A RARE CINEMA TREASURE:
JOSÉ LUIS GUERÍN

By Gabe Klinger

Barcelona, Friday March 8th, 7:00 P.M. I'm meeting José Luis Guerín at the school where he teaches, the University Pompeu Fabra, which rests in the heart of the Eixample, the city's far-stretching Art Nouveau quarter. It's the end of the business day, and the people on the street are anxious to get home. As hoards of students exit the university lobby, bidding bona nit to the security check, Guerín suddenly floods out with them. I fail to notice him in the crowd, but he makes himself present: "Have you been waiting long," he asks humbly, "Let me see if I can get a room for us to talk."

Earlier in the year I had seen his latest film, En construcción, at the Rotterdam Film Festival, which Guerín notes "has been very good to me." Impressed and curious, I had not seen a film by the 41 year-old Spanish director since 1996's Tren de Sombras, an experimental film of astounding beauty and substance. Later, I was able to find out about his earlier features, Los Motivos de Berta (1983) and Innisfree (1990), and his segment titled "Eulalia-Marta" in the collaborative City Life (1988). Since he rarely makes films, and none of them have been distributed Stateside, this process of demystification has been nothing less than revelatory for me. With this interview, I wish to share my excitement in discovering José Luis Guerín.

En construcción is a film that, for reasons that will become clear over the course of the interview, stands aside in Guerín's body of work: as his first documentary - inclusively, his first government-funded film -, his first occasion working with universsity students as opposed to professional technicians, and finally, his first film to take place in the city of Barcelona, where he was was born and has lived most his life. It's easy to mistake parts of the film as fiction; Guerín does not use showy cinema techniques to tell the story. However, there is a clear-cut structure which becomes apparent once the initial scenes - which take place at the discovery of a Roman cemetery - have advanced into the crux of the film. Officially, En construcción takes place during an 18-month period surrounding the construction of a new apartment building in a neighborhood Guerín refers to as a "nook."

This neighborhood, known as "El Xino" (or roughly, Chinatown), stands opposite Barcelona's gothic quarter and houses many immigrants, factory workers, and also prostitutes and drug dealers (though the film gets away with eliding the fact that this is also the city's most dangerous neighborhood). As the construction of the new building starts, workers find the Roman burial site and begin excavate bodies, much to the diversion and fascination of the neighbors and passers-by. In these intrinsic moments, the camera settles on a variety of characters who become the film's nuclear family: two pot-smoking teens who squat a local building until they are forced to move out; a philosophical Moroccan and an elderly Spanish man who get into several debates at lunchtime; a junk-collector who carries goods on his back; a brood of 10-year olds who build fortresses out of raw construction materials to the bemusement of the laborers; a neighborhood girl who meets a construction worker draping clothes on her balcony. The rest of the film is not easy to describe. Eventually, the new tenants start to move in to the building and change the shape of the neighborhood.

Guerín was clear about his intentions in regard to the conceptualization of the film, what he thinks about modernization, and the "morality" of the final moments of En construcción.

For me, it wasn't a question of starting out and learning. As an adolescent, movies were almost a religion. It was my manner of relating to the world and to people around me. My first shorts- they are horrible films, products of someone who is discovering the world and culture. Keep in mind that in these years, within the restrictions of Franco, Spain lived a cultural wasteland. I lived in a very intense anticipation of American cinema which I could never see. It was all banned. Our group of youngsters always talked about filmmakers whose work we didn't know, but dreamed about. Finally, when I saw some of these films, I was disappointed, because there's always that inconsistency between what you dream and the objective reality of what a film is.

They're recorded conversations that I haven't finished and that I would like to give shape to someday. I was very young, I wanted to understand the concept of cinema from various people who I admired. I visited Robert Bresson a lot, for instance, but there was no way he wanted to have a camera around. He loved chatting, but he opposed being filmed. This was a bit of a crisis for me, not to have his presence filmed, but I also interviewed others like Jacques Rozier, Jean Mitry, Jean Vigo's daughter, Lucy Vigo. They were notes, reflections, but they didn't have a form.

The "maldita" title wasn't given to the film because of a disapproval from the public. It's because of the legal problems. The film was shown in the Forum in Berlin, it had a good run, won some prizes, but not many people saw it, yes. But it was a good calling-card.

It's true. Berta is a film where everything is written and sketched out beforehand. I think it's a normal step, that when we start making films, we need to protect ourselves. Later, in time, we start to find security, we don't need to sketch and plan so much. There are directors like Hitchcock who sketched out every frame for their entire careers. It's a tradition of cinema, the filmmaker who bases his stylistic principles in the expression of the frame as opposed to the filmmaker where the situation is the priority. But whatever the tendency of the director might be, when we make our first film we try to surpass the fear of this responsibility by sketching. The selection of the landscape in Los Motivos de Berta was very important; the film takes place in Castilla, a very desolate place with very few elements to work with, so it mattered to me the stylization of this landscape. You imagine that with something so desolate, so empty, every little bit that comes into the frame acquires a great significance. The strength of these images - a curved path, a little tree all by itself, etc. - gave every shot a semantic value. It's a black and white picture, too, so I wanted the architecture of the image to prevail. I think b&w gives prominence to lines; the color image is more like stains that obscure the architecture of each image. It was a film where I reduced the amount of elements to be able to manage the anxiety I had at the moment, at 22. Everything was very controlled. And with this, I was able to make that landscape very mental and subjective. Something I've noticed from making picture to picture is I have increasingly more confidence with what reality can give me and how I can come in agreement with this reality to create my discourse.

