Interview with Manuel Ponce de León Restrepo
The film opens with the first two lines of the poem “Lola Jattín” by Raúl Gómez Jattín, written by the poet in memory of his own mother. Other verses are also quoted later on. How did the text accompany the making of the film?
Raúl Gomez Jattin was a great Colombian poet and one of the best friends of my father, who is also a poet. Although he died when I was just a child, his name has always been part of my family’s history. In 2016, when I left Berlin to return to my country, Colombia, I read Raúl’s poem “Lola Jattin” for the first time. I was deeply moved by the eternal dimension of the poem, by the author’s ability to create different temporal layers, which all existed at the same time, almost as if the work itself were memory, as if it were even my own past. As soon as I read it, I felt that I had to make a film about it, so it was fundamental on many levels.
Not only did this poem spark my desire to make the film, but it was also a constant guide for me when I was creating the images and situations that make up the narrative. Right from the beginning, I thought of the film as an exercise divided into chapters, in which each section was presided over by a fragment of the poem. However, I decided to step back a little and let the poem only appear verbatim in those two moments, partly because I think they were enough to anchor the film with that source of inspiration that was the poem, and also because I feel that when you work with a literary work that serves as a guide for an audio-visual project, it is important that the film in a certain way forget, throughout the process, the work it drew inspiration from. You have to distance yourself enough from that source to be able to bring the film to life and let it generate its own cinematic nature.
The poet and his mother are played by men and women from different generations according to the sequences, some of which are repeated. Can you explain this aspect of the relationship with time? And why did you choose to work with nonprofessional actors and with members of your own family?
Since Más Allá de la Noche is a film that essentially travels through the memory of a family home, and that this aspect was one of the things that most captivated me in the poem, I felt that the most honest way to approach the story was by using my own family. Juan, my father, plays the poet in his old age in the film, while Gabriel, my brother, plays the same character in his youth and Emiliano, my nephew, in his childhood. The same holds for the character of the poet’s mother: in her old age, she is played by my mother, and in her youth, she is played by my sister. In other words, just like the poem is an evocation of family images from the author’s past, I wanted the film to be based on family images from my own past.
It seems to me that within the dreamy atmosphere of the film, there is also a very clear search for naturalism, to allow time and life to express themselves in an organic, vivid way. The work of nonprofessional actors, the use of a location practically left untouched, of natural light and sequence shots, I think all these elements were key when it came to achieving this naturalistic and fresh feeling in the film.
The film takes place on the banks of the Magdalena River, a place full of stories and myths, which carries part of the Colombian memory. On several occasions, the camera ends its movement by moving towards the river. What does it symbolize?
The Magdalena River is the mother of our rivers, it is the great reference that comes to mind when we wonder about the river, as Colombians. Our history, our myths, our wealth, our blood, our people run through the Magdalena; it is in many respects the mother of our history.
The space (the patio of the house) and the Magdalena River are the real permanent narrators of the film, the framework of all the things that happen in the story. Logically, the presence of the river is a fundamental element. Throughout writing, pre-production, filming, and well into the post-production process, the film was even titled Magdalena. The river plays a key role as a protagonist, as a memorial site, as a vehicle to travel through time. In my short film Río Muerto (2017), I also explored this idea. I am intrigued by the way stories and characters can interact with the landscape, with natural elements, to the point of turning them into narrative vehicles. Characters that create a temporal dimension peculiar to the film itself.
You have shot the movie in black and white film and only in sequence shots. Can you explain these choices?
I chose the film medium for two main reasons: first, for its plastic and sensory character. I consider that images shot on a photochemical medium contain a physical dimension that somehow positions us as spectators in front of a material that is expressed in a different code than life. It seems to me that the vibration, grain and irregularity of each frame creates a different sensation in the viewer than that of digital technologies, which are more oriented towards the “perfection” and hyperrealism of the image. So, it seems to me that this dimension of film opens the door for my short film to create a kind of dreamland, which travels through the landscapes of memory and inner journeys.
The second reason, and perhaps the most important, is that when working on film, the very process of creation is altered. Somehow the results that are achieved with film are different from the results that are achieved with digital – not necessarily better, but necessarily different. Although I belong to the digital generation, I have been working on film since I was 14 years old, there is something so special about the moment of the shooting that I have always been passionate about film rolls, the limited material, the mystery yet to be revealed. Besides, I think that when a team of people works with limited photochemical material, different creative processes are activated, and different conclusions are reached about what should be done. Since we are not able to see the final result right away, a different mental exercise happens, the film appears more in the imagination of the team than as a concrete element to work on, and that aspect fascinates me very much and seems particularly fertile.
I chose black and white because I think that when we watch a monochrome film, temporality is distorted, it rarefies, and it becomes more difficult for us to figure out time changes between the scenes, an aspect that I find essential in this film in particular.
As for the sequence shot, it is a cinematic device that is a bit intuitive for me. For some reason, I feel really comfortable with this form of cinematographic narration when creating, not for rational reasons, but rather as a sensitive preference. However, for this film in particular, making sequence shots was a clear and rational decision, congruent with the form of the work. In my view, it is the «purest» narrative form in films to show the time of life, since the passage of time is respected without forging a particular spatial temporality through editing. Más allá de la noche is in essence a film that reflects on or that centres around the spatial memory of a man and a landscape – it is in many ways a film about the passage of time – so the sequence shot was the best way to create those temporary capsules that the film proposes.
You founded Los Niños Films in Bogotá with five other people and you all collaborate on each other’s films. Can you tell us about your work within this structure and the projects you are currently developing?
Los Niños Films has been one of the greatest opportunities of my life, an event that has become a powerful company for those of us who have had the pleasure of belonging to this beautiful and stimulating group of people. You could say that being part of this group made me a filmmaker.
It was founded by a group of friends, of “kids”, who have known each other since childhood and who grew up together. This condition of deep and ancient friendship formed us as a creative collective in which we work as a community on each other’s personal projects. For this particular film, which is still an eminently personal exercise, Los Niños Films and my producer, Carolina Zarate, actively participated in all the stages of production, from scriptwriting to the completion of the editing, by way of the shooting, and all the decisions to be made on the smallest details. Additionally, art, photography, sound, assistance directing and editing were taken care of by members of our collective. In short, this is a Los Niños Films movie.
We are currently working on the preproduction of my first feature film, Todos mis viajes son viajes de regreso, a film inspired by the literary universe of another Colombian poet, Leon De Greiff, which also unfolds along the Magdalena River. We are also working on the preproduction of Carro Pasajero, the second feature film by Cesar Jaimes and Juan Pablo Polanco (who directed Lapü), and we are finishing the medium-length film Las Almas ni los Ojos directed by my friend and colleague Cesar Jaimes, a project that also takes place on the banks of the Magdalena River, among other various projects.
Interview by Louise Martin Papasian
