By Rodrigo Garcia |
Buenos Aires (EFE).- There is no doubt that directing “Wild Tales” changed Damián Szifron’s life forever. That milestone provided him with a kind of blank check, nine years later, to make the leap to American cinema with “Misanthrope”, a “dark” and “uncomfortable” story with which he delves into one of the greatest traumas of society. North American.
Szifron, born in Ramos Mejía, Argentina, in 1975, chooses in his fourth feature film, the first since 2014, for the delicate subject of mass shootings: “It is a film that generates a certain rejection in all instances. From writing the script to post-production it was all very uphill, very difficult, but I hope you can read it for what it is: a fictional film, ”he explains in a chat with EFE, his first interview in years.
“It’s nice because I haven’t given a note for 10 years, so I’m starting with you,” he says with a laugh, to specify that although he exaggerates with the number of years, yes “it’s been a long time” since he spoke to the press.
awkward script
Szifron addresses in “Misanthrope” (“To Catch a Killer”), shot in English, produced in the United States, and which premieres in Argentina on May 4, the shooting attack perpetrated by a man on New Year’s Eve in Baltimore , which leaves 29 dead; and the investigation of a police officer played by Shailene Woodley (known for her roles in “Big Little Lies” or “The Fault in Our Stars”) and the FBI special agent played by Ben Mendelsohn (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”). ”, “Ready Player One, Robin Hood”).
“The first image I had of this film was back in 2010, and the first thing that struck me was the image of a night shooter, solitary, anonymous, in the middle of a New Year’s celebration, shooting from a rooftop and masking fireworks. the shots,” he says.
An idea that was then shelved because it was considered that the theme did not fit in Argentina and that it was able to revive after the success of “Relatos Salvajes”, the highest-grossing national film in its country, awarded in several countries and nominated for an Oscar: “They offered me to film in the United States the film that he wanted to film. And this image of ‘Misanthrope’ came back like a spring, he already called it that”.
He says that the idea captured the interest of several executives, but he remembers that, as he wrote the script -which he developed together with Jonathan Wakeham-, more and more shooting events were taking place in the United States, “too real and painful”.
“And the situation that allowed and encouraged production was diminishing, dissipating. To the point where I think the script was directly disliked,” he says.
Something that did not stop the producers. “Little by little, the right partners appeared: committed, intelligent actors who liked the story and wanted to participate. Adequate financing. Curiously, it was financed by selling to international distributors”.
A “problematic film” that, despite everything, was able to be released a few days ago in the United States.
Fear of disappointing?
Szifron released his first feature film, “The Bottom of the Sea”, in 2003, followed by “Tiempo de Valientes” (2005) and “Relatos Salvajes” (2014), which arose “almost involuntarily”, based on stories he had written “for fun”.
Asked if the time elapsed until “Misanthrope”, his next film, includes fear of disappointing, he is sincere: “I calculate that the fear of disappointing after