I have always used cinema - the camera - to capture a distinct reality. This is the first time I have filmed in the city where I live. For me, cinema and travel have always been closely related. I like to follow the example of the first pioneers, like the Lumière operators, who trekked the entire world looking for images. They were capable of risking their lives to get to the highest peak, to get the best view- what Lumière called "the hunt for cinema." More recently, there is a cinema that needs to live with its roots in profundity; John Ford and the U.S., Jean Renoir and France. But both traveled: Ford to his origins in Ireland, and Renoir to the U.S. to make studio films, so cinema is a territory of travelers. I like a lot the idea that making movies shouldn't resemble work, like leaving home and going to the office, etc. I think making movies should be an exception in one's life. It creates a very intense assembly of a crew of people in one place. I also think that the traveler's eye is more sensitive to see things that quotidian life doesn't allow. In a way, the advantage of traveling is that you discover things, things that you would see in your own street but you don't know how to see. In other words, the capacity to surprise yourself. I tried to apply this traveler's gaze to the neighborhood where I filmed En construcción using certain strategies. Sometimes I would pack a bag and stay at a hostel in the area. One of the things that attracted me at first was that this neighborhood (El Xino) brings in a lot of immigrants from all parts; you don't leave out the reality of others. Above all, since this neighborhood has echoes from all walks of life, it can give you a more accurate record of our time. I wanted to escape, at all costs, from the film being a "local" chronicle, a report, a film that would interest the television stations. I wanted a film that would interest people, a film that explores the universal. This excited me: how to seek this out in a small part of this neighborhood, a construction site, where if you listen carefully, you can hear the sounds that move the world.

In every picture, I have tried to convert the process of production into a "Limite" experience [1]; utilizing the singularity of the production to make something unique. For instance, with Tren de Sombras - which is an exceptionally radical film - it was possible to create it because the producer not only gave me all the freedom I needed, but insisted that I utilized that freedom. I only made that picture because they gave me the money and I wasn't obliged to make anything back. With En construcción, I asked myself: "What can a group of students give me that a group of professional technicians can't?" On one hand, they gave me their enthusiasm. With technicians, it's like they're going from movie to movie so it becomes more of a routine, like actual work. On the other hand - and above all - the most unique singularity about this film is that they were able to give me time. It would be impossible to have pro technicians for two years and a little bit. It costs a lot of money. So it was a film that was only possible to make because of the time they gave me.

It was a total of three years. The shoot and editing lasted two years, but I always say it was three because the first year we were talking; it was essential that we just discussed things for about a year. For example, in terms of construction, we had no clue. So in the first year, we talked to architects, carpenters, painters, bricklayers, workers, and neighbors. But also, with the students, I insisted we sit down and watch a lot of films together, to have a common lexicon. They are very young, they didn't know certain classics that I thought were very important. There were five girls and one guy. The film benefited from the fact that we lived together for about a year and then eventually we had to live with the neighbors and workers of El Xino. I believe all the images and words of this film would not be possible without the experience of time.

But also, the very idea of the construction of the film. Usually, cinema consists of a written plan beforehand. I didn't want to have anything written when we started shooting. And that's another thing a film made with students could give me: the ability to discover the film as we were making it. Not to know what the final result would be interested me a lot. You see a lot of "making-ofs" on TV where actors are saying a certain director is "formidable" and a "pleasure to work with." With me, it was like the exact opposite: I didn't know what I was doing. Nor did I want to know, which is difficult because we always have preconceived notions. But my fight was to always be aware of what reality had to offer.

Well, to be able to do this, we had to alternate stages of shooting with editing; we would shoot something, and then in editing we would analyze the specific weight of each sequence. Speaking personally, I only began to understand - and love - the characters of En construcción by looking at the dailies. During the shoot you are very busy with technical problems and logistics, and in editing, you have time to think. In this sense, the idea of "Work-in-Progress" was very important to me. I asked that the English title not be "Under Construction" or anything like that. Work in Progress seemed more appropriate. Similarly, I always say that the appeal of a film is never in the "theme" that someone gives you, but the interpretation of a theme, what you give that theme. What producers call a theme is nothing more than a restriction.

