Audio transcription

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

John Quackenbush  0:00  

April 26 2015, the Harvard Film Archive screened Lake Tahoe. This is the audio recording of the introduction and the post-screening Q&A. Participating are HFA Director Haden Guest and Fernando Eimbcke and Christian Valdeliévre. And now, Haden Guest

Haden Guest  0:20  

[BEGINNING AUDIO MISSING] will point as well to directors such as Aki Kaurismäki, Jacques Tati, and we could, I think, draw this larger constellation of filmmakers who really are dealing with cinematic space and a kind of a sculptural narrative in which time passing, events happening, take place, quite literally on the screen itself in ways that really bring us back to silent cinema. And so it's no surprise that dialogue should be minimal in so much of Eimbcke’s films.

But I'd like to also point to what I think is really interesting is Eimbcke’s relationship to a kind of movement—a loose movement—in Latin American cinema, filmmakers who are really interested in minor stories, the kind of minor cinema that I think is very much at work in the work of the two Argentine filmmakers who were here last weekend, Martín Rejtman and Matías Piñeiro, but also filmmakers such as the Uruguayan Pablo Stoll. And this interest in the smaller, more intimate, paradoxically opens up a really profound and philosophical dimension to these filmmakers’ work. That's certainly true to tonight's film, as you will see.

We're also going to be seeing a short, which was the opening film of an omnibus dedicated to the Mexican Revolution, which Fernando will be able to introduce. I first want to thank the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies—DRCLAS—who is our partner on this program. I want to thank Paola Ybarra who is the coordinator and who makes everything possible. So I want to give her and DRCLAS a round of applause.

[APPLAUSE]

I’d like to ask everybody, please turn off any cell phones, electronic devices. Please refrain from using those in the screening. We'll be having a conversation after the screening together with Christian and Fernando here in front, so please stay around for that. And now with no further ado, please join me in welcoming Fernando Eimbcke.

Fernando Eimbcke  2:49  

Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here to present the films that we did. I hope you enjoy it. And please stay at the end of the film because we want to have a conversation. If you like it, it's okay. If you don't, let's talk about it. It will be interesting. Please. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

John Quackenbush  3:18  

And now the discussion.

Haden Guest  3:23  

Please join me in welcoming back Fernando Eimbcke y Christian Valdelièvre!

[APPLAUSE]

Before we begin, I'd neglected to thank a very important individual of this program. That’s Jonathan Shpall—who's an undergraduate here at Harvard—who played an instrumental role in organizing this event, and also writing some really wonderful notes for the program which you can read in our calendar. Jonathan did this work as a class project, so I want to thank him.

[APPLAUSE]

Fernando Eimbcke  4:05  

He is best known in Mexico as “the mister.” He worked with us in the production company.

Haden Guest  4:13  

The mister! [LAUGHS]

Well, gentlemen, thank you both for being here. And in speaking about this film, I want to make this an open conversation between the three of us because Christian, of course, is produced not only in this film, but in all the three films has played a really key sort of creative role in this process. So please, feel free to interject in any ways, both of you.

But I wanted to begin to speak about Lake Tahoe and about your cinema, Fernando, by asking a more formal question which has to do with the shot. Your films are so deeply invested in place. There's a kind of intimacy and a sort of closeness of place in your films. We inhabit these particular spaces, the apartment in Duck Season, the hotel, as we’ll see, or motel we'll see in Club Sandwich and here, this small town. And I feel like that sense of space, so much of that comes from your use of the long shot. And I was wondering if you could speak a bit about how you conceive of narrative and space. For you, is narrative spatialized like to begin with? Or how do you think about the shot? And can you speak in particular, about Lake Tahoe to the particular sort of rhythm of the shot in this film?

Fernando Eimbcke  5:46  

I think that the place, it's a character, it's a character of the story. It's very important. We spent almost a year looking for this place. I was very lucky because I worked with the best director of photography, Alexis Zabe. He worked on Duck Season, on Lake Tahoe, and he worked with Carlos Reygadas on Silent Light. He's one of the best photographers. And he's a very difficult guy to work with, because it's not an easy going guy like, “Okay, let's do that.” No, he's involved in the story, involved in everything... sometimes too much. [LAUGHS] But he's really good with that. And we were looking for this place. And I wanted a place that was very dry, because it was a story about the death of a father, a story about a loss. And we looked for a lot of industrial places in the northern part of Mexico [where] it's very dry. And suddenly, Alexis, he told me, “Let's take a look to the tropics.” And I was like, “No, because the tropics [are] the tropics.” There's a lot of life there. And he helped me to see that this story was about death, but also about life. So we realized that, and we started to look for a place that has the two things—dryness and a tropical sense—because it's a story about death, but a story about life. And we found this small town in the southwest part of Mexico, called Progreso. And we fell in love with the place. And I remember that Alexis was really, really concerned about the space between the sidewalks, he wanted to have a very, very long shot. So he was really obsessed with that. We had a dogma to not touch anything of the streets. The colors are the colors just the way they are. So it was like a very interesting process. And that the place helped us a lot to [find] the rhythm of the film. Because it was a really quiet place. So when you were shooting, you can hear the trees, the wind. So that gave us a sense of the rhythm of the film. And for me, it's one of the most important things of a film, the rhythm and the tone. The most important. I'm not too much concerned about the story in terms of dramatic events, but more in the tone and the rhythm.

