It's Thursday 8 October, regional holiday eve. We met at the offices of the Babel cinemas in Valencia for a meeting between journalists with Viggo Mortensen who, after passing through the San Sebastián festival, where he would receive the Donostia Award, He came to our city to promote his first film as a director. It shows that a star has come (the real ones), by the long lines of spectators that gather at the doors of the multiplexes (what a pleasure to see so many people in these times; we have to go to the cinema!) to attend a special session in which the actor-director will chair a discussion after the screening. And one thinks beforehand that meeting a movie star is something of an extraordinary event., who finds himself before someone who is different from the rest of mortals. After all, ¡ey!, We're talking about the guy who played Aragorn in Peter Jackson's trilogy, The Lord of the Ringslos. But not only that. He is also David Cronenberg's favorite actor in two masterpieces such as A history of violence y eastern promises. Or Lisandro Alonso in the unclassifiable Jauja. Mortensen is one of those faces that moves with ease between the two sides of the film industry, he mainstream or the most independent cinema. No problem. Two seconds later, after the presentations, Now one realizes that we are dealing with a normal person., close and friendly, who speaks slowly, maybe a little tired from promotional trips and so many interviews, how are you, which he has been maintaining in recent weeks as a result of the debut of his first creation as a director.. and listen, He also wears a mask!
Falling, The movie, tells the story of a family relationship, the one that Willis maintains, an elderly retired man living alone on his farm in the interior of the United States, and John, his eldest son, who resides in California with his partner and their adopted daughter. Willis, a rude man with rough manners and anchored in a very conservative vision of life and relationships, suffers from senile dementia, which prompts John to take him into his home.. They arise, in this way, the conflicts between a son who tries to get closer to his father and a father who refuses to smooth things over. Willis neither accepts nor understands John's way of life.. He will have to decide what to do now with a man who seems to despise him.. In the middle of all this, the memory of the mother and of a childhood and youth marked by mutual rejection.
The difficulties of making a film
Now seen on screen, and being a film directed and starring Viggo Mortensen, One would like to think that the industry would make every effort to financially support this project.. But as Mortensen himself commented, the happy path to the screen Falling It wasn't easy at all. “The film has been a long journey to be able to put it together. I tried a couple of times until can finally shoot the movie, with less shooting time than I wanted. It is an ambitious film for a debut. I wanted seven weeks and we finish with five, which is very little (laughter). The journey was very long. After,I finished assembling it, put the sound, the music... I sent it a Cannes (bueno, an improbable dream with a debut), the I put subtitles in French and, surprise!, They accept me for Cannes. But the bread has comehalf y think, bueno, that's it. Like many others, my dream of carryingbring this story to the screen It was never going to be fulfilled due to the confinements. I told myself, bueno, they will never see herhow I want them to see and hear it. but here we are”. This long journey had, however, its reward based on the reactions that the film is having in its first week of release and that Mortensen has been collecting in his various meetings with the public in this also long promotional journey.. “It has been releasedado in the first country in the world in Spain last Friday and the reaction has been very good, I am very happy. Las public reactions, how they reacted, just like the filming crew and the actors who told me things about theirs families, someone what It came with a confession... and I thought, excellent, This story that I have invented has universal application. Lor a vithis in the colloquiums, in Zaragoza, Barcelona, Madrid… I really liked that and it seems like a small miracle to me.. Nor we have an advertising machine, We are not a team that has to put advertising on TV, on the radio, had que function through the mouth-ear and is workingbecause we are in between the best in the room. But lor more important, as i say, are people's reactions, as They react emotionally and I really liked this..”
