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NERVES AND TEARS
As Raphael used to say, "men also cry", but I think
women are better at it. That's why the title is "Women on
the verge…" and not "Men…".
Before 1968, when a girl dumped a boy, that boy was forced to become
a hero via personal affairs or doing something for mankind (discovering
a new vaccine or something).
After 1968, with the arrival to the big screen of the unshaven anti-hero
troubled by some war or unfortunate marriage, dumped boys behaved
with their feet down to earth and did not plunge into charity matters.
On the contrary, they would usually quit their jobs and left the
bathroom to start drinking compulsively. And driven by alcohol's
easiness, they would focus all their energy on kicking up a fuss
with family, work mates and finally (after being rejected by everyone)
waiters; the sole beings traditionally doomed on scripts to listen
with impunity until the boy received his Oscar for looking
so good with beard and bags under his eyes.
It's not my point to deny that boys suffer, and that solitude is
such a burden as heavy on our shoulders as it is on women's, but,
who's interested nowadays on making a film on the subject? I'm definitely
not. Girls, they do know how to react when their boyfriend dumps
them. They ignore everything about shame and ridicule, nor about
that terrible thing people used to call self-respect. Theirs are
reactions with endless registers.
Women are perfectly aware of the fact that they need love to keep
breathing, and they are determined to defend it be that as it may;
since all types of weapons are allowed in that eternal war.
If a girl is dumped by her lover for another woman, she has no problem
with running down the street to find out who the Other is, and even
pushing her down the hill in case she turns out to be as stupid
as to climb it. But if she can't manage to push her, then she'll
try to become friends so as to make the rival feel guilty and tell
her private things about their common lover. Sometimes, the best
antidote for love (apart from group therapy, religious cults, needlework
and handcraft in general) consists on finding new details about
your old boyfriend and realize you had idolized him, that deep down
he's a weak and lying looser, someone you definitely don't want
to share you future with.
THE THESIS
Last has been a disaster-filled year. The world desperately needs
a good fix of optimism. That's why I've tried to make a film where
everything's fine and beautiful, even if it doesn't look real.
I want to give the impression that society has finally become humanized.
People dress good and live in beautiful houses with beautiful views,
public services work properly and drugstores don't ask for prescriptions.
Everything is nice, artificial and thin. Good taste rules the atmosphere
and no one needs to get away because life is comfortable and deserves
being lived.
The downside is that boys still dump girls, and that leads to trouble.
But all stories need their tension element, otherwise there would
be no narrative.
THE VOICE
In the beginning there was the Verb, that is, the Uttered
Word: the Voice of God. But I was somehow more impressed
by the "Human Voice."
When I started writing the script for "Mujeres al borde
de un ataque de nervios", I was thinking about a free adaptation
of Cocteau's monologue. In that work, the absent lover has
no voice, even when he calls her up and she answers the phone, we
can't hear him. The Human Voice is hers, telling her endless
catalog of her daily suffering, in which contemplation she drowns
like in a bottomless well. Because that's what absence is, a blind
and crystal-clear mirror where only fear is reflected.
But unlike Cocteau, I've not only granted the absent with
voice, I've even turned him into a "voice professional."
When I finished writing the script, the only thing from Cocteau
that stayed (apart from the atrezzo: a woman, a telephone and a
suitcase) was what he didn't write: the words of the absent one.
And his lies.
Pepa has a lot of things to tell her ex-lover about, and she seeks
him throughout the 3,000 meters of film to tell him, but doesn't
find him. To get relief, she tells the cops who come for her friend
Candela about it. Used to listening to informers as they
are, the cops had never heard about such moving and sincere secrets
as Pepa's, even though these keep no relation whatsoever
with the reason of their call.
Ivan's body is his voice, and is treated as such, something physical.
I've tried to capture it, not only hear it moving around Pepa's
living room like the breeze-transported smell of a dish, or the
videotapes Ivan has recorded.
Ivan's voice runs away from others' because he's weak and incapable
of answering. He'd rather talk to machines because they'll never
argue with him, they'll just repeat what he says loyally. Machines
lack flesh and bones, they don't answer to lies nor suffer from
them.