Haden Guest  9:07  

Well, in terms of space, I mean, one of the things that's so fascinating and surprising about this film—and I think in all your films—we seem to understand the space to a certain way. It seems to be described to us exactly, but at the same time, there are depths within the space that surprise us. And I think of Duck Season isn't actually entering into the picture itself. And here, the sense that we think that he's gone this long distance, but actually... He seems to be the stranger in this other town, but actually, he's really close to his home. And again, I wanted to speak about the duration of the shot. I think that this is very important to the ways in how cinematic space works. It’s space in time. And so the length of these shots, seems to me, is very important. I was wondering if you could speak a bit more to the actual metrics, to the ways in which you think about how long a shot should last, how long should a shot linger after an action has happened? I was wondering if that's something you might be able to speak about. Either of you.

Fernando Eimbcke   10:27  

Well, we design a very strict shooting. We know very well which shots we're going to do, but when we go with the actors, it's totally different. Everything changes, and you start to find the right rhythm of the scene. And it's something about, I don't know, intuition—how the dialogue works, the sound, everything, and how is the frame, and the geometric composition of the frame. It's about rhythm. So we spend a lot of time trying… Sometimes we can design a scene, and sometimes we do it once, and again, and again and again. And then Alexis, he came to me and said, “Maybe it's the size of the frame.” So we make another composition, and everything works. And the actors are just the same. So it's about intuition. I give a lot of freedom to the actors, but not so much freedom [LAUGHS] because they can move too much. We are finding the rhythm by instinct, by intuition.

Haden Guest  12:02  

There's a sense in the film, it seems that so much the film takes place at the beginning horizontally, you know, a movement across the frame, and then there's a kind of release when we actually are in the car, and there's actually the sense of deep space. So it seems like the language and the geometry of the image tells us so much that's not stated in words.

But something else that's really important are these pauses, these “non-images''—that we've seen in Duck Season as well—the pauses, but here, they're even deeper, they're even longer. And there's also a dimension of sound… At times, there's almost like a scene that's withheld from us, like the Bruce Lee film or the or the baby crying. So I was wondering if you could speak about this use of the non-image and the use of sound in those moments?

Fernando Eimbcke   13:02  

Well, it was really strange to use the black as a tool. Because it's black. Nothing is happening in the black. But for us, it was really useful to express the sense when someone dies. It’s like a surprise. You don't know how long it will take. If it will be a long time, you don't know. So we found that in the editing room that the cut to black was, in some sense, that same feeling that you have when you lost someone. And we—I’m saying ‘we” because I work very near with the editor. It's Mariana Rodriguez. She edited also Duck Season. And we were really obsessed with the sound. I think that the sound is one of the most important things of a film, but not too [many] people take care of the sound. I think it's really, really important. So we are experimenting with the sound and the cut-to-blacks. And I think that we spent more time in the sound design than in the editing room. It was really really strange because with Duck Season, we spent six months in the editing room trying to find the film. It was really really difficult and a very painful process. And this film was really amazing because the film was edited in the shooting process. So the editor, she said “Well, it's edited.” Wee spent like two or three months editing the film and we spent like six months on the sound design. So it was funny to work in that way. But the sound is really important in the films. And I was obsessed with this book from Robert Bresson. I was really obsessed with that book.

Haden Guest

Notes from the Cinematographer.

Fernando Eimbcke

Notes from the Cinematographer. And yes, then I shared the view of the use of sound. It was an experiment too. [LAUGHS]

Haden Guest  15:35  

And Bresson is important to you for more than sound, no? Bresson is one of your touchstones, no?

Fernando Eimbcke

Yes.

Haden Guest

I mean, I feel like all of your films—well, your three feature films—deal with this search for home, in a sense, deal with family. And I've read, you speak of this as being a film that's in a sense, autobiographical, or there's an autobiographical element to this film. I was wondering if you could reflect on that. But also, is this a common thread throughout all of your films? Do you think your films all have an autobiographical dimension that deal with your own experience of youth and adolescence and family?

