It's 4:30 p.m.. p.m.. Starts one of those unexpected successes that sometimes happen at the Spanish box office. We talk about Carmen and Lola, director Arantxa Echevarría's debut film that was screened this past Thursday, in addition to regular sessions, on the screen of the Cine Club Lys. With his first long work of fiction, Echevarría brings us closer to a world that, as he says in this interview, being so close, It seems that an unbridgeable abyss distances us from him: the gypsy world. The film tells the difficulties of a couple of young women in maintaining a relationship in a world that opposes them.. Carmen, at seventeen years old, is about to get married. Lola, with sixteen, he wants to escape from that future already determined by his parents. One day they meet and everything changes for them.. But Carmen and Lola aspires to be something more than a denunciation of the situation of homosexual relations in this particular society. Es, looking higher, a reflection on the difference, a love story, a traditional painting, a documentary exploration of a world that was in darkness and that wants to bring to light.
How do you collide with the gypsy world? How interested are you in telling this story??
Bueno, Actually what I wanted was to talk about first love, what happens is that I get confused along the way. I wanted to talk about it because I thought it was a very universal topic.. Everyone remembers their first love. And I wanted to do it because I didn't think it had been touched on film in a way that I thought was special.. I wanted to talk about it, especially remembering my first time, also. Of all those sensations that later, over the years, unfortunately they are escaping and forgotten. And at the same time I saw news about the first couple of gypsy girls who got married. And it left me devastated to see that the photo that was in the article was of the two of them., but with your back, so that their faces could not be seen. They used fake names. And the worst thing for a gypsy: that none of the families had gone to the celebration of the supposedly happiest day of their lives. So, I imagined what that relationship would be like between those two girls and that was when I began to do open lung immersion in the gypsy world..
Both the two leads and most of the rest of the cast are non-professional actors., extracted precisely from that environment. How was the selection? What was your biggest difficulty??
Well, difficulties, all. and joys, also. We look for them on the street. We went to markets, to gypsy neighborhoods, to “roneo” sites which is where they meet to flirt. Every day, for six months, We were in a cultural center from six to nine at night where they were coming. At the casting I sat down to talk to them to see what they were like and if their personality could be similar to any of my characters.. And how it was so fun, a lot of people came. What happens is that, when we already told them what it was about, everyone wanted to be the cousin, the friend, but no one wanted to be the protagonist. So, There came a time when I gave them a very basic test.. when they entered, I told them: Would you mind going out smoking in the movie?? And they told you, but you are crazy? How they see me smoking! and I thought, Well then I won't tell you anything about kissing you. It was a very difficult and very tough casting until these two brave people appeared..
What was the biggest obstacle you faced when working with a cast like that??
Working with non-professional actors is crazy because they don't have any tools. During a shoot, a sequence of laughter and, to take advantage of the location, Immediately afterwards it was shot in a drama style and for them it was like, but what is this? What I do? How do I get into this dynamic?? I realized how difficult it was going to be the first day I did a test with Lola and Carmen, and I told Lola: “Look at Carmen with love”. I was sixteen years old. And he looks at me and tells me: “I have never fallen in love.” and I thought: And now how do I explain to someone what love is?? Imagine, from there to all the sensations, sexual, physical fears… It was an emotional journey.
By belonging to the same world that you are portraying, What have actresses contributed to fictional characters?, to the original script that you had? How have they transformed it??
Fully. Yes, it is true that many of the dialogues are word for word, but when it came time to rehearse we were transforming the script. The script was like a fish, I was going to pick it up and it slipped out of my hands.. It was a living being that, besides, if I become very immobile with him, would have been left in no man's land: a text written by a clown that does not correspond to any reality. So, I had no choice but to give them that script and tell them: This is what I want to show, let's see how we do it. Yes indeed, the base, phrases that were very important to me and that I did not want to change, they are word for word. But, For example, when the order [the bride's request, in a movie sequence] I didn't say anything. They did what they wanted and I followed them with the cameras.
It seems that the gypsy world is the last dark aspect of our society, that thing we don't know, something that remains foreign to the majority.
The last bastion, Yeah. I think there are many left, there are also lighters, of which we know absolutely everything. For example, Zaira, one of the leading actresses, es merchera. What makes me very angry is that they have been our brothers for six hundred years and I am convinced that if, we take a DNA test, we would all have something of a gypsy. And it seems terrible to me that they are on the opposite sidewalk, May we spend every day next to you and be as if invisible, and?, instead of a sidewalk, It seems like an abyss separates us. I think it is one of our pending subjects. We keep saying that “come on, you look like a gypsy.”, like an insult. until recently, In the RAE, gypsy was synonymous with trapazero. And I think it is a very serious pending issue because there are many of them and because they are Spanish and we are making a minority feel a weight that they do not deserve because they are wonderful.
Your film tries, on the one hand, bring out prejudices outside the community. And vice versa, It also addresses what prejudices exist within the gypsy world. What was your goal?
Well, what I wanted was for our payo vision of the gypsy world to acquire the color and nuances that it has.. The image we have of the gypsy is that he does not work, they are lazy, delinquency, drug, etc. And the image I have received is that they get up at five in the morning to work at the market., who adore their children, who take care of their family as much as they can, who adore their parents and their elders, a whole series of values that seem wonderful to me. Then there is a slightly darker part within the gypsy world that is immobile because there has not been a mix. Payan society has evolved, but the gypsy has maintained her own bastions and her own laws, among other things, because the payos have always been the enemy. They have not wanted to accept everything that comes from outside. My prejudices collapsed when I met them, but I can also tell you that, other way round, also. With them it was like “what is this clown doing to tell this movie?”?”In the gypsy world there is everything, wonderful people and very conservative people who still find this topic a prejudice.