It's not are first project
This is not the first time Mortensen has tried to get behind the camera. “The first time I tried it with another script. Fue twenty-three or twenty-four years ago, with a scandinavian film”, confesses the actor-director. “LI raised some of the money, But not enough. and then, with other stories, equal. With independent cinema and the most original cinema, less formula, always it's difficult. Y if it's your first time, It doesn't matter if they know you a little as an actor., si have never directed, they are afraid to invest. I understand. There is no guarantee. There are people who say, “look Viggo wants to direct, look what a whim”, but the truth is that I have tried for a quarter of a century. Even with Falling there was a couple of times it couldn't be.once upon a time in which he had all the money and was a few months away from filming, and I already had Lance Henriksen, my protagonist, to my photographer, the art team and locations. We were on the go and I had to apologize: no, The investor has decided to do something else and left us stranded. After, I tried it with another story, that couldn't be, y I came back with this one and thought, “bueno, This is going to be the good one.”. All these obstacles, however, They were not able to dampen the enthusiasm that would be key to promoting the filming in an industry in which, too often, plans do not go as one would expect, but the solutions also appear in the most unexpected ways. “A Sometimes you have to start making the movie and maybe someone gets curious, and it gets infected and puts the moneyo. It was a bit like that because I, the year before filming started, said: bueno, I know I want a collection of images to use for the subjective memory of the characters. And I want to shoot in different seasons, spring, summer, autumn…And we started rolling. Yor invested in bring to the photographer, the camera we were going to use for the rogiven by the principal, etc. And so I started to raise some money, but I didn't have it all. So, think, yes I act in the movie, that wasn't my idea, to it better he comes someone and says, vale, ok. And they came with just what, I mean, what I had to go down from seven to six and then to seven weeks, but good.”
Putting the machinery into operation, Mortensen would have to face additional complexity, that of assuming both roles, the director of this orchestra and, at the same time, being a member of the music band that was going to give life to its own characters, which presented both advantages and disadvantages. “When acting in the movie, The worry I had was that it was going to be a distraction., that I couldn't give my full attention to the crew and the actors, that was going to be too much pressure. I have always been very nosy as an actor., I have always been interested in everything that all the departments do.s shooting to make a movie... so I already knew I waswe are prepared and in the end It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.. It was a lot of work, But it wasn't much of a distraction.. Y, besides, I think it was good for Lance Henriksen, because como of We were friends and we had worked so much on the script together in the previous years, was good for him to have someone he trusts as an acting partner, someone that it wasn't just the director, but I was in trouble with him, trying to make the most of the scenes”, tells us. an interpretation, shared actor Lance Henriksen, his father in fiction, for which Mortensen has only praise. “For me he has done a masterful job.. It is true that he is a cool characterthis and that to some people he may seem so grumpy that it is unbearable. Pero, In fact, If you see it and think about what it is to act, do that so subtle interpretation it is very complex. Lor what hasce, how you listen, Havemo get in and out of those beginnings of dementia, es genial. gives everything. “He is very brave”
A job that works like a puzzle.
Already immersed in flour, the first thing that catches your attention about a job like Falling resides in a structure that is developed based on pieces that, at times, they don't seem connected, even washed out, but whose function in the plot becomes consistent as the viewer himself establishes the connections.. Something that, as Mortensen himself told us, It started from the same conception of the film.
“The script came out like this. Even, at the beginning there were other scenes. Actually, I think this script could be taken to teaatro. If you had one setting that was the farm and the other California and it revolved, you could do a play jumping through times. The outside, I guess it would be a projection, horses, winter, autumn, something could be done. But it turned out like thisin.” This fragmentary structure, made as pieces, as if it were one of those patchwork blankets sewn like scraps, conditions the entire narrative and the viewer's disposition towards the characters that appear on the screen.“Me, as a spectator, I don't like that they tell me everything and that they tell me what I have to think and, much less, what I have to feel, with photography, the script, performance, con the music... I wanted to give an idea of this y, If it works for you as a viewer, you begin to realize what the dynamic is between Willis and John, and what is the situation between father and son, y because the present has become like this. Even, the present is telling you about the past at the same time he is telling you own gift. Al principle, no everything is clear, and then I saw youas realizing. Cwhen you meet the sister, For example, halfway through the movie, you learn a lot about the dynamics andbetween the brothers, Havemo his relationship with his father and my relationship with my father they are different. John tries to be patient and is very conscious of trying. He says it, besides. I'm going to try not to get into the thick of it with you., I'm not going to lower myself to that level, I am not going to respond to your verbal and psychological violence with mi violence. You imagine the rest when you say that. That there is a story there. And when you see the sister, what is she like, you already have a idea of the whole history. Me like that, I can imagine it. Esas things are important to me. Dar a little and, after, trust that we are going to do it well enough as for the viewer to enter. Respect the viewer. Like a poem or a novel that is not childish in the sense of underlininglo all. And the same with music. There are great soundtracks that are there all the time gifts, and for certain stories thatMaybe it has to be like this. Pero, and general, I don't like music telling me, now you have to feel patriotism or sadness, fear o happiness. When I choose, if I can choose, something that is offered to me as an actor, I try to say yes to stories that I would like to see in the cinema. That's an important part of my reasoning.. And I wanted to make a movie that I would like to see myself.. And let's see if THE other people like it, also.”