Fernando Eimbcke  16:27  

I think that it's impossible not to make an autobiographical film. Always, there's something about you in the films. But at the same time, you have to not tell your story, because you are like your alter ego. You can't punish the characters. So you are very good with them. Because “Ah, I can punish him because he hits me,” so it's really difficult. You have to take a distance, say, “Okay, Moko in Duck Season is Moko. And Juan in this film is Juan.” And actually, this script was written with Paula Markovitch, the co-writer of Duck Season. So it's a story that we shared when we [lost] our fathers. So we shared the story, but I think that it's universal when you lose someone. These kind of feelings [are] universal. Yes, but everything is every film is autobiographic in some way.

Haden Guest  17:42  

Great. Christian, I'd love to ask you... I mean, the films of Fernando, the films that you have made together, I think, occupy a really special place. Again, I feel like there's such an urge to make bigger, longer, more expensive films, and yet, these are films that I think are the exact opposite. These are smaller, more intimate films. I was wondering if you could speak about your role as producer, and the struggle or challenges or pleasures in making possible films such as these.

Christian Valdelièvre  18:15  

I met Fernando in 2003 maybe? 2002, something like that. And he was very scared of having me as a producer, because I looked too industrial even though... I was alone, but I don't know, somehow, because maybe because of the bank—because I have worked at JP Morgan for eighteen years. And so he thought I was too, I don't know, maybe too serious. And he wanted to do it in a very simple way, his first movie, and I think one of the things that intrigued me at the beginning is that he came to me and said he wanted to do the simplest movie possible with the least amount of money possible and with the least amount of characters. And you know, that's a very surprising thing from a director to say. Directors don't come to you and say they want to do a miniscule movie with no money, you know? [LAUGHTER] That's not a normal thing that you expect from a director. But I love that, because I thought it was really interesting. The other thing he says he wanted to do a story in between four walls where nothing was happening, and that he wanted to do a story about that too—and that's Duck Season. And all of those things, I think, combined were incredibly attractive because that makes it incredibly different to try to do movies. I think there's a lot happening of course in Mexico today in terms of the industry, there's many more movies today than ten years ago, but there's quite a bit of people like Fernando who are doing indeed the movies which are different and, as you see the movies in the film festival world and the firm circle world and in international sales and stuff, you see all these Mexican names [who are doing] small movies, which are very good. Aand we continue. I mean, we're working on a couple right now with other directors and a lot of people continue to do small movies. And so, yeah, I think it's certainly a trend. It is a trend though that is a bit complicated. And I have talked to Fernando about it, but we put our heart and our money and everything to try to do these movies. And it's super hard to have them seen by a lot of people, it's super hard to have a very strong reaction. And at some point in time, you get a bit frustrated, because there's so much effort and energy to be put into our movies, and then they're there in the small world, you know, and so… But I mean, it's a very interesting thing that we're doing, of course.

Haden Guest  20:48  

No, I mean, this is, I feel like, a struggle that goes beyond Mexico too. This is where really important and cutting-edge cinema is being made, on these kind of edges, which I think paradoxically, is at the heart at the center of what's important.

I wanted to raise the topic of comedy, because it seems to me that your films, to a certain sense, challenge the idea of what comedy is. They use ideas of comedy, a kind of logic of comedy—things breaking, falling apart, kind of delayed visual, spatial jokes. At the same time, these are very serious in a sense, melancholic, sad films. And so I was wondering if you could speak about a bit about comedy, what comedy means to you, how you think about it in terms of the conception of the film and the narrative and then even the timing of these shots, these little episodes because the films are very episodic.

Fernando Eimbcke  21:54  

Well, first of all, I don't like to watch comedy. I don't like to watch it. I love melodrama. And I like these kind of characters suffering. Duck Season, for example, is a melodrama. It’s disguised as Dickinsian, kids suffering. So for me, it's really important to make a melodrama. And there's like a consistent layer of—it’s not even comedy; It's like a farce. It's very, very obvious in some way. So I found an equilibrium. But I don't like committing too much! [LAUGHS]

Haden Guest  22:52  

So between this kind of balance and between comedy, and a kind of melodrama, but always, it seems to me like the distance that you have spatially in the films is also a distance that you keep, perhaps from genres too. You know, here, in this film, the tears that come, there's such a delay for those tears, and they come at this unexpected moment… which is just really quite lovely.

Fernando Eimbcke  23:17  

It’s really interesting, for example, in this film, when there's the scene between the brothers. It was supposed to be a very sad scene with a lot of tears and everything, but it was impossible to convince this little boy to cry. Impossible. So we changed everything. And we did the most tender scene of the film with a fart. So it was... Well I like it a lot to talk about this tender thing, but in a different way.

Haden Guest  24:05  

Do all of your films follow this have a kind of space for this sort of surprise during the production? The distance between the scenario and the– I mean, with Duck Season as well, you're working with young actors. Were there also a lot of changes made?

