Saying that Carlos Atanes is an odd filmmaker is a slight euphemism. The Spanish author shows universes that are so strange that it is hard to understand anything for the everyday audience. His movies mix philosophy, poetry and sociologic thoughts and get a surrealistic aesthetics which sometimes remind of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s colourful frenzies.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) throws us into a futurist world where women have taken hold of the power. Mutant animals, biological experiences and masculine spying: the components are given one by one and the stake is hard to understand. We kind of get that this modern society forbids any physical contact, which is an enormous issue for a pornographic filmmaker!
Angeline is a young woman who lives with Nono, a mute young man who is a sound mixer. He is at Angeline’s disposal and has to serve her glasses of milk whenever she asks for it. Angeline wants to join the brotherhood, ironically named because it is an organisation only composed of women. Even if we understand globally what is going on, it remains hard to know where we are going and we are often lost with Angeline’s logorrhoea who talks a lot about everything. Concerning the settings, the choice is meticulous and we are travelling in the squalid streets of Paris, in the autumnal Pyrenees and in a reddening and arid desert.
Metaminds & Metabodies takes place in a quite squalid pub which is the antechamber of Hell. A play is played out on stage. A woman is tied up by her hair to barbed wires. A kind of devil dominates her and is torturing her, undercover of a mysterious contract. But the woman manages to escape and shots the devil with a gun. In the audience, another woman, hysterical, attacks everyone. The drama on stage is mixing with what’s happening at the bar until we do not understand anymore what is real or played.
As in FAQ, Atanes accumulates levels of reality until the audience is lost. Once again, we do not understand what’s happening, except that there are violent conflicts between the characters, all hysterical, a little like in Andrzej Zulawski’s movies.
With Morfing, Atanes puts himself on stage and creates a work on the job as a film maker, with introspection about his obsessions. And as he is a little crazy in his mind, it makes a maelstrom of pictures and ideas where the difficulties of the independent cinema come one after the other (find financing, convince the actresses). These actresses criticize him a lot in the dressing rooms and he makes them intervene: they say that he is a pervert who only thinks about filming them getting undressed. In a masochistic momentum, the producer films himself trying to commit suicide. But a bunch of producers try to stop him (among them: Nacho Cerda and Jaume Balaguero!) Morfing shows us a lot. The characters speak a lot without stopping. It gives velocity to the movie, either we are sucked in, either we are overflowed with these countless words.
His most crazy movie is certainly Welcome to Spain, the opposite of a touristic postcard. A young man meets his father at the airport but the two do not get on well. The movie is mostly worth it with the sequence called the stairs, where the main character tries to go up when the others try to stop him at the risk of their lives. This sequence is ten minutes long and there is blood, sex and food: everything in the stairs. Once again, we seem to see a metaphor of the difficulties encountered by Atanes to end a movie.
Translated by Camille.
Dvds are available. For more info, check out http://www.carlosatanes.com/
Interview with director Carlos Atanes
How have you become a director ?
I am still becoming a director! In fact, I am basically a writer who can occasionally shoot my ideas. Every film I make is like doing the first one, and I want to surprise myself with every new work. I started to make movies in 1987 with my friends and a video camera. Since then I have not changed essentially my philosophy. More people, better cameras and a greater budget (often, not always), but I keep a totally independent working way, for better or for worse.
How did you meet Arantxa Pena ?
In a casting, a lot of years ago. I was preparing my infamous “The Metamorphosis of Franz Kafka” and she was a wannabe actress. The rest is History of Cinema.
What’s the matter with the milk ?
I don’t know… What’s the matter ?
Why is FAQ in French language ?
“FAQ” began improvising a shooting in the forest. The actress was French, and I liked she spoke in her language. Then I wrote the screenplay and placed the action in France. So it was normal to continue in French. Suddenly I felt everything fitted properly, and the film was becoming what many people reckon as a “French arty movie”. That’s so funny!
I didn’t understand many things, is it normal or am I dumb ?
Even me don’t understand all! It is not worrying. All the films I like are a little incomprehensible, a little
mysterious. The total clarity is boring and easy to forget. I am sure if you watch “FAQ” again you’ll see things you didn’t noticed the first time. I think a dumb is not a person who does not understand entirely something, but somebody who thinks that a movie, a book, whatever else (the world itself!) must be absolutely intelligible. Art and life are full of ineffable aspects.
FAQ and Proxima both seem pretty “sweet” compared to your short movies? What happened ? Have you calmed down ?
Yes, it does if you compare them with “CODEX ATANICUS” trilogy. But it is not meaninful. I have done just two (finished) feature movies. Several of my shortfilms are also sweet compared with the “CODEX”. The “CODEX” is especially disturbing, but maybe my next feature would be even more crazy, hard and annoying. Who knows. I prefer not to jump the gun. I like challenge myself. I am older but not exhaust.
Is Welcome to spain a clip to attract tourists in your country ?
Sure. As you can see in the film we have sunny reedbeds, tripe, hens and bold girls. What else can a tourist ask for ?
Is there a meaning to Welcome to spain or is it just complete madness ?
The plot contains a very simple message: how much hard is to do aything here! You’re always surrounded by envious bastards who have nothing to do but stopping you. But don’t misinterpret me, I’m clear about there are suckers aywhere around the world. I know it’s a widespread trouble, but I am Spaniard and in the time when I shooted it I felt especially weighed down, so my country carried the can.
Nevertheless, besides the message “Welcome to Spain” is, yes, a complete madness.
How have you managed to imply famous directors in Morfing ?
I called all the filmmakers I scarcely knew personally at that time, when I was living in Barcelona. It’s not a big town and all the filmmakers from there knew each other directly or indirectly, more or less. But notice that some of them, for example Jaume Balagueró, was not still famous. He had made only one or two shortilms in those days.
José María Nunes instead was a living legend, as he’s still now, and he was kind enough to come (he had played before a role into my “Metamorphosis”). All of them improvised their dialogues according to their own idiosyncrasy. Of course Nunes declaimed an apology of suicide, one of his favourite subjects.
Can you make a living with your movies ?
Oh, yes, of course… Not just a living for me, but for the banks that give me credits for making the movies. I’m not a selfish person, so I work for them. Bankers are very happy with me and they repair their yatchs thanks to my films.
What will be your next movie about ?
I am now taking up again my old project of making a feature movie about Aleister Crowley, the British magician. The screenplay is finished and I am looking for financing and co-producers from around the world. I hope I could shoot it next year, in spring, gods willing.