by sins! modern industrial experience and Bach. That's when ingmy film they've paid for their ever referred to films cease to be merely visual; the presences in them JC: I don't think you've your an alter attain, all of a sudden, humanity. films as art films, although they do represent CR: Or resplendence. nate type of cinematic production. are of the JC: Do you also conceive of that when writing C R : Ninety-nine percent of films part Even so-called the screenplay? entertainment business. independent a Most films screened at Sundance CR: I can imagine it, yes. For the gas-station film is still business. are a have the scene, I imagined the conjunction of something sacred simply poor man's Hollywood film?they same same the same mecha and something all too human and mundane, an engine. formula, the structure, man for a woman on a road Only humans can create music and engines. One is the nisms... A looking trip across States. The a minimal most poetic, divine, ethereal of our inventions, and the the United soundtrack, other the most practical, the most functional, but both ist piano piece. was to brother and he men are distinctly human. Again, some people would ques I talking my recently, I told him I hadn't tion the idea of hearing Bach at a gas station?we go tioned James Cameron's Avatar. back to the idea of the lowest common denominator. heard anything about it,and he couldn't believe wasI even know the film existed. That Can one only hear cumbias, soccer matches, and news so out of it I didn't

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same day I saw B?la Tarr's Werkmeister Harmonies. CR: Yes. The same with the soccer match. What I couldn't believe beauty! my eyes! Yet ifmy JC: In relationship to your audience, what brother were to see it'd be but a it, nothing tripped would be the measure of your success, what brings out black-and-white Hungarian film to him. There's no you satisfaction? in to to him what point trying explain he's missing?it's CR: I have a brutal ambition to materialize my a shame. Werkmeister Harmonies is truly an : it vision so I can share itwith others. Iwouldn't make masterfully reveals the nature of existence. films otherwise. And itdoesn't matter to me ifthere's JC: How do other you experience people's one person or 3,000 who likewhat they see. I remem films? You're not a film buff, though you obviously en ber professors saying, "I'll be satisfied ifeven one of films. joy you sitting here ends up practicing criminal procedural CR: I'm not interested in referential films; that's law." It's completely true. You know you connected Idon't like some of Godard's more famous why films. with someone ifonly one person laughs at your jokes. I his but Idon't like the appreciate daring, demonstra Film prizes are frankly absurd. When have sympho tional of his their quality films, didacticism, theoretical nies competed against each other? People say Citizen approach, and filmic references. Iguess it's one thing Kane is better than Werkmesiter Harmonies?Ws like if you spent your entire adolescence watching mov saying a pine tree is better than a rose, or milk better ies. Ispent mine digging in the dirt,with schoolmates, than beer. breaking things. I take pleasure in small things: feed ingmy dogs, walking around, feeling the sheets of my Translated from the Spanish by Camino Detorrela on bed my body, using my chainsaw, listening to Glenn Gould's superslow 1983 recordings of the Goldberg Variations. Ican have a great time not having any artistic experiences per se and simply talking with my wife or a friend, or doing math with the calculator on my cell phone. Ultimately, I really enjoy making films. I love casting, scouting for locations, shooting the film. It's the actual experience that Imost enjoy. I'm fascinated by film's materials, building a take, thinking about the light.And mixing the sound, I really enjoy all of that. I deal with those processes myself. JC: Is it painful labor, or does it all flow naturally? CR: It's not painful at all. I'm happy from the minute Istart thinking of a film until Iemerge from the so tunnel, to speak. Ieven enjoy the subtitling process. The materialization of a vision that up till then was only on paper unfolds before your very eyes. JC: You made a film called Serenghetti for the Rotterdam Film Festival. Is the film more in a docu mentary vein? C R : I shot a match in a nearby soccer field, but it's not a documentary. Inmy own experience, the differ SUBSCRIBE AT ence between genres has vanished. My film is "fiction," though I used "real" materials. Silent Light could be seen as a better documentary on Mennonites inMexico B0MBSITE.COM one than produced by National Geographic. They'll tell you the whereabouts and indexes of , but you'll never see them making love, having an intimate conversation, bathing with their families in a pool, or dying. What I recently filmed for the Mexican Revolution's bicentennial celebration is perhaps more to a akin '70s happening: it is a short film about a gath ering which includes food, conversation, music, chil dren playing, and a bonfire. It's about freedom. JC: Ideally it'd be screened at galleries instead of movie houses.

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