Fernando Eimbcke  24:21  

Yes, yes, yes. A lot of people think that as a director, you know everything. You have all the questions, all the answers, everything. And no, we are very lucky because the set is like a band, like a band of guys [who are] playing. Sometimes the scene doesn't work, so we try to find a way with the director of photography, with the actors, with the sound designer. So we try “Okay, what happens if you change this? Let's try this.” And we try it because we design a very, very...

Haden Guest  25:16  

You give yourself a lot of space...

Fernando Eimbcke  25:20  

Right. We don't have a shooting schedule [with] a lot of things to do in a day. We only make like one scene. So we arrive in the morning, we [place] the camera, we rehearse, and we [see] how everything [goes.] And if it's not working, we can go to the actors: “Okay, okay, let's try this, or let's try this.” And that very relaxed schedule gave us a chance to find new things to experiment with. So that's why I am obsessed with shooting in one space, one location. I love that Club Sandwich is a film in a hotel. Because I want to take the time to see how the scene is going, to give the actors a chance to express themselves with the story. So yes, we play. [LAUGHS] I think that making films, it's to play.

Christian Valdelièvre  26:29  

Just thinking, in Lake Tahoe, we had six weeks, but remember what happened the last week?

Fernando Eimbcke  26:35  

Yes. When we were looking for the place in the southwest part of Mexico. It's a place that there's a lot of hurricanes. And Christian, the producer, he told us “Don't go there. There's a lot of hurricanes,” and all during that season. And we were like, “No, no, you're so pessimistic. No, no, let's go.” So, a hurricane [came] in–

Christian Valdelièvre 27:06

In week five. The epicenter was going to be Progreso. I mean, not epicenter, but the place where the hurricane was going to hit the most was Progreso, Yucatán. You could see it in all the, you know, all the meteorological things. So we knew a couple of days in advance that it was going to hit exactly right there.

Fernando Eimbcke  27:25  

So the government of the place came to us, and they told us, “Okay, get the hell out of here, because there will be a hurricane.” So we took the script, and we said, “Okay, what do we need to tell the story? Okay, this and this, and this. Okay, let's do it, and let's get out of here.” So we did that, and–

Christian Valdelièvre  27:54  

There was like more than a week leftover, and they had to shoot in two days whatever they thought was necessary and that's it. That was the end of it.

Haden Guest  28:01  

That was the end of the shoot.

Christian Valdelièvre  28:02  

Yeah, that was the end of the shoot.

Fernando Eimbcke 

Because we didn't know if the place [would still] be there.

Christian Valdelièvre

Destroyed. Or have no set. Which is why I told them of course, in advance. Yeah. [LAUGHTER[

Fernando Eimbcke   28:15  

it, it was really difficult because half of the crew was like, “Okay, let's go!” And half of the crew was like, “No, let's do it. Let's do it.” They were like, ”What are you talking about? It's a hurricane!”

Christian Valdelièvre  28:26  

And then we had kids, right? So it's even more complicated, you know, underage, that gets very delicate.

Fernando Eimbcke  28:36  

But nothing happened. [LAUGHS] The hurricane doesn't happen. But we edited the film, and we found that we–

Christian Valdelièvre 28:45

We left and then the hurricane went to another place, so we actually had another week if you wanted. But we were gone...

Haden Guest  28:47  

But you didn’t want it then.

Christian Valdelièvre  28:48  

No because we were gone and they had shot already what they wanted anyway, so...

Haden Guest  28:54  

It was a good hurricane in some way. [LAUGHS]

Let's take some questions from the audience, questions or comments for Christian or Fernando. If you just raise your hand, we have microphones. Question right here in the middle.

Audience 1 29:15  

There are so many things I loved about the film, but I think what impressed me the most was that even within these very intimate scenes, you'll cut out very important emotional notes. So for example, the one that's sticking out to me is in front of the movie theater where he bashes the front of the car, and then you just cut to them sitting in front of it. So I'm wondering, do you play out those whole scenes and then shoot them from both angles? Or was that ellison in your direction, like that moment just didn't happen and you knew you would cut [INAUDIBLE]?

Fernando Eimbcke  30:14  

I think that I shot all the scene, I don't remember. I don't remember. But I don't know. I think that you make the films in the editing room. And you start to find that the most emotional things you have to trust in the cutting process, in the editing process, not in the actors. Actually, the actor, he broke his hand hitting the car, because he was really intense. And I was like, “Don't worry…  It’s cinema, don't worry,” but he was like, “Yes, I want to do it!” But I think that the most important tool for the filmmaker is the cut. And if the cut works, it's great. You don't have to exploit the actors, to have all the emotion in one scene, you have the chance to cut. I think that the things that you don't see sometimes are the most important things. You don't have to show everything.

Haden Guest 31:27  

Other questions? We have a question right here in the front.

