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Letter
to J. Wiesner,
Bad Liebenstein Film Festival director:
Because
of its density, "Metaminds &
Metabodies" is a difficult work and
asks to be seen more than twice. Perhaps
it's a mistake to conceive a film in such
a way, but that's how I decided it and
that's the way I obstinately go on working
in my projects. I firmly believe that an
important part of the merit of a work lies
on the variety of its levels of
interpretation; it can't be bad to ask,
from time to time, some active attention
from de audience. The title refers to the
onion-type structure of the film, a pun
about archetypes and metalanguage. We are
increasingly used to products excesively
chewed over, which insist on minimize, by
means of obstinacy, the critic skills of
both the audience and the authors in an
inexorable falling towards a generalized
"disneyfications". As a director
of audiovisual works, I assume my part of
responsability in fighting against this
perverse tendency.
The
breaking in classic narrative shown in
"Metaminds & Metabodies" is,
to some extent, apparent, as far as the
story shows exactly what it is: the tavern
as the waiting room of Hell, from where
the invaders of The Other Side will return
(through the looking glasses). The barman
is the Cerberus, and exerts a diabolical
power over his customers. One of them,
suffering from septicaemia, unaware to the
evil that surrounds him, waits in vain to
collect a debt and meanwhile is victim of
diverse dramas developed in the bar.
However,
under this simply narrative, a careful
planification is hidden: dislocated and
faked raccords using mirrors, an abundance
of small and simbolic suggestions, almost
invisible (bread transformed in fishes,
nails in the barman's hands while
sostaining the megaphone...), special
effects with ultraviolet light (in the
lavatory) and other visual games of
difficult detection at first sight, being
necessary, sometimes, to stop the image to
appreciate them.
The
rest, obviously, is an enigma. The
dramatic elements in action are leavers in
a tree deeply rooted. I won't disclose
here (that's the audience task) my own
version of the subterranean bonds that
links the Chinese legend of the Yellow
Emperor, Jorge Luis Borges' Bestiary, the
Cathars' massacre in Languedoc, the
Gordian knot shaped in the real fiction at
the tavern, the fictious fiction at the
stage and the interaction between them,
the African black magic, Johann Sebastian
Bach's harmony (the original soundtrack is
a distorsion of Bach's "Herz
und Mund uns That und Leben"), and
other themes more or less obviousm all
them trascending the historical frame to
penetrate in the domains of the
non-verbal, the non-rational scope.
Even
today - and for a long time I hope - I'm
still surprised for the rediscovering of
new "secret chambers" in this
labyrinthian work that, although conceived
by me, has never been my proper belonging
due to its elusive and rebellious nature.
Sincerely
yours
Carlos
Atanes
(October, 1999)
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