a story, an event: a group of friends meet at one of their uncle's house to spend a weekend together. They just turned sixteen years old and have been looking forward to this moment for a long time.. For the first time in their lives they will enjoy that feeling of freedom that implies leaving the family environment and enjoying the complicit company of those with whom you share your entire world.: your friends. But this happy experience will have a tragic outcome when, in the middle of a party, the first night, a fire breaks out that destroys the house. This catastrophe will have serious consequences for the group of friends who will end up distancing themselves and losing the relationship.. years later, They meet again to restore the wounds that were left open between them. And here are the facts. But staying only in the plot line of this film would be leaving aside more than half of the work that director Laura Rius proposes to us with The girls of fire, last foray from an author we hadn't heard from since Agata's friends, collective film that marked a before and after in the awakening of a generation of filmmakers that is still taking off. With a deliberate mix of formats, Rius deploys a rich range of resources with which he proposes a game that appeals to the viewer's imagination., who will be the one who has to compose the set according to the pieces that are offered. We discussed some of these keys with the director in this talk.
Your previous job is your participation as co-director in Agata's friends with which I see quite a few thematic connections with this film, especially the fact that both stories feature a group of friends. Why have you chosen that theme again as the driving force of this story or your stories??
In this case, the movie didn't have to talk about a group of friends. It's a topic that was there, but I didn't realize. When I started recording the movie, What interested me was the fact of a fire in a house, etc. But, while I was riding it, I realized it was more of a friendship story., like in Agata's friends, that about an event. But, in both cases, more than a recurring topic that I have decided to talk about, I think it has to do with the vital moment in which I found myself.. Con Ágat's friends, all [the four credited directors of the film] we were going through the same thing as our protagonists. We were at university and we felt that conflict with school friends that appears there. Now it's one more step. We are adults and maybe I can reconcile with people I stopped seeing. But more than starting from a topic, I accidentally gravitated towards this group of girls and ended up making a movie about friendship, which shows that it is a topic with which I feel related (laughter).
While watching the movie I was thinking about The virgin suicides by Sofia Coppola, I don't know if this is a reference for you.
Yes, it could be a reference, but those references are more fictional and, In fact, in my movie the group of girls really lived this story. The girls of fire It is more of a documentary with some sequences worked as fiction. But, Yeah, in the staging, how to record them, how to make your portrait yes I like this melancholic tone of The virgin suicides. It was about concentrating on the melancholy of each one of them and how the fire continued to burn now..
I was going to ask you about that because, when you are watching the movie, you don't think about a documentary, but in a fiction that has a documentary style. What did that aesthetic give you??
What happened is that I met the owner of the house, who told me that, when I had 16 years, She had gone to her uncle's house with her best friends., that that fire had broken out the first night and that, since then, they had not seen each other again. So, I asked him, would you let me contact them? You send me this email, I write to them and so I can get to know each of them separately., I do interviews with them, I record their life in Paris and then we go home for a weekend, that was going to be sold, and you talk about what happened because it is an issue that you never resolved. In other words, the basis is completely documentary. Yes, there is a staging at the time I record them, but everything is documentary. When they talk in the final scene, is what happened. The planning was more fiction, but what happened within each shot was documentary.
Why did you choose that way instead of being inspired by history and turning it into fiction??
Because what connected me with these girls is that the fact that a fire had destroyed a friendship seemed very sad and very powerful to me.. If we made this movie together, what I liked was that it was an experience, a kind of performance in which we would find ourselves in the house, They would talk about it and close the topic. The interesting thing was that the film was of some use, for the girls to reconnect and be able to talk, that it wasn't just a story to tell people.
That is something that those of you who are within the project experienced., but, What position do you put the viewer in?, who doesn't know what's behind, in front of the movie?
I like this tension caused by the fact that it is not clear whether it is a documentary or fiction. For example, When you saw the movie did you think it was fiction??
Yeah, I thought it was fiction, but what, to tell it, you had chosen this form of mockumentary. thinking about Agata's friends, For example, It has that form of interpretation that is more open to improvisation that gave it that naturalistic tone..
Yeah, it's the same. Agata's friends It was fiction with the air of a documentary and this is a documentary with the air of fiction. I think I'm more interested in making a movie based on something real.. I think I'm heading more that way..
That's why I was asking you about the position of the viewer.. For the protagonists, the film serves as a personal catharsis, an experience, you said, but, What does this story mean to the viewer??
I think that, If you look at the movie as fiction, it's the same. That later you discover that it is reality, add something else. I think that, if you are connected to the characters and what happens, I find it interesting that the viewer thinks it is fiction. It hasn't happened to me that people think it's fiction., That's why I haven't thought about it very much.. But it is true that I have edited the film as a fiction. In that sense, It's very narrative..