Audience 2  31:38  

I'm sorry I didn't get to see the other film, but I saw that Daniel Cataño [sic] is in the other film as well. What was it like? And what was the actual age of the actors in this film? And you mentioned the young boy who was so angelic. But what was it like working with them and getting them to—because they're the heart of the film—to give such a great performance? And, you know, with that kind of slow pace too.

Fernando Eimbcke 32:13  

Diego, he [was] sixteen years old. Yes, Diego Cataño. In Duck Season he [was] like thirteen? Yes. And he girl she [was] twenty or something like that.

Christian Valdelièvre  32:38  

She lied.

Fernando Eimbcke

No.

Christian Valdelièvre

She didn’t lie? I thought she told us she was–

Fernando Eimbcke  32:46  

In Duck Season or Lake Tahoe? 

Christian Valdelièvre

In Lake Tahoe.

Fernando Eimbcke

No, she didn't lie.

Christian Valdelièvre

I thought she had lied. [HADEN LAUGHS]

Fernando Eimbcke

She was part of the wardrobe department. She was not an actress. She worked in the wardrobe department. And I saw her and I was like, “Ah! It’s great!”

The smaller one was very, very, very young, like six, something like that. And the other guy, the kung fu guy. We found him working in a parking lot. The casting director found him. And he was amazing. We spent a lot of time in the casting process. But a lot of time and all the time. When the casting director came to the first meeting with me. I [told] them, “Okay, you will get desperate, you will quit, I'm sure. Because it will be a very exhausting process.” and they were “No, no, no, I will do it. No, no, no.” And on all the films, you see two casting directors. [LAUGHTER]

Christian Valdelièvre

They all quit.

Fernando Eimbcke

The [?desperate?] thing is a very difficult process. Sometimes. So one of the casting directors, she came to me and she told me, “You don't know what you want! You don't know what you want!” And I was like, “No, I want to see.” For example, in Duck Season, the pizza delivery guy, I wrote it in a very specific way with a very physical description. And it was totally different from the guy that we found, because I was really surprised with him. I think that the casting process is a process of surprising. You have to be surprised by them. So right now I don't make physical descriptions in the scripts. I think that it's not a very good idea. [LAUGHS]

Christian Valdelièvre  34:58  

And in Lake Tahoe you had seen a lot of other kids.

Fernando Eimbcke

Yes.

Christian Valdelièvre

And you had chosen another one.

Fernando Eimbcke

Yes. No, actually, we– 

Christian Valdelièvre

it wasn't not gonna be Cataño; it was gonna be another kid. And then at the end, like in  rehearsal, like really close to shooting. Like a month before shooting, he changed his mind.

Fernando Eimbcke

No, two weeks, two weeks.

Christian Valdelièvre

So they don't want to do the other guy anymore. So then he thought of Diego, but originally, the main actor of this movie was not going to be Diego. There was only until the last minute and by luck, by coincidence, he was free so he could shoot, but it was very last-minute really. So we had to change the wardrobe and everything, because everything was ready for the other boy. Not an easy conversation with the other boy, by the way.

Haden Guest  35:45  

That’s where you come in! [LAUGHS]

Fernando Eimbcke  35:47  

You can’t change too [many] things in the shooting process. You have to be very, very, very sensitive in terms of the casting. For example, in Duck Season, we have all the kids, but the girl was another girl. And we did a shooting, one day shooting, and nothing was happening between them. Nothing. So we changed that girl. We brought another girl and Diego Cataño told me [WHISPERING] “Yes. She's great. She's great. I love her.” Because he fell in love with her. He fell in love with her. So we chose that girl. And everything changed in the film, everything. All the kids were like this, very nervous. You have to trust a lot in [those] kind of things. And to work with teenagers. It's amazing, because they're really, really naive. They don't want to make a character. They want to play. So it's amazing. A lot of people ask me “Why do you make teenager films?” because it's amazing to work with them, and you learn a lot. You learn how to play in a film. It's an experiment, it's a play, it's something that you must enjoy. So you learn from teenagers. Now I have kids, and I'm not having a very good time. [LAUGHTER] That’s different.

Christian Valdelièvre  37:24  

But our I mean, now in our processes, now that we've done three movies, we put [in] incredibly long, long periods of time to do the casting. Because you know it will be difficult. “Okay in a couple of months.” Not in this case. I mean, never [less than] six months for casting. Yeah, minimum a year sometimes.

Fernando Eimbcke  37:42  

Yes. And sometimes we find we find an amazing kid. And one year later, he has like a mustache. And he's like, “Sorry, I can't do it.”

Christian Valdelièvre  37:54  

Of course, that's the other level of complication. Because the moment he finds somebody he likes for the process to work, then the kid is too old and doesn't work anymore.

