We know very little about the protagonist: his name, the fact that he comes from the Pampas and is travelling to Córdoba to find his father, whom he hasn’t seen for a long time. What drew you to a character like this, almost a blank slate, with no real past and, perhaps, no future either?
I witnessed the scene that inspired the film. A few years ago, a man fainted in the street. He was standing under a tree and suddenly collapsed. He must have been in his fifties; he was wearing a worn grey jacket and a rucksack. From where I was standing, even though I could see him head-on as I walked towards him, there was no sign that he was about to fall. It looked as though he was resting or waiting for someone. Only the flickering sunlight filtering through the branches seemed to be casting a spell over his body.
When he came round, he told us – the two or three people who had approached him – that he was on his way to a village in the province of Córdoba to see his father, whom he hadn’t seen for thirty years. He didn’t say much else: just that a lorry had brought him from La Pampa, and that he’d had nothing to eat all day but a piece of bread. He did not seem to be expecting anything in particular, nor was he acting according to any particular strategy. He simply spoke, with profound sincerity. He made us feel part of something deeply personal. It is in this combination of deeply moving presence and mystery that the essence of Ramón Vázquez’s writing lies.
Could you say a few words about the special bond that develops between the protagonist and the characters he meets along the way?
Ramón is a social outcast, a labourer who has been out of work for months, who sets out to find his father as best he can. Along the way, he encounters a series of characters who are themselves broken in their own way, and who help him with the very limited means at their disposal. Each has their own story, and Ramón possesses this particular quality — which Marcelo Subiotto and I saw almost as a form of sanctity — that encourages others to speak out and share what they are going through.
Through his very way of being in the world, Ramón Vázquez gradually brings together a community of the defeated, of people who have fallen outside the system.
La terminal (FID 34, 2023) was already set in a coach station, and here this transit hub once again takes centre stage. What is it about these spaces that appeals to you?
One might think there is a hidden thread running through the films. In that case, Ramón would be one of the many anonymous characters who pass through La terminal. It is as if, after observing all the people passing through this space, we had said to ourselves: ‘Right, now let’s follow one of them. ”
As for the space itself, it is these places of transit and waiting, where everything is fleeting, that interest me. I like to look at them and wonder what traces of human experiences remain there. What draws me in is the effort involved in looking where, on the surface, there is nothing to see.
Why did you choose black and white this time?
We shot the film over the course of a whole year, following the character’s journey chronologically. We would film one episode, then the next a few weeks later. We knew that the choice of locations would be crucial, and we spent the time between shooting days searching for them, as we were working with a tiny crew, never more than four people, trying to bring to life the interplay between the fictional narrative and the real locations.
The only thing we didn’t shoot in chronological order were Ramón’s visions, what happens during his blackouts. We filmed them first, as we knew we would find certain key elements there. Once these images had been captured, Diego Poleri, the director of photography, and I had no doubts: black and white was more effective for what we were seeking, a subtle tension with naturalism, a certain degree of abstraction.
Furthermore, black and white allowed us to overcome a practical difficulty: maintaining a consistent visual tone whilst filming took place over the course of a year, even though the story unfolds over just a few days.
The film’s opening shot shows the sun viewed head-on through the branches of a tree. And, indeed, as is always the case in your work, light plays a fundamental role here. Would you say that light has a symbolic function here, or one of a different nature?
For me, light — and shadow — are essential elements of cinema. Let me tell you something personal: the play of light in my childhood home was one of the most powerful experiences of my youth.
The light, filtered through sheer curtains or the slits in the shutters, would pass through the rooms and, as the day went on, fall upon my father’s old study, the glass doors of the bookcases inherited from my family, the grandfather clock, and the paintings hanging on the walls. I loved to see it shimmer on the worn wooden floor or nestle against the skirting boards.
Sometimes, the light would fall on a face — my father’s or my mother’s — and reveal a gesture, an expression, a movement preserved forever before it faded away. I believe that this fascination with what light does to the world is part of the reason why I make films.
As he meets people, Ramón Vázquez becomes the listener to the other characters’ stories. What role do these everyday stories and reflections play in the film?
Yes, that was precisely the crux of our interest. Ramón travels the world, driven by his desire and conviction, gathering glimmers of light amongst a community of the defeated.
That, in my view, is where the sanctity of his journey lies: enabling, for example, a musician to arrive so that Javier, one of the characters, can dance and achieve his own catharsis; or allowing Juli, the mute girl he meets at the coach station, to tell him about her father.
In the embrace Juli gives Ramón before leaving, in the way they recognise each other’s fragility, lies much of what these encounters meant to us.
Interviewed by Manuel Asín