In that sense, The first thing that catches your attention is the structure., how you break up the development of what happens and how the viewer has to compose it based on fragments of things that are told but that, besides, they are not seen. What was the process of building this frame like?? Was it something that was imposed by the situation itself or was it something that you discovered, as you say, in the assembly?
During filming I was very clear that I wanted the film to be built in layers., as if it were a story, In fact. The film begins with a house that is burned down and is going to be sold.. There is a part in the middle where you meet five girls who you notice are linked., but you never see them together. And then, you begin to understand that perhaps there was a fire, that perhaps they have not seen each other again, that perhaps they were very friends, who feel guilty, etc. I liked the idea of building layers to, in the third part, echo with the first. In fact, The film begins with a shot of a roundabout that is later taken up in the second part, as if it were some kind of time loop in which, in the end, when they are at home, out between the present and the past, because they are doing the same thing they did the first time they were in the house, only now they are adults and can talk about it. It was about giving small clues and letting the viewer link them and make up their own idea to reach the climax, which is when they meet and you notice that they are going to talk about something important.. Although it is true that it is not completely resolved, because it is difficult to say that they are the best friends in the world, at least they closed the loop.
I recently spoke with León Siminiani about his film (Quiet syndrome), and he told me that one of the things that is characteristic of cinema is the power it has to make different spaces and times coexist in the same narrative.. When watching your movie, I have remembered this, I don't know if you agree.
Yeah, totally agree with him. Besides, was my tutor in Agata's friends (laughter). Yeah, The house itself is a metaphor for a friendship suspended in time., It's like the past. I like to think that the past is found in the film, the present and the future, that are spun with the assembly. What they say is also important because at a given moment you are in the present., but they talk about the past, the movie starts in the present, but they are talking about a house that has burned down, but it will be sold... all the tracks create that loop temporality that I said. In the film I have used resources, like magic, for, precisely, reinforce this somewhat magical aspect of time.
Was there any reflection on your part about the concept of time itself or was it a process of discovering where the keys to the game were??
Wine given by the project. A group of girls who haven't seen each other for ten years, the house is now in ruins, suspended in time, Their friendship is also suspended in time., the house will be sold, which in turn activates time, that activates friendship… That is to say, came given by the project, although later, in the assembly, reinforced it. For example, when I saw the images of them with the suitcases, when they are coming home again, I wanted the viewer to wonder, Is it a reconstruction of what happened? Is it the present? what is happening? What time am I in?? I tried to play with this a lot.
There is something that I really like about the film and it is the play of textures that are part of the story.. The texture of the roof of the house, the windows, etc. What did these elements mean to you in the film??
In the case of the house plans from the beginning, I wanted them to be like clues. There are other shots of burnt glass that I also liked because they evoked something ghostly.. In the movie there are many bridges between things. I recover the images of the beginning of the textures of the house later, when a girl blows out a candle and we see photos of the burned house: some are from the present and others are from the past. It was that, sow evidence. Bueno, apart from the aesthetic issue of the grain. I really like the subject. But at the level of meaning they served that purpose, as clues.
I ask you these questions because, apart from the story, I think one of the most interesting things about your film is how it is constructed.. In that sense, one of the most striking elements is the use of sound, of silence. These elements set the tempo of the film., more than the facts that are told. How did you work it?
At first I collaborated with a girl, but then I was working on the montage by myself for three months. I am a base assembler and it is what I like the most., create the rhythm of the film, etc. It is true that, at first, the movie was very talky, I wanted to do more interviews with the girls and have them talk a lot, but I realized it didn't work. I think it was important that the film was very quiet so that, when you hear something, really look, that you really listen. Although there is a lot of music, I think I tried to leave it as quiet as possible to emphasize and hear well what is being said..
You spoke to me at the beginning about melancholy, but the film also gives me a certain feeling of happiness, They are like two extremes of the same thing..
Melancholy and happiness? Yeah, It is a certain happiness because it does close something. Above all, for the protagonist, Magda. having made this movie, having talked to her friends, have closed the topic, let the house be sold, May it no longer be a weight on your conscience, it's a happiness. Happiness because everyone wanted to make the film. I thought they were going to tell me, “no way” because, besides, there were money issues, insurance, who burned the house?, It was not very obvious that they said yes. But they were excited about doing it because they all felt that it was a topic that made them sad., that was not digested. Excited, happy, but, at once, It's something that has no turning back. They stopped being friends and have not seen each other since the movie.. Yes they solved it, but…
And how did you feel about this story??
I felt very identified. That's why I wanted to do it, because I was at the same vital point where they were. They are my age, I also think about other friends, in other people, conflicts... I wanted to accompany them on that path because perhaps it was something that I also wanted to do.
