Q - Do you picture yourself telling movies to your grandchildren?
A- It's taking me a while to have grandchildren… But I don't think I would, anyway.

Q - You spent last New Year's Eve in Salvador de Bahía, at Caetano Veloso's...
A- Yes, it brings me luck. That's where I wrote "All About my Mother."


Q - Did you make your offering to Yemanyá, the sea goddess?
A- Yes, I did. Words can't describe seeing the natives -most of them dressed in white- sowing the waves with flowers...

Q - And what did you ask from Yemanyá?
A- I asked her to make "Talk to Her," work. I also asked her to let me promote the film without being let down, without being old-fashioned prejudices -I hope the politically correct days are gone; otherwise I'd be doomed. And I ask her for love as well. And for the end of trash TV, and the current trend of shooting from behind the actors, making the audience sick. I've also asked her for a son, and for wearing a different hairstyle -I'm sick of the usual one. Not to gain any more weight. Even to loose it. And to gain back the stupid optimism of the early eighties -without drugs. I've asked Yemanyá to have Ingmar Bergman think of me before thinking of Liv Ullman as soon as he's finished with his new script. There's nothing I wouldn't have done for directing "Faithless." And I'll definitely think about the rest of the world; it sounds stupid to ask for Peace, Common Sense, for Africa to raise from its agony, for no more famine, no more injustice, no more lethal viruses, no more terrorism, for the Afghan women to be free to look around, to go to the movies, for the Argentineans to have enough to live on... for so many things it's going to take Yemanyá a lot of overtime to bestow on me... My sense of humor leaves me whenever I think of common needs.

Q - What do you think of the industry in Spain today?
A- I think it's alive and diverse, as it's always been. In general terms, my opinion is that the last two harvests have not been so good, but ours is an individualistic industry. Last year Javier Bardem was nominated for the Oscar, which is definitely a milestone, and Amenábar has won this year's "sleeper" in the U.S. -and I bet he's to win plenty of Oscar nominations... But the harvest has been rather discreet, although the American has been even worse. And one other particularity this season is that the best films in Spanish language -and please forgive me, my dear colleagues- are either Mexican or Argentinean. "The Swamp," "The Girlfriend's Son," and "Nine Queens" are three of the ten best films this year...

Q - Where did you find inspiration for "Talk to Her"?
A- Several actual events occurred in the last ten years. I've been taking notes all this time.

1: Patricia Whit Bull wakes up from a coma 16 years later. She was in such condition since the birth of her fourth son... doctors said her state was irreversible.
2: In the former Yugoslavia, a young night guard on duty at the morgue feels attracted by the corpse of a young woman. Death's solitude, added to night's, seemed too much solitude, so the young guard sets his feelings free and lies with the young body. What happens next is one of those miracles of human nature the Pope doesn't enjoy much; as a form of reaction to such romantic outburst, the girl wakes back to life. Her illness was a sort of catalepsy, and her death was only apparent (someone in France took also note of the case and made a film about two years ago). Even though her family was so thankful to the rapist, they couldn't prevent his being sent to jail. But they brought him food every day and hired a good lawyer for the defense. A tricky dilemma this was: on the one hand, legally speaking the boy was just a rapist, but for the family who lived reality according to their feelings, the boy was the one who had brought their girl back to life.
3- In NYC, a patient who's spent nine years in a coma is made pregnant. Few days later the police finds the father is a male nurse. This really struck me: How may someone who's clinically dead breed any sort of life?
4- I think it was Cocteau who said that "beauty" could turn painful. Well, I guess he was speaking about people's beauty, because there are situations in life made of unexpected and extraordinary beauty forms that make you break into tears, tears of pain rather than pleasure.
5- When I first saw "Child's Play" or "The Incredible Shrinking Man" I always dreamed of making a movie around a miniature character; a movie in which furniture legs and topography where the key elements of a main set. In fact, I even wrote a paper years ago about a tiny man.
All these events together -and the memory of love- brought me the inspiration necessary to write the script of "Talk to Her."

Q - Apart from making self-interviews, do you ever speak to yourself?
A- No, and I find it amazing when I see people on the streets speaking alone. But wait, some months ago I did spend several days talking to myself -I'd do it in the morning, right after getting up from bed, or at nights …
(I've been told that Buñuel used to speak to himself in the morning, just to check the evolution of his deafness). But I did it just to check the tone and pitch of my voice; I lost it during the shooting and, for some weeks, after getting up from the night silence I would look at myself in the mirror and say: "How's my voice today? Much better, if I don't force it I might make it through the day." I've always believed in words, even when you're voiceless or lack an interlocutor.

Pedro Almodóvar | december 2001|

Photos de Miguel Bracho ©