Have you ever thought about whether you could disrupt the world you are portraying?? Evidently, What you are saying is something particular to a culture that is not yours and if you get involved to say that it is wrong, to judge him...
Of course! I was very modest. I had a fear! I was immediately bordering on a line where I could fall into the cliché or the grotesque or bring out only the most colorful of the gypsy world.. I had a horrible fear of touching that line of ridicule.. So, What I did was make the entire artistic team gypsy. From minute one I told them: “if I do any tricks, tell me”. And they told me. (laughter) I think that's the good thing about the movie., It is obvious that I have left it in the hands of the gypsies themselves.. The script was transformed in rehearsals, like i told you, but also during filming because someone came and told me, “Hey, this can't be.”. And I couldn't stick to my guns as a director when someone tells you that they can't do it because they don't feel recognized.. Here comes my documentary asset, that beat me to the fiction director trick. And I loved that he beat me.
And didn't you ever think if what you were considering was an inopportune interference??
All the time. For example, One of the nuances of the movie was that it did not want any type of violence so as not to give rise to that clownish look at the gypsy world., but sometimes the body asked me to get out of my own idea and for there to be violence. And if, I was very afraid that my paya gaze would disrupt the gypsy reality.. I had so much modesty that I think I fell short. Many times when gypsies see it they tell me, “but this, In fact, "The father kills her." (laughter) “The mother doesn't react like that.” So I was ashamed. When I talked to lesbian gypsy girls, their stories are devastating. Girls locked up, forced to ask for force, that they cut their hair to die of shame, that they were sent to relatives so that they would be away from their girlfriend, from the focus of sin. So, inside the bad, What happens to Carmen and Lola is not so bad. And if, I was full of modesty because I wanted to respect the gypsy community, but I also wanted to make my movie.
As you have mentioned, A part of your audiovisual work is developed in the field of documentary. How has that experience helped you make your film??
The payo knows gypsy culture from horrible television series, for reality shows that are despicable and what I wanted was to grab them by the chest and put them into their world. A more real and less television world. Well, a birthday, a normal family dinner, the daily routine of going to the market. And by using the camera on my shoulder I make it a participant, look details, because my gaze is also fixed on that. That's what I wanted to capture with the camera., play with it. So that? Well, so that the viewer understood the codes of the gypsies. The world of worship, the world of the order that is complex because they give the girl in a kind of theater and the father-in-law receives her; the world of mobile phones in youth, the roneo... All of that I thought that if I didn't shoot it this way you couldn't have.
In some aspects, I would say that there is an anthropological perspective. Sometimes it seems that the argument is the excuse to take that journey, that description. I don't know to what extent it is intentional..
Yeah, there were times that I thought, “I'm going overboard” (laughter) Man, I don't want to be an anthropologist, obviously, but if I didn't take advantage of that, suddenly, I had all these people willing to make this movie., It was a terrible loss.. Not showing socially what the patriarchal behavior of the gypsy is like, respect, the customs. And then what I wanted was to grab the viewer by the back of the head and say, “Take in the world and now I'll divert you here and I'll tell you a love story.”. What I wanted was that when you left the movie you would forget that they were gypsies., and that you would forget that they were two girls. that you would simply think: “jo, I hope the story turns out well.”
When talking about your references, Have you ever referred to the Dardenne brothers?, but I have thought about Iciar Bollaín.
oh yeah? By Hello, you are alone o…?
The treatment of the characters…
Notice, It seems to me that Iciar Bollaín is a teacher and also one of the few Spanish directors, with Chus Gutierrez who did gypsy soul, with Paula Ortiz, with Carla Simon. But not, my references were more Mustang [by Deniz Gamze Ergüven], I think it's a very nice way to talk about adolescence and the problems that a girl can have in Türkiye.. I like it a lot Dheepan, a prophet [both by director Jacques Audiard]. They have nothing to do with each other because they are people in Sri Lanka, In France, in a slum neighborhood. But our gypsies are in Madrid in a marginal neighborhood!! They don't have to be from another country.. It also strikes me that, when he goes outside, The average Spaniard boasts of flamenco and dancing sevillanas, and when we are in here we hate everything that is gypsy. I found that double standard very interesting and it was very good in those movies..
Although I know it has nothing to do formally. Another movie I was thinking about is Carol by Todd Haynes. For me that is the movie of a moment, when they are together. And it seemed to me that your movie has something of this, searching for a moment that is the first kiss between the two of them. It seems like the whole movie converges there..
Yeah, it was my intention, take you to the moment of the kiss and forget about everything else. Carol It's a movie that seemed super-cold to me when I saw it.. Very aesthetic, very pretty. Patricia Highsmith's book seemed brutal to me. I read it when I was about twelve years old and it blew me away.. Many people compare our movie with Adele's life [by Abdellatif Kechiche] and to me it seems like a beautiful love story, but at different times. It is a man's view of the love of two women. and I think that Carmen and Lola It is a very woman's look at the love of two women.. That maybe about other things I don't do it so well, But I'm a girl and it's very easy to remember the first love I had and remember those sensations..
It seems to me that if he survives Adele's life It is because it is something more than the story of a homosexual relationship. It's a love story, of love that is lost and will not return.
What is universal, Of course. I think that Carmen and Lola It will not go down in the annals for being a homosexual film nor will it go down for being a film performed by gypsies.. I think that, if it goes to the annals (laughter), It will be because it tells a beautiful first love story. I think that, in Adele's life, the cafeteria sequence, when she is devastated and the other tells her no, we have all lived it. It is that universality of that unrequited love or abandonment. We have all been abandoned at some point and we have all felt that “I will never be able to recover this broken heart”. I think that's the universality of movies..
