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A SELF INTERVIEW
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Q: When the psychiatrist asks Javier Cámara's
character what his problem is, he replies: "Loneliness,
I guess".
A: Marco (Darío Grandinetti) also tells the two
women in the film on two very different occasions that
he's lonely. In both cases, neither Benigno nor Marco
gets melodramatic about it, they're simply stating a
fact. Loneliness is something which all the characters
in the film have in common. Alicia and Lydia are lonely
too. And Katerina, the ballet mistress. And Alicia's
father, although it's likely that after a while he'll
have an affair with the receptionist in his consultancy.
And the nurse played by Mariola Fuentes, secretly in
love with her fellow worker Benigno. And the housekeeper
in Benigno's building. Even the only unpleasant character,
the despicable interviewer played by Loles León,
ends up alone on the set, talking to the camera because
Lydia (quite rightly) has stormed off in the middle
of the interview. And the bull is left alone in the
huge ring when Lydia is taken to the infirmary, fatally
injured... "Loneliness, I guess" is another
possible title for this film.
Q: In a self interview, a genre with which you're familiar,
how does the loneliness affect you? What do you feel
at the absence of an interlocutor... nostalgia... or
contempt?
A: I don't feel contempt for anything, not even for
things I hate. The reason I interview myself is for
practical rather than endogamic reasons. I say what
I want to say and in the fastest way possible. In any
case, a self interview is a written piece and writing
is always done in solitude.
Q: Have you ever realized that you were talking to yourself?
A: Right now.
Q: I mean in your life, without whatever you say necessarily
appearing in print.
A: Yes. A few months ago. I caught myself doing it on
several days. I did it either in the morning, when I'd
just got up, or at night. (I've been told that Buñuel
also talked to himself in the morning, to check on how
his deafness was progressing). I was doing it to check
the sound and power of my voice. I lost my voice during
the shoot and for a few weeks when I got up after the
long nocturnal silence, I'd talk to myself in bed or
in front of the mirror. "How's my voice today?",
I'd ask myself. "Much better. If I don't force
it, I may make it through to the evening." I've
always believed in words, even when you've got no voice...
or no one to talk to.
Q: Is that the message in Talk To Her?
A: As in any film, the message is "Go see it";
then, in a subliminal way, "and tell your friends
about it".
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