At one point we contemplated making a "real" movie, with architects and builders. Finally, we decided to change the course of the project. The one sequence that broke the cement was the encounter with the dead: the discovery of the Roman cemetery. Before, I envisioned a film where a group of people from opposite cultures were forced to live in one building during the construction of a house- a little bit like the Tower of Babel, where people speak many languages, etc. Anyway, in this sequence, with the uncovering of the cemetery, you see a city is searching for its future while jostling its past. So for two weeks, we had to make use of this construction somehow, and my instinct as a filmmaker was to remove the sheets and uncover the skeletons.

Yes. And what ended-up happening in this sequence? You have a clot of people with different sensibilities gathering in the same place. There is a shot of a skull that I think is essential. If you look at the difference between seeing a dead person in flesh - who still has individuality - and seeing a skeleton, or specifically, a skull (Shakespeare knew this very well), you are seeing a reflection of yourself, something intimate. So it was a privilege to be able to capture that image of the skull because I was also able to capture the reactions around the grave site. The bones being uncovered provoked very immediate responses: it scandalized those who think a burial site is something sacred; and then, of course, there were the children around the site who discovered the meaning of death for the first time. You start to get to know this neighborhood in the most profound way possible.

I wanted En construcción to be a window into a reality, rather than a mirror. I think that if you look at the end of the film, the only characters that stick out are the new proprietors of the apartment building. They became known on the set at "the colonists"- and it's horrible, because they would see the characters of the film on the street and not even acknowledge their presence, which is all we as spectators are fixated on. So the newbies are perceived as grotesque, only because they have no knowledge of what's come before. But in reality, these are very normal people. I think that the audience seeing En construcción most resembles these people. Even more crucial is that the audience will question living the experience of "the other." Like Jean Renoir said: "Cinema is the great art capable of mending bridges."

The truth is I am not capable of distinguishing myself as a teacher or filmmaker. I try to talk with sincerity about the things that worry me as a filmmaker and treat the students as filmmakers themselves. Cinema is just a vehicle for ideas to travel, and that's where theory comes in. I will give you an example: in En construcción, there is no camera movement. But I didn't impose this like a dogma; I simply saw a way to observe conversations, very subtle conversations- so subtle that they could escape if they weren't recorded in a determined way. The scene where father and son are discussing measurements, and the son says, "Dad, you're off by two centimeters," and the father replies, "Well, my pencil's not sharp enough." These phrases, if they were filmed in a way that insisted on following each action or mannerism, would loose their nuance. By choosing to keep the camera still, you give a phrase like this an importance for each spectator. With a precise style, you start to see the relationship between the hands that created the work and the actual work, which is actually an implication with the work. And the last shot in En construcción, which is the only moving shot in the entire film, corresponds with the same idea. I finally had a desire to walk with my characters after witnessing the new neighbors moving in. It was a moral choice.

Yes, absolutely. You have to ask yourself: are you going to stay motionless and focus on the wall of a building as they walk away, or are you going to go with them?

Do you see many students going to the movies nowadays?

There are many different types of students. When I was first interested in movies there were no film schools. My formation came in the cinematheque. The cinematheque was very good at that time. There were some afternoons where they would show 4 films, lots of movie classics, so you could really experience the history of cinema intensely. I think a good cinematheque is the best film school.

What did you see when you lived here?

Ozu, I saw all of them! I was working on my film at the time but the only exception I would make outside of work would be to go to see Ozu. His way of constructing films influenced me a lot. It's very curious how he usually has a central focus on a character but slowly builds our interest in a group. He likes to have everyone's perspective- which is good, I think. In Good Morning (1959), a TV suddenly reaches this tiny community of people, and you gradually start to see what happens to the kids, the parents, the uncles, the neighbors; he gets everyone's story. This idea helped me a lot in structuring En construcción.

[1] I'm not completely sure, but I think this is in reference to the 1932 Brazilian film by Mario Peixoto, Limite, which has a mythical history and is an unmatched and influential early-sound picture a la L'Atalante.

La hagonia de agustin (Agustin's Agony)
1975, 14', Super 8
Furvus
1976, 14', S. 8
Elogio a las musas (Elegy to the Muses)
1977, 70', S. 8
El orificio de la luz (The Orifice of Light)
1977, 8', S. 8
Film Familiar
1976-78, 240', S. 8
La dramatica pubertad de Alicia (The Dramatic Puberty of Alicia)
1978, 100', S. 8
Memorias de un paisaje (Memories of a Landscape)
1979, 14', 16mm
Diario de Marga (Marga's Diary)
1980, 40', S. 8
Naturaleza muerta (Dead Nature)
1981, 16', 35mm
Apuntes de un rodaje (Notes on a Shoot)
1982, 35', 16mm
Retrato de Vicky (Portrait of Vicky)
1982, 25', VT

Feature-films
Los motivos de Berta (Berta's Motives)
1983, 118', 35mm
Innisfree
1990, 110', 35mm
Tren de sombras - Le spectre de Thuit (Train of Shadows)
1996, 80', 35mm
En construcción
2001, 125', 35mm

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