First image: An aerial map of the rice fields of the Albufera in Valencia. It is a landscape mixed with green and ocher colors.. In a way, It is an idyllic image. But, as we get closer, we are paying attention to the small details. And there, between the lines that draw the planting furrows, we found the body of a man. Who? Mystery. a few seconds later, another man (or maybe it's the same?), Ricardo, He arrives with his family to that same place. Ricardo is a biologist and has come to study the situation of the aquifers in the area. The lack of rain has dried up the water supplies, endangering the crops and the natural environment that surrounds the fields.. To save the area and ensure the survival of the lagoon that gives it life, Ricardo tries to impose draconian measures on farmers who, an eye on the short term, they do not accept. Who is this foreigner who comes to tell us what we have to do?, locals protest. But Ricardo is not willing to give up and confronts the peasants. So, collides with a culture and people who want to live their lives as they have always lived them. In principle, we might think that Ricardo is right. But, what if it wasn't like that? Background, Ricardo and his wife are burdened with a drama: the recent loss of his young son in a domestic accident. Even deeper, Ricardo will face the interests of a world that refuses to change in the face of the advance of modernity, in this case, represented by an environmentalism that opposes their customs and material interests.
This is the argument of The mud, second full-length work by Valencian director Iñaki Sánchez Arrieta, with which a new edition of La Mostra de Valencia-Cinema del Mediterrani began, which has been celebrated since the day 15 al 24 October. Sánchez Arrieta had already presented his first film, Zero, in the context of this festival. Yes in Zero, Arrieta stood out with a film with science fiction overtones, here he does it with a thriller where the unknown, the who is who, It is mixed with elements of drama in a marriage that confronts us with some interesting contradictions.. All this shot, besides, with a sure pulse to give a bill at the level of a production that aims for the box office. In the cast we find names like Raúl Arévalo, Paz Vega, Roberto Alamo, Susi Sanchez, Joaquin Clement, Enric Juezas, Susana Merino and Josep Sellés. Some of them, They accompanied the director to support him at the festival's opening gala.
“La Albufera is an incredible space, that has a very great beauty, but, when the light falls, It has a very sinister point, dark, another angle", stated the Valencian director regarding the space that serves as the background for his story. “I started visiting the Albufera and discovered that, in any wetland, as in any natural reserve in this country or anywhere in the world, the interests of ecology and the economy are always put first. That was already a good starter for a movie.. Then, I put the part of the belly. It was something like, Let's have a conflict in this incredible place that is going to give us very great visual possibilities and, from there, Let's find out who is going to take charge of this conflict and how to manage it.. Then, let's put the bands: Let's choose some people who are coming to solve this and let's choose other people who are making a living from it.. That's where ecology comes into play., interest in conservation, and the livelihood of the people who live there. In the Albufera, like in so many parks, There are people who have a way of life that is not always beneficial for the natural environment itself.. That's what sparked my interest in starting.", commented.
From there, the director began to build his characters, drivers of that confrontation. Appears, So, one of the capital elements that strengthen the architecture of this film: the fear. “I believe that fear is what moves the world. Fear mobilizes us and, facing fear, “Everyone takes a certain position.”, commented Sánchez Arrieta to the media attending the meeting. That fear is what immobilizes Ricardo, its protagonist, by not assuming what you should assume, that which he does not dare to face and that stalks him from his recent past. Fear of facing oneself and that it will lead you to carry out certain acts that will generate more fear in a community that lives peacefully, how can, but live, in that space. “These people are affected by a series of measures and by a person who is not able to listen.”, to interpret the situation that is going to be found”, the director explained.
That confrontation, already raises the first contradictions. “The barbarian world, the ancestral customs of that world of the Laguna Blanca [invented place where the action happens], sometimes they are more human, more coherent than those that represent civilization through the character of Raúl Arévalo”, stated the actress Susi Sánchez, who plays Francisca, the local chieftain and landowner in fiction. A world that, however, It is not far from any other world and in which life and death are inextricably intertwined.. “Something that the film has and that I really like is that it is not a story of good guys and bad guys.”. It's true, there is violence, there are attacks, but there is also humanity. I like how the female characters in the film maintain a balance within the chaos organized by men.. For me, “The healthiest thing about the film is that it is not a story that judges the characters.”, claimed, emotional, the actress.
On the basis of this story, we find some polyhedral characters, for whose construction together with the actors, The Valencian director resorted to constructing an intrastory for them that, although it does not always appear on the screen, served as a stable support on which to fix its exterior façade. “It is one of the things that has cost the most to work on”, recognized the actor Joaquín Climent regarding his development of the character of Eusebio, the forest guard of Laguna Blanca. “You work with data that you have, but whoever goes to see that knows nothing. He [by Iñaki] I was very convinced of this and we moved forward, but I always had that doubt. Will it be understood? Will this have power? Will it create interest in the viewer? we didn't know. In fact, “We always thought there was another movie there.”, Clement explained, between laughs. For another of her co-stars, The greatest difficulty was in joining the small pieces that make up the character.. This is the case of Susana Merino, who plays Rosana, the strange nanny who takes care of the daughter of the young couple who settles in the Albufera. “Iñaki and I talk a lot and although, In the case of Rosana, they are brush strokes, We look for depth in all that is not seen. I think the script is so well written that, despite missing that story, It's in the background and that makes each scene have that personality, a personal identity. I don't know how to explain it. Let's say you let yourself go. And then Iñaki directs very well, has that feminine sensitivity, knows how to stop and give you the time to breathe it together, and that is there”, the actress stated.
But if there is a space where The mud doubles its bet is in the mix of genres or, starting from these, in that search to find a twist that pushes the plot forward without forgetting what motivates the characters. “The type of cinema that I have always liked is cinema that entertains, which is the one that is halfway between the commercial and the authorial”, explains Sánchez Arrieta. “The references are films where entertainment is mixed with a plot that goes above, and in that skeleton internal conflicts and characters with their problems are introduced.. One of the references is straw dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971), definitely. another is shadow forest (Koldo Serra, 2006). another is The hunt (Carlos Saura, 1966). All these movies have that structure. I am interested in telling something that has its share of action, his share of adventures, that excites in the sense of action, of the movement, but that the reaches below are loaded with things that end up resolving the plot. In Zero the same thing happened. I don't know what will happen in the next movie, if there is, but it seems that my interests lie there. It's about reaching out to a broader audience., from the author, but also be able to catch him with stories that have an entertaining plot or, if you like, more commercial.”
Before we say goodbye, we refer to the title of the film itself, whose resonances refer us to what the story tells. “The mud refers, obviously, to the mud that is under a lagoon or water that is stagnant”, the director stated. “But then it also refers to what we each have inside and that we have to learn to manage.”, or vomit, or do what we can with it and that is our darkness. The film is called the mud because of this mud”. In the end, after the credits, there is that mirror in which to look at ourselves. That mirror is the cinema, definitely. End of the first installment. G.LEON
