Carlos Reygadas Interview | “We Must Get Independence From Doctoring of Art In Cinema”

Yes. As a filmmaker, you wonder whether certain decisions you think as radical were good or not. But it was just few minutes longer, maybe six or seven. Like that scene at the inn where Johan goes to meet Marianne—there was a bit more of social interaction. I thought I should strip that away and render less the influence of social context. I think it’s a good decision.

I didn’t necessarily start with the Mennonites. Many have assumed the film’s events exclusively happening with that community, but it’s a mistake. I thought of this happening in a hospital in Mexico city, between few doctors and nurses. But I passed by some camps and thought the community could be a perfect example. It’s classless—there would be no specific socially organized contexts. It’d be simpler to talk with examples like a woman, a man, a father, a dog. It’d just be about the pain in the heart that kills somebody and what happens to the person who causes the pain but wants to be loyal. The dynamics of attraction and infatuation could be at the center. What I love most about the Mennonites is they are very receptive to the elements.

We’ve been remastering all the movies that I shot on film. I don’t really like to revisit the films other than for these purposes. I’d rather leave the past. At the restoration screening, I left immediately before the end credits even started rolling. But my children—who are sixteen and seventeen—did say the film seems like it was made yesterday. It’s treating the way we desire, our confusion, hopes and deceit, falling and trying to get up again–these things are part of our nature, these things never grow old if you pay attention. Some bring up slow cinema. I don’t agree. It’s not about the speed but how deep you can look. It’s also only how we can survive violence of the past and present. The details inform everything.

We must observe, connect, think deeply, instead of being flag-wavers. There’s great turbulence in the world but I’m optimistic that we’ll carry on.

The whole film cannot create a strong energy if it’s not organized. Perception of images and its building block, the cyclicality of time while watching a film—all demand a clear pre-visualization. To be able to connect the dots and create a net, the object must have a form. It’s not about serving a purpose, because that’s too prescriptive, but just so that the object can be what it is. You have to be alive at the time of the shoot, even till the last stage of sound mixing to see what’s happening and decide on the structure. Many things do pop out of spaces beyond your vision and you must be porous to allow that. For the film I’m doing now, I didn’t storyboard but did the dialogues. Many think I improvise but it doesn’t work. I did try for the new film but it works much better when you have things written down—those which have been processed and thought out. The more you prepare, the better you will be at receiving surprise and being flexible.

You’re totally right. I’ll say, though, all of the film is equally important. The opening seems more so because it’s the first point of contact. But taking up the book comparison, the strain to start with a perfect image does bring in an unnecessary rigidity. If you try too hard, it’ll clog the film’s energy and movement. A balance must be there, and then you’ve to be awake to the dialogue, intonations, tempo, the true presence of the actors and corresponding energy among them. This is the difficult part. Film should be conceptually well-thought like literature—but then, it has to be lived in a uncontrolled way.

More than death bringing a lapsing of time, time stops for us when we’re in moments of big crisis. It can be a death, a heartbreak, an economic hardship, anything traumatic. Memory works out of time. Of course, I can conceptualize this only now. When I wrote the film, it was more intuitive. It’s intuition that creates—rationality is just a check-up mechanism you may not always need to use. The main strength of a film or any work of art should stem from intuition, and it doesn’t need to be clarified on when you create.

Many invoke the Dreyer film, Ordet (1955), while talking of Silent Light. That leaned more into divine intervention and faith. Through those, the woman in Ordet wakes up. My film tilts deeper into psychological dimensions. Maybe it’s what Johan would have longed for. Reality is what seems to be dominant but actually, it’s also comprising what we long for and regret and dream. I like the fact the resurrection could have happened because of love, because of two women kissing and bringing deliverance. Maybe it’s impossible, but we all long for it so it could be a part of our nature and reality to think this way. I’m trying to escape the real in what’s only the physical present tense. Reality, in my view, is what each one of us perceives as life. It’s a human concept that refers to perception only.

Purely, I don’t tell the rationale. I don’t think you need to express something in particular to convey something. It’s the whole mechanism that’s constructing an emotional dimension where things will happen. The other day, someone who watched the film for the first time told me they love the fact they could see characters in the film thinking. Now, of course, there are all sorts of cliched images to connote a person locked in thought. But how is it you know what’s happening inside or behind something that doesn’t let you see? How do you know someone is angry, not necessarily because of the facial expression they are forming? Rather, there’s an emotional dimension that has been created at a particular space and time. You don’t need actors to know this. They should bring in their physical presence, words and movements together, which will create a whole. But it’s not a thumb rule. Sometimes though you can share more details with the actors which may spark something. For example, for the scene where Esther dies by the tree, the actress thought of her father, who died in traumatic circumstances.

Well, I never really wanted to be a jury member till I was 50 (laughs). First, I accepted the Locarno invitation, then Cannes followed. It’s not my favorite position. Honestly, as much as I love my hand, I think in universal human terms. What unites us is the human condition.

Yes, we must get independence from all doctoring of art in cinema. This can’t go right because this is a doctoring for standardization. Art is precisely the opposite. We’re in such a longing for prevalence it’s dangerous. Unfortunately, the world we inhabit is such a fight for resources so this permeates every other aspect of life. We have to break this system. We don’t even have to believe in ourselves, instead be ready for failure. The most important thing to remember is we have just one life and it’s short. Use it to be who you need to be. Enjoyment, maybe, is not a real thing, but not living with fear is enough.