Fernando Eimbcke  38:04  

One funny thing about casting is that when we were making Duck Season, there was a guy, a red-haired guy. And Christian, the producer told me—because I told him, “I need a red-haired guy.” He was like “It's a black and white film!” [LAUGHTER] “Is it important? It's black and white.” And I was like, “Yes, of course. It's really important.” And it was really important for the film. Really, really. There's no color, it's black and white. But it's a red-haired guy.

Christian Valdelièvre  38:35  

We don't have a very big Irish community in Mexico. So I tried to find a red-haired actor who is an actor within that age group, and he’s able and he's a good one. And in Mexico, it was really a very little thing in a big haystack. I mean, very, very complicated. That's where it got crazy, because, you know, it’s black-and-white. Why does it have to be red hair? I'll paint the hair.

Haden Guest  39:06  

Other questions? Comments? Yes, right here in front.

Audience 2 39:20  

So you started mentioning this earlier, but I'm just wondering what it's like to make movies in Mexico right now. And if you feel like you have support behind the work that you're doing—this sort of more artistic, slower movies in general in Mexico. I have Mexican friends and stuff who are in the arts and find it very challenging. I'm just curious. Either one of you...

Christian Valdelièvre  39:48  

I think we have an extraordinarily privileged environment today to do movies in Mexico. I mean, we're probably one of the countries that is helping the most. At all levels from short to long features. We have now three funds. One of them might disappear, but we have three funds that are from the government that are helping different features. If you look at—I was saying before—when I did my first movie in 1999, we were doing ten movies a year, I think now we're doing 120. So that's twelve times what we're doing, then compared to fifteen years ago, and there's a lot of help from the government from even before the financing of the movie itself, you know, in helping on the script writing, helping on development process, they're beginning to help us on the sale process—that's a bit more complicated. But I think we have an extraordinary level of help really, worldwide. We must be one of the places that gets, I think the most…

Haden Guest

State.

Christian Valdelièvre 

The most state. Yes, of course, a lot of it is state. Now, of course, but at the same time, there's a lot of people who are beginning to want to do movies, and there's a lot of new people coming in, and of the 120 we're doing, I can say that 120 are very high quality. And at the same time, there's a lot of stuff which is being produced which might not be so good. But it helps to create an industry. There's more jobs for people, more jobs for screenwriters [who] then can really dedicate themselves to write as opposed to doing other things, and you know, [it makes] it more professional for the separation of the jobs. You know, a lot of Mexican directors are screenwriters and directors and producers. They do everything and so when we have a bigger industry, we'll have more chances of having more specializations in the jobs. I think that's good for everybody. So I think we get a lot of help. I don't know, what do you think?

Fernando Eimbcke  41:41  

Yes. And there's a total creative control. On my side, total creative control.

Christian Valdelièvre  41:51  

No censorship of any kind, or–

Fernando Eimbcke 41:54  

There are a lot of filmmakers that have total creative control. So that's very good. [The biggest] problem—I think it's a global problem—is the distribution of the films, the exhibition of the films, that's really, really, really terrible. And now we're making 100 films per year, but they can’t find the space. So it's really sad to see the numbers of all of the films...

Christian Valdelièvre  42:29  

Yeah, he means the attendance number. On the positive side, we have two excellent schools of movies: the CCC, [which] is from the Instituto de Bellas Artes; and the CUEC, which is part of UNAM [which has] very known schools of movies in Mexico and now a lot of foreigners from Latin America come over and try to go there. They're very small schools; one of them is, I think, now the CUEC is thirty, but they used to [have] fifteen kids a year, each one of them. So that's only thirty spots a year. A lot of demand for those spots, because the schools are very good. So from the beginning, from the education process all the way to distribution/exhibition, we're okay. I mean, our big challenge today is to be able to show movies. I mean, for a specific example of Mexico exhibition, it’s in the hands of two companies—really one company—so between those two companies, Cinepolis and Cinemax, they have 95% of the market of 5,500 screens in Mexico—which is a lot; we're very screened, we have quite a bit of screens. Alex Ramirez, he's a Harvard grad in many ways—a grad from college and then from the MBA and then from another school. He's the president of Cinepolis and also part of the family who owns the company, but it's very scary, because they are in complete control of what is shown in the theaters. There's absolutely no regulation going on there. So now, it's not uncommon to see some of your very large American productions to be shown on 70% of the screens, for example. So there are movies, which are being shown in 3000 screens on a weekend. And that means that for all our movies—the other 120 movies—it makes it super hard to compete. Because if you go to a movie theater, and you go to a multiplex, where there are ten theaters, and seven of them are showing one movie, the space for the rest is very, very small. And it's quite scary. I mean, on Alex Ramirez’ side, I mean, obviously, they're very happy and they’re making a lot of money. But on our side, it's really dramatic because there is no law, there's no legislation. I'm certainly in favor of some limitation on that side. But there's not a lot we can do, and having our own movies not being able to be shown in our original country is– There is so much of a challenge outside, but we have a tremendous challenge inside. Today, the issue of Mexico is not production; it's exhibition and distribution.