A memory exercise
Yes ok Falling It is a film with certain autobiographical overtones, For Mortensen it was always clear that the paths of fiction and those of life are separate. Separated and, at the same time, together, Well that is the virtue of fiction, that of transporting ourselves and recognizing ourselves in the events experienced by others and bringing them to our own experience so that this remains, So, enriched, by releasing the knots of our conflicts by releasing the knots of the conflicts of others in which we can recognize ourselves. “[Falling] eIt's a fiction that speaks of a fictional family, fictional eventscios, but there are some minements that he comesn from my own experience. We have all had in el some moment in our lifea song or songs that we listen to over and over again because they remind us of a relationship we had or something that was happening at the time. Y the lyrics may have little to do with what actually happened to you, but something is there, in what that song tells, what has youtouched, that relatess strongly with it.” The leap from fact to fiction, just as Viggo Mortensen told us, It had all the conditions of a trip. “Falling It begins with some notes after the funeral ofmy mother, things that I collectagain, stories that people in the family told me, my mother's friends at the funeral and after the funeral, which were things that I had already heard, but different versions of each one, what era this strange thing that fascinated me. and then, some hstories I hadn't heard of people I had never met, older people who had known my mother during her childhood, For example. O things about how they remembered my father and the relationship between my parentsjersey. Yor I wanted to tell these things. Think, This would be interesting and I wrote it as a story.. But I was inventing things alreadyWhen writing I went the other way, invented me almost all. But the base, The initial impetus was to want to explore what I felt for my parents.s and what they had taught me, and what's left of that. And it was easier, when writing about another family, invented, get closer to what I felt, What if I had tried to do something almost documentary. I felt freer. I didn't have to stick to memories of myself or my brothers. I mean, this is an invention.”
Perhaps addressing a case of Alzheimer's is not something new in cinema, but the approach that Mortensen wanted to give to the issue, explored areas that he considered still unknown. “Lor what I wanted to do is something different from what I have seen even in good movies about people who have dementia or Alzheimer's. The dominant or almost only point of view is that ofl who observes the person with the disease. Mira, he doesn't know where he is, he doesn't know what year it is, think that I am another Or does he think I'm his mother or his son?, that is to say, he has no idea. And the truth is that I have had a lot of experience caring for and being around people who have suffered from dementia.. my fatherss, both, agrandparents, uncles, mi padrastro… and I know that, in general, are remembering things that attract them.” This fact,posed for the actor-director a capital question that not only affects the characters, but it can be extrapolated to the entire society. “The other issue is communication., how difficult it is to communicate with someone like that, that is inflexible, that does not fit in a relationship. In any relationship that lasts a long time, if the other person doesn't agreepfacing, does not evolve, It is very difficult for this evolution to prosper. Whatlaugh to look at that and, above all, whatwe say enough is enough, that's it. And I think that's a personal choice.. There are peopleand that says enough, I can't take it anymore, cortho with this person. Now, when is your father, it's more difficult.”
When do we put an end to a relationship is one of the fundamental questions this film faces.. A confrontation that ends in an open war in which both parties have as much to lose as to gain and in which there is never a very clear winner.. “The journey for John is to accept his father as he is.. This is what there is. Doesn't mean he stops wanting his dad to make an effort, even if it's very old, to have a point of contact, a little empathy, of compassion. But he has to accept his father. You don't have to do it, but it would be nice if you did. And it would be good if the father accepted him so that there would be a point of contact. Actually, This communication interests me because lWhat does John decide to do? everything possible to communicateand with that man who does not want to communicate. Now, there is no guaranteeas, none, that with such an effort some point of contact results. But if you break up with a person, it's over.” Mortensen extrapolates this conflict to other spaces, most common and general, where we can all see ourselves recognized. “It's like you don't participate in your family, or in your community or in your birthn; as a voter, as a citizen, nor you can complain a lot if you don't vote about what happens with the government. Or if you don't go out and ask for your rights in the street. Each one decides in his family, in your community. EI was thinking about that when filming it. In some sense, what happens in the family is a reflection of what happens in society in general. Not only in the United States, everywhere. And this is something that the public has transmitted to us in the colloquiums. And it's something that interests me., like him qwho has invented the story, because it has universal application.”
In this confrontation between parties, Will reconciliation finally be possible??, We are wondering. Is this the message of the movie? “I do not know, you decide that. The movie is yours, it's not mine.” Good answer.
