-----------------
And the journalist?

Has he abandoned me too, just like my deodorant? God, what an old joke…

It’s truly frightening: nobody is necessary anymore.

You survive only if you can adapt to your environment. Or to your fears. It doesn’t matter. I can do it alone. I’ll try to split myself into two so that I can project another image of myself onto the other side of the table. Just to give me an idea. It’s easy, you can tell me apart from the background perfectly. It’s me, in front of me.

I see an excessively fat individual, with a beard, maybe to hide a face that is too babyish, with rosy cheeks. Still, he doesn’t look young anymore. He has grey hairs and his receding hairline has travelled so far back in his head that it is now more like an open channel for the rivulets of salty sweat. The fatty hands that hang happily from his arms are a little yucky: as Wyoming once said, they are like a “handful of pricks”. The belly, wide and immense like a deserted planet beneath his tracksuit trousers, generously occupies the centre of the body. It looks like his real brain. His congested feet survive temperatures of hundreds of degrees centigrade within some old tennis shoes. They only dare to come out at night, tormented by the weight that troubles their consciences.

Obviously Álex de la Iglesia isn’t someone obsessed with improving his looks, and even less with improving his hygiene. Stains shine on his shirt like trophies. The smell that he gives off when you get close to him is like that of a baby’s nappy: a strange mixture of perfume and something else, something dark below the surface. He seems to realise and he backs away, delicately.

- Why have you put on so much weight?
- Let’s get this straight. I’m a professional. I carry out my job with dignity and respect and that’s just how I expect to be treated.
- Oh dear… Then I’ll answer, since I’m me. I put on weight because anxiety drives me insane. I eat in between meals, lots of bread, lots of salt, lost of spicy foods.
- Do you believe that excess leads to the palace of Knowledge?
- It can be a strange and tortuous path. For sure, the baroque gives you heart burn but some unhealthy thing always leads me to go over the top. War is the father of all things. The excess of colours and feelings generates good films and bad ones, but at least it doesn’t lead to boring ones. On the other hand, the path of contention only leads to the bathroom. The truth is I don’t totally believe what I am saying here but it is also true that I have mentioned it before in front of a two or three people. Never in front of my mother.
- Don’t you take anything seriously?
- I take everything absolutely seriously, that’s the problem. Everything gives me fear and loathing, like in Vegas.
Pure horror, real panic towards things and people is so intense within me that I conceal it by laughing, even by shyly turning around while batting my eyelashes in order to cover it up.
 

- Do you think this film is different to all the others? [about "La comunidad", (common wealth)]
- In the same measure as I have become a different person. I don’t know if this answers your question.
-No, it doesn’t.
- Undoubtedly, the passage of time generates boredom, hair loss, excess weight but maybe also a certain frame of mind beneficial for creation. When shooting, one faces various problems: lack of talent might be an example, a rather serious one. Some people make up for this with imagination and lots of brazenness. Shameful but effective. A sand castle can become a concrete fort if you work hard and know exactly how to use the plastic cube and the little coloured spade. But with this I don’t mean to say that this is my case. Have I explained myself?
- I got lost around the time of the little coloured spade.
- It doesn’t matter. The film is great, sir, and the actors are just fantastic. No more needs to be said.
- As always, Álex de la Iglesia remains floating on the surface, far from the central issues which he himself has brought up.
- I don’t float much lately.
- That’s true. Let’s get to the bottom. Do you think your films lack the weight which you have an excess of in real life?
- I’m glad you’ve made that bitchy question, dear friend. I’ll certainly tell you that I find Dreyer an excellent director and that, fortunately, Dreyer’s films were made by Dreyer, not by me. Imagine Alex Angulo spoiling the metaphysical precision of a film like “The Word…” with his beret. That’s why I think we should all know our limits and aspire to fill them up with muscle and not with grease, unlike some people I know…
- Are you referring to me, by any chance?
- No, I’m just saying it like that…
- Sure.
- Do you think entertainment redeems your sins?
- Yes, since you ask, I see entertainment as a moral objective, like Preston Sturges.
- That sounded really pretentious.
- You’re right, must be my Jesuitical streak coming out. Sorry.
- Talking about streaks, some people have accused you of being a misogynist. Do you think this film will end such comments?
- “Look here, sir”, as the president says, “look here, sir”: I like women a lot, specially the ones that wear girdles and suspenders, just like Berlanga, the master. I have been known to look through a bondage magazine, true, but always with my parents’ consent. But, in “La Comunidad”, which is what we came here for and the reason for this interview, even though you aren’t asking any questions about my film, in “La Comunidad”, as I was saying, the protagonist is a woman, an arresting woman, a woman of character, strength, and great feeling and…
- I would go further…
- Go ahead.
- I would say it is a feminine character that will be understood better by women than by men.
- I won’t believe that till I see it.
-You’ll see then. And now I will ask you, since you seem to be such a smartass: Aren’t you worried that people will say that “El día de la bestia” (they day of the beast) is your best film?.
- My best film will always be my latest film.
- Right. You say that because you are currently promoting “La Comunidad”
- And because it sounds like something Cary Grant could say “Only angels have wings”.
- You don’t fool me, man. The one I’ve always liked best is “Perdita Durango” (Dance with the devil).
- Same as me, but people said that it was very violent.
- Well, that’s the way things are now. By the way, to finish, what do you want to tell us about “La Comunidad”?
- A pleasant story about something that is really sad.
- You sound as if you were speaking in Garci’s TV programme.
- Don’t say anything bad about Garci, I really admire him.
- Sure!…
- I swear! I saw "Solos en la madrugada" 15 times! And “El Crack”? It’s really good.
- What are you saying? Where’s the young rebel of “Acción Mutante” (mutant action)?
- You sound like my grandmother!

(The two men fight, pulling at each other’s beards. The bellies move, like balloons in a funfair.)
 
 
© Alex de la Iglesia 2005