Haden Guest  45:15  

Any other questions? One here and another? Yes.

Audience 3  45:19  

[Were] the black shots written into the original script? Or was it something that you came up with in the editing process?

Fernando Eimbcke  45:32  

The cut-to-black. It was in the script, but not too long. In the editing room, we found that the cut-to-black has some sense, that it helps the story. So we worked it [out] in the editing room.

Christian Valdelièvre  45:56  

I remember some of them were even longer. I mean, what we see today, they're shorter than what other versions of the cut were. Because Mariana, the editor, wanted them longer. I think they’re pretty long. [LAUGHS]

Fernando Eimbcke  46:14  

Me too, [LAUGHS] but it's okay in a good way. And it's good to make [those] kind of things. I like that. We took the risk, the challenge to tell the story and tell the story with sound and no image. And I think that it creates a sensation that could be disturbing, like, “Oh, it’s black! When is it going to come back?” But it's part of the feeling of the film.

Christian Valdelièvre  46:48  

Lake Tahoe’s world premiere was in Berlin. We were in competition, and we won the Alfred Bauer Award, which is for artistic contribution, so this movie was very relevant in terms of artistic contribution. And you know, the blacks are certainly a part of that.

Haden Guest  47:09  

Absolutely. Laura? You had a question?

Audience 4  47:19  

I was interested by the fact that in your movies, you're far away from, sort of, Latin America cliche of authenticity and local culture. And most of the time, the characters are looking in foreign cultures as a sort of relief, and a way to get out of boredom or to relate with others. So I was wondering if you could talk about it. And also in the form, the stillness of the camera, I felt it's very European in a certain way. So there is this, sort of, yes, dialogue with a foreign culture, which is quite original in the Latin American panorama.

[INAUDIBLE EXPLANATION OF QUESTION?]

Fernando Eimbcke  49:04  

I don't need to say in my films, “I'm Mexican!” I know that, so for me, it's not necessary. I'm sure of that. And Mexico, it's a mixture of a lot of cultures since the beginning of Mexico, it's a mixture of cultures. So I think that it's very, very natural. It's coming in a very natural way. I don't want to say, “I will show you what is Mexico about the culture, what it is to be Mexican.” This is to be Mexican, these kids, and it's impossible to hide it. For example, Duck Season, this is a story about these teenagers. It was [shot] at a local place that's very important in Mexico. A lot of things happen there. This film [was shot at] this place in Progreso. And that's Mexico. That's the way Mexico is. I don’t need to… What?

Christian Valdelièvre  

A flag.

Fernando Eimbcke

Yes, a flag, to say like, “Oh, this is Mexico.” I really don't.

[INAUDIBLE AUDIENCE COMMENT]

Fernando Eimbcke  50:44  

No, it's okay. It's okay. No, no, no, I didn't take it like a critique. No, no, no, no, no. Just, I don't know...

Haden Guest  50:58  

I do think it's true that there are a lot of Latin American films that do market themselves or sell themselves as local or that, you know what I mean. And I do think that's something that your films totally move away from, so I think that's a very apt and important comment.

Yes. We've got a question here. Right here, Amanda.

Audience 5  51:26  

We haven't talked about the first film, which certainly felt… very Mexican. [LAUGHS] And I love that film. And I just wondered whether those were professional actors, or how you set that scene? How that film happened.

Fernando Eimbcke  51:44  

Okay, it's very good to talk about the short term because sometimes a lot of people see short films not like film. In the film school, everybody wants to make a short film, because you have to make it to make a feature film. But the short films are their own value. They're really, really important. And you can say very important things in a short film. So it's good to talk about the film.

It was not a professional actors. We found that man in a town in Mexico. We went there to look for locations. And I was very lucky because there was a fiesta, a party in that town. And he was a musician. We went to a special special town. It's a town in Mexico. It's in Puebla. And it's a town where everybody, everybody plays an instrument. So it was really difficult to find someone who can play the tuba because nobody wants to play the tuba because it's very big. So nobody wants to play tuba. And we found him and he played tuba. And it was amazing. And he was not not an actor. It was really, really amazing to work with him because there was something really, really truthful with him. In terms of he wanted to play the tuba. He knew what it was to play the tuba. So I didn't have to tell him complicated things about acting. It was very natural.

[INAUDIBLE AUDIENCE COMMENT]

Fernando Eimbcke 54:11 

No, no, no, none of them. No, no, no, not none of them. Yes, it's a town called San Felipe in Mexico. Yes, nobody was an actor. No one, no one. It was amazing. It was really, really an amazing process. I loved it.

