His latest film, ‘Rome’, separates the old from the new. Shot in black-and-white, without stars, and in Spanish, their landing in cinemas and on Netflix at almost the same time it is the cinema event of the year
‘Rome’: Alfonso Cuarón, immense and with the broken memory
Alfonso Cuarón (Mexico CITY, 1961) staggers, roll his eyes and struggles (or pretends he does) by remembering a few verses of Borges. “Is equal to”, yields. “The poet says that the memory is a heap of broken mirrors. The image I worth”, he adds. Refers to the last lines of the poem to Cambridge, and there it reads: “We are our memory / we are this chimeric museum of forms unstable, /that pile of broken mirrors”. Few definitions so precise for a film like Rome. The tape, winning form indisputable of the Golden Lion in Venice, taking the name of the suburb of Mexico CITY where she grew up, the director and runs all of it in his childhood.
We are at the beginning of the 70s, the PRI governs everything and the students are massacred in the streets (The Halconazo was called the slaughter). The camera is placed inside of the look of Cleo (the second and highly successful not-actrizYalitza Aparicio). She is the maid, the indigenous woman that blends the anxieties, contradictions, miseries and injustices of Mexico and, as posts, of the entire universe.
Shot in a black-and-white metallic, furious, mysterious and perfect, the idea is not so much to narrate nothing, such as walking about, in effect, that pile of broken mirrors. Until the blood. Rome is called to revolutionize it all. Opens December 5 in cinemas shortly before it does on Netflix, on tv, at home. For the first time perhaps, and in a radical way the choice is real: or see the movie of the season on your site, the film, or see it in any other way. But to see her in the end. It sounds like paradox and it is exactly that: the greatest and most exciting of the contradictions. By the way, is a masterpiece.
How do you get from ‘Gravity’, a blockbuster space, to Rome, a blockbuster, and sorry for the sappy, emotional?The movies are needs and they always start in places unpredictable. Rome was an obligation almost existential. I think that this film has been with me ever since. It has been a nice play of destiny that has now been precisely because it is now when I have provided the necessary tools to be able to make it. I talk about tools and techniques and the other: the emotional. Can you be more precise about these tools of which you speak?Yes, I remember that when I And your mom also had a need to reconnect with the reasons why I always wanted to make films after my tour of Hollywood. In Rome it was more okay to go back to my country after decades out of it. I wanted to unmask all those simulations that hide the scents. And from there, investigate my own relationship with time, with my family, with my land… I don’t know, the life I squirmed, my children went to Europe… The truth is that I had planned to shoot Rome in 2006. Now what I think and less evil that I could not because then I had the maturity needed. I realize now that I needed more perspective. On the other hand, without Gravity nothing has occurred. Guillermo del Toro says that certain movies are cereal boxes. You eat with the promise of the toy that is in the background. If you are lucky and you get to him, that is to say, if the film is successful, salts with a toy that you can redeem for what you want. And so it was. After Gravity I was offered huge things with big stars and big salaries. But I realized that it was time to return to Mexico to make the film that always should have been. And make it with the resources that I wanted and as I wanted to. It has been the fate, if you want to. The tape seems to be deeply intimate and personal and, at the same time, universal…So important to me is the film itself, as well as the process of getting to it through memory. When you open the door to the memory you’re facing a corridor with endless doors. And, you open the door you open, then returns to be a hallway with endless doors also. In addition, I wanted to see the world, my world, through the eyes of the character played by Cleo, the indigenous woman who was taking care of me. It was my memory of what it was, but in reality it was his own. I wanted to know what was happening outside the shelter of my social class. She is the brave. Sometimes, I worried a lot that was telling more of the account. The idea was to go to the memory of it and rebuild from within his routines, his own life. And so come to confront who I am now and what I was. It is an act of giving all of the time. There is the courage and the infinite generosity of this person. I don’t know if I missed the question… actually, I meant that certain issues such as class differences, the role of women, violence within the family… All are topics of concern to all and are still there.Without a doubt. In the process I saw Cleo as someone who had not seen, as a woman in all its complexity. And your hand you’re facing issues so perverse as easy for us to get used to to confuse social class with race. That’s as perverse as we see every day today. Other than that, the Mexico was then a Mexico very claustrophobic. Nationalism’s revolutionary PRI sounded at full volume…
The movies are needs and depart from a places unpredictable. ‘Rome’ was an obligation, almost existential, has been with me ever since
In that back in the time of that speech, do you feel disappointed by the state of the world?Yes. On the one hand, you see that you are the oldest of all the computer and you discover in those around you knowledge of the world and a creative energy that was unthinkable in my generation. But, on the other hand, everything remains in the same point. Maybe it’s a constant of humanity. The ethical development is lagging far behind the technological advances. Change the names on how we call our atrocities, but they are still errors: what in the past was called torture then called scientific methods of interrogation; an invasion is an intervention or even a release. We do not move forward. It is not even a regression, it is as if we live now a intensification of the same mistakes. The social disparity is bigger than ever. The increase in wealth has only served to make us more cruel. Morally we are still in the same place. The point of view of the film is that of a woman, and this year has been decisive in the advancement of the rights of women. Then, yes there has been progress, at least…Yes, in fact, it is very exciting everything that is going on. A movement of assets was not since the 70’s. But we lose sight that we are only talking of the first world. All these achievements have not been filtered at all towards the most disadvantaged. And what is more, in the society developed is a minority which enjoys the advances.
The glory is not feeling as frustration. When you see that your works do not connect it is inevitable to feel bad
‘d like to talk about the controversial Netflix.I don’t see it as a problem or controversy. The Coens, Scorsese, you… Can a tv be the future of cinema?My case is something different from them. This film was not started as a project for Netflix. The channel was incorporated because we believe that the best way for the movie was the one who offered them. I’m not sure in the case of the Coens, but Scorsese has had to turn to Netflix because the studies have not offered the resources necessary to complete your tape. In my case, Netflix offered me the possibility of showing around the world with a film as peculiar as this: non-English-speaking, black-and-white and without known actors. But in the tv…Who wants to will be able to see it in the cinema. The public is the one you choose. All the movies, sooner or later, end up in a platform. And let me ask you a question. When was the last time you saw a movie of Pasolini in the film? Long, long ago.How and at home on Blu-ray?Still on DVD, makes it much less.Well, I think that is clear. You have to create models that are more fluid, taking into account that the new generations probably don’t care to go to the cinema. Does it hurt to leave him out of Cannes for being a production of Netflix?It is part of the same controversy. Yes, it hurt, but movies find their way. The only discussion that I do not accept, offends me, is that of those who separate between the protecting film and those watching on Netflix. The discussion is of two economic models different that has nothing to do with the love or the protection of the film. Yes, it is essential that the film always have the option of being in rooms. How do you think the time to treat his work?The only claim that you are looking for as an artist, is living at the time. Children of men, passed without penalty or glory and then has been recovered. But we’ll see for how long. The glory does not feel so much as frustration. When you see that your works do not connect it is inevitable to feel bad.
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