Congratulations on the film Alejandro.
It's a real epic.
Thank you.
And it's a very personal film for you.
I know, because you're using your own memories, your own dreams in it.
When you make a film that's drawn
so much on your your personal life and experience is
how does that affect the way you react to the reviews that you get for it?
I don't really.
As simple as that. You don't read them at all.
You say, no, no.
I have never read reviews, I have to say.
And I do that because I think the film is done.
You know what I mean?
There's nothing I can do differently.
So in a way, I have been trying to, to to discipline myself
and try to keep myself tried to truthful to what I think
is the right thing for the film without being affected by it.
And the good ones and the bad ones.
I'm not lying that I've been informed about the reactions, of course,
but I don't go into the details of that because again,
if those comments will be done when I'm doing the film and I will
have some trust of somebody told me it will
it will be useful, but now what is the use of that?
So I try to keep myself away from it,
respecting every aspect of every approach of everybody that see the film.
I did the film
and everybody can say whatever they want, but there's no useful in me.
Do you find disciplining yourself in that way easy or difficult?
Easy. Because I have been doing it
for a long time, so in a way for me has been liberating.
I think it could be incredibly paralyzing to be exposed to that,
especially now in the social media thing that I do not participate to.
I'm just I will say that if I will be a 25 year old guy, that is,
you know, and I will be scrutinized by these thousands and millions of voices.
I don't know if that is a possible way to create something.
That is the way that you have freedom on it.
So I will be paralyzed, probably, you know what I mean?
Will you be looking over your shoulder all the time?
Yeah, I think that can be a very, very convoluted and not very healthy way
to create from that from from from from the confidence
that you need to use to to know what is what your voice is telling you.
So anyway, that's that's the way I think I have been dealing
with this, you know, and that is such a personal film as well.
Do you think this perhaps is the most difficult film you've ever made? Yes.
Yes, because it is not easy.
I, I think it was
it was a natural, organic and process that I went through.
But I think it's it's
a difficult one because there is no rules, there is no recipe.
There is no a guideline.
There is there's something that you have to really navigate
into these very elusive waters of memories and feelings and emotions and things
and then how to really those can be translated
and if they will make sense even for you or to the people.
That's why I, I know that people can be irritated because it's it's it's in a way,
it's a very provocative kind of thing that when you do a very intimate
out of fiction, as it happened in literature
a lot and he's so celebrated in film in a way, he can be much more punish
or kind of kind of like not understood.
But it's it's a difficult territory because obviously
it's close to your heart and your affections and your.
But I'm not that's why I wanted to get
this in a tone of a comedy or a nostalgic comedy,
because I'm not claiming true that he is not autobiographical,
but he has the emotional conviction of things that I have been going through
that sometimes can be painful, but I recover
a lot of joy and understanding, and it was liberating.
And but I think technically to be navigating or what I wanted,
which is to put the people in a journey of a dream and reality
and be navigating the middle of that between real and imagination.
It was very challenging to understand how to do it.
I have never done a film like that.
So yes, it's super, super difficult.
But but for both reasons.
When I was watching the
film, there were times when it actually made me think of Birdman.
And I think that was because of the the long one take shots,
which are almost like a trademark for you, really.
We tend to associate them with you.
Why do you find filming in that way so good, so much your style?
No, I don't think it's good or bad or right.
Obviously works for you.
That is what I feel that in a way,
my first four films I didn't play with the structure,
some narrative and shoot it in a much more conventional language of,
you know, close up, close up to shot wide shot
got next.
I got tired of that, I think.
But but more importantly, I think in Birdman, it was a need.
So what I'm saying, I do not shoot or I do not in a way,
put first the style and then the substance.
I think the way you shoot the film, the way I shot the film in a way,
subordinate it to the story and the character, and most importantly,
is which point of view I want these to be told and which point of view.
I want to put the audience from that camera angle.
That's the most important thing.
So that understanding for me
is like if you're talking third person, the second person or the first person.
So once I decide that in this case it was only from the point
of view radically from a
flow of
consciousness or even the subconscious of the character.
I needed to make that camera from a dream state
to navigate in a way I understand dreams or
I felt dreams happen to me and I want the context.
And again, this line between reality and imagination and dream.
I thought that that style and that way and that grammatical decision that I did
it, it's, I think is serving the purpose of what I understand
was the best for this film.
You know, that's the decision that I made.
And Bardo is actually the first time you filmed.
Filmed in Mexico since Amores perros in
2000. Hmm.
What was it like going back to your home country?
To film is very similar to what the character
going through, which was a meta experience.
You know, I think a lot of things are meta in this film.
A lot of scenes of this film, in a way, came out of the film,
of the reactions of people of these film that I knew.
And when I was writing, I knew that I would be going through
exactly what the character is going because it's something that is close.
It's, you know, I'm he said it was fascinating.
And when I returned to Mexico was beautiful to to to really recover
that thing.
But at the same time we like to find the new old friends
that expectations and misunderstand
the things and contradictions and paradoxes are met
with the joy and with the affection and with that, you know.
So it was very interesting for me to leave that, you know, was beautiful.
Alejandro, thank you very much.