Christian Valdelièvre   54:29  

And as Haden was saying, this is a short that is part of a movie called Revolución that was done in 2010 for the anniversary of the Revolution, 400 years, and they chose ten directors, and they gave money to each one of the directors—the government and a company—and they told him to do something that related to the revolution. So there were ten directors including Carlos Reygadas and Amat Escalante and a bunch of others who did whatever they thought for ten minutes somehow related to [or talked] about the revolution or the anniversary of the revolution.

[INAUDIBLE AUDIENCE COMMENT]

Fernando Eimbcke   55:17  

Why Mozart? It's amazing because in that town, they play [those] kind of songs. They play Verdi, Mozart, Strauss, and they play with horns, only with horns, only brass. There's no violins, anything, it's amazing. And the most interesting thing is that they take the partitura, and they change it. And they give the partitura to, I don't know, to their son, and the son changes it. So all the partituras are changing. It's not like the original partitura of Mozart; they interpreted it. It was amazing. And actually, it was really, really beautiful. He was a really beautiful coincidence, because I think that one of the most important revolutionary guys in history was Mozart. So it was like, “Wow, it's Mozart!” [LAUGHTER] It was really, really beautiful.

Haden Guest  56:29  

Let's take one final question right here from... There you are. Thank you.

Audience 6  56:35  

So one of the things that I enjoyed the most about this film is the gradual widening of the scope of it. So you know, at the beginning, it almost feels like the entire movie could be about, you know, Juan’s journey to get his car fixed. And I think, in large part to what you alluded to, at the beginning, where it almost feels like he's out of a foreign place himself, right, you don't really understand in a lot of ways that he is in his hometown, or he is, you know, in a very familiar locale. And then, of course, as the film progresses, and he's able to get the car fixed, and it kind of moves along from there, it becomes more clear what really is going on in large part in the background of the film, and that's just kind of a lead-in or a set-up to that. And then towards the end of it, it's mirrored, you know, the car breaking and the refrigerator, then breaking. And it kind of seems that, you know, this maybe is really more commonplace than anything else. And so I was just curious, it seems like some of the characters, the stories, some of them get a little bit of closure, right. So for example, the elderly mechanic with this dog, you know, he's able to accept that maybe he can't care for him anymore the way you should. And so, perhaps it's better, best that he's with a family that can provide that kind of thing for him, whereas other things, you know, Juan’s family, his mother, she doesn't get quite as much closure. You know, and it seems like with Juan, his brother that there's a sense things are going to be all right, in a general way. So I guess my question in a roundabout way here is just what are your thoughts on, you know, providing some sense of resolution for your characters in your films, especially given the fact that they are so true to life and knowing that in life, there's really no such thing as a resolution because it always continues.

[INAUDIBLE QUESTION EXPLANATION]

Fernando Eimbcke  58:58  

I’m not trying to tell a story of a lot of characters. For example, in Duck Season, it was a story about four characters. In this story, it was a story of one character. And the idea was the things that the character learns in this trip, in this road trip. So I was not really concerned about closing certain characters. I saw everything in terms of how much the characters could teach the main character to understand what he's going through. So I'm not really interested in closing all the characters.

It was a very classic structure, with the hero trip. It's very classic, and I was really– One of my favorite films, it's Bicycle Thieves, but it's about the bicycle. And you can say “Okay, it's very silly, a bicycle.” Yes, but the bicycle means a lot. I remember that Paula Markovitch—with whom I wrote this script and Duck Season—she told me, in the stories, nothing is frivolous or superficial. If someone wants a bicycle, that's important. That means a lot for him. If someone wants a pair of shoes, it's important. You have to find [out] why. But I like a lot that story about the car, to fix a car, it [was] a very simple story, but it was really about the loss of a father.

Haden Guest  1:00:58  

Speaking of closure, I'm afraid we need to draw this evening to a close. Please join me in thanking Fernando Eimbcke and Christian Christian Valdelièvre, and we’ll be back tomorrow night with Club Sandwich. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

©Harvard Film Archive

Eimbcke switched to anamorphic widescreen for Lake Tahoe, his second feature, and the effect is appropriate in evincing an even greater sense of lost purpose and aimlessness than Duck Season. The excess visual blankness of his compositions matches an overwhelming dramatic lethargy as teenager Juan searches in vain for someone to assist him with his crashed car on the fringes of a Yucatán town. In finding only the most eccentric, half-hearted and ill-equipped candidates and getting consistently sidetracked in his quest, Juan’s central breakdown gradually becomes as much existential as automotive. Like Duck Season, Lake Tahoe’s enveloping dreaminess is punctuated here and there by fleeting moments when the emotional lives of the characters come into sharp focus, as in a series of snippets in which Juan detours from his search only to find an atmosphere of anxiety back home.