Ivan is mediocre as a person, but the pain he causes on the women
he seduces provide him with a certain magnitude.
PENCIL SKIRTS AND HEELS
Pepa abuses pencil skirts and heels. The truth is that she
looks good on them, but they forced her to walk in a way that Susan
Sontag (as she told Elle magazine after visiting the set)
finds inappropriate for an independent and contemporary woman. I
understand and agree with Sontag when she fights sex polarization,
but that has nothing to do with Pepa. Women must feel free even
when it comes to choosing the clothes they wear. With as much respect
for the Barbie impersonator as for the Charlot look-alike
-Annie Hall for example.
But I admit there is a surplus of pencil skirts and heels on Pepa's
image, mainly because the character is always running up and down
the film as if struggling for a world record, and that's a difficult
thing to do when you dress like that.
I told Carmen Maura about it.
-With so much action, don't you think the tight skirt and high heels
will make you feel uncomfortable?
And Carmen answered:
-Of course they will, but I'll look as if they didn't. To a character
as Pepa is, heels are the best support for dealing with fear.
Should Pepa neglect her look, her mood would stumble down
hopelessly. Flirting takes discipline and it represents her main
power. It means that the others can't defeat her yet.
TELEPHONES
All artists need to have traumas in their CV's. I obviously do.
An example: having worked for ten years in a Telefonica's cellar.
"Mujeres..." is an outrageous attempt against telephones
and answering machines. It isn't true that humans communicate with
one another on the phone. Telephones are good just to show others
how little we care about them. And the answering machine is just
an applet for liars. For this film I've allowed myself to release
my subconscious, and the protagonist throws the telephone out the
window twice and once the answering machine.
Let me give a piece of advise to anyone waiting hopelessly for a
call to throw the phone set out the window. It's much better than
hanging one's self from the line. In this way, "Mujeres..."
is an positive and optimistic movie.
I think I'm a little weak lately, since hope happens to be my favorite
message nowadays.
HIGH COMEDY
High Comedies keep away from natural sets. Places are wide
and artificial, even if their tenants are broke. There are thousands
of phone calls and the doorbell is always ringing. People speak
fast, as if actors couldn't think about what they say. Walking is
also faster than usual and there's no time for the characters to
reflect on their actions.
Sometimes, High Comedies include elements from horror and
adventure films. For example, there's a lot of things going on and
the characters' lives usually hang from a thread. But instead of
jungles, Indians, waterfalls, evil creatures, living dead or hidden
treasures, the action takes place in the heart of a wealthy family
(kitchen, living room, bedroom...) or at bars, cafés, museums
or art auctions. Tension is not felt in the blood, and even if they
hate one another, characters don't usually go as far as murdering;
no matter how close they get.
The human being's deepest ambitions are treated in High Comedies
in an abstract way, almost synthetically. The top and commonest
one is being happy or unhappy with the one you love. Such ambition,
dramatically speaking, happens to be as complex and extraordinary
as saving the world from WWIII.
I think this definition fits "Mujeres..." just
fine. You can talk about high comedy, it's very sentimental.
SENTIMENTAL
All nonsense seems credible if developed on a feelings' surface.
Sentimental excitement is always the best vehicle for telling a
story. And so is humor, of course. For a comedy of any kind to be
considered as such, it has to breath humor, whatever its color.
SOLITUDE, MEN AND MOTORBIKES
Solitude is not the worst thing that can happen, and excess of company
(even if it's music) may eventually turn terrible -as Julie
Andrews said in "The Sound of Music": "One
captain and seven children are reason enough to start trembling."
The worst thing is the feeling of helplessness provoked by the shock
of being dumped.
The problem with men and women is that, even though they belong
to the same specie and look alike physically (jackals also look
like dogs and they aren't dogs), they can't manage to get along.
That's how it is and always will.
At the end of the film, a rocker girl tells Pepa she prefers motorbikes
to men. And Pepa answers: "It's easier to learn mechanics
than male psychology. You can get to know a bike in depth, but never
a man."
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PHOTOS