September 2010 By Philip Berk
Q: The film is based on another work, unusual for him. How much of the original novel was used?
A: I read the book a long time ago. It took me more time to write an adaptation than to write an original script. It’s the perfect book to read on a short flight. It was very entertaining. But there was something that hooked me. Basically it’s the same situation as in my movie, the revenge of a father. As an adaptor I am very faithful. but as someone who is going to direct, you see the material in a very different way. The plastic surgeon is in the book, but the idea he was working on a new skin is not in the book, which is an important element of the movie. I abandoned the book from year to year, and in the end all that remained was the revenge.
Q: How has Antonio evolved since he worked with you on Tie me Up Tie Me Down
A: Antonio is a wonderful actor to perform passion, craziness, desire. Elements very important in my movies. Psychopaths. In Tie Me Up he was less psycho than here. Here he is really very dangerous. He’s like the monster in my movie. But the tone that I asked him to use here is the opposite of Tie Me Up. In Tie Me Up everything is exterior. He’s a Baroque guy, very explosive. Here I said to him, Try to do nothing, just be this empty face. Over the 29 years many things have happened to Antonio. I am very happy with his performance. but I’m even happier to recover a friend who was very important to me in the 80’s.
Q: Do you look at your old movies and is that easier for a director than an actor?
A: I don’t look at my old movies, with one exception, Law of Desire. I saw it four months ago in a theatre in Madrid. It was the second time I saw it since the opening. 26 years is enough distance, because for a director after the mixing (final cut) you don’t have the sensibility to watch your work. It’s destroyed by the mixing. Before the mixing you have an opinion of what the movie is about, but after it’s completely destroyed, it’s more painful for the director to watch. For the actor, even if it’s a bad movie, he could have a wonderful performance in it, and actors they really only see themselves. I am not complaining. I am not judging them. But I can say at the first screening the actors see only their parts, they don’t see anything about the entire movie. Maybe the second or third time but the first time all they see is themselves, and if they are good they’re wonderful. But I have a different consciousness about the movie, one that is more demanding, because I know what my original dream was, and its very difficult if the reality doesn’t meet that dream.
What does the movie say about transgenders?
“I always have and always will defend transsexuals and transgenders. It’s not just a whim. It’s something that takes time and a lot of money. It’s not their fault to be born in a body that’s not theirs. In the 70s this had to be done in a clandestine and very dangerous way. Now the situation in Spain has changed a lot. In my movie the transsexuality is used like a punishment even more awful than you can imagine, but the movie is also about identity, which is very important. I don’t think the technological advances that are enacted on a person, as terrible as we see them in the film, makes identity irrelevant; identity is not corporeal. Despite all those abuses. he prevails. (Spoiler alert) For that reason it was very important to put this kind of epilogue where Vera goes back to the village. At that moment it is clear to him that she is the same person that he was before.
The film is so dark did you ever think of making it in black and white?
Q: I belong to a culture that is very Baroque, I am very Baroque. This is the way I look at cinema. When I started watching movies as a child. it was in Technicolor. The colors of my childhood were very deep. My mother wore black for thirty years, because she was in mourning. This is our traditional culture. This is the habit in La Mancha. It was my mother’s revenge for living most of her life in mourning. Even when I was conceived she wore black. But the colors I use in my recent films are darker than before and therefore there is no reason to shoot in back and white.”
Q: Have you started work on your next project?
A: I have four projects, two of them more developed. I want to make a movie much cheaper than The Skin I LIve In. I want to become smaller in every sense but not make any concessions.
Q: Are you optimistic?
A: I try to look at the situations in my life and accept them. Life is still incredibly interesting for me. My last film was about a blind director. In a way I was speaking of myself. I have spent a lot of time in darkness, and it used to affect me. Now I’m more at ease with those conditions, but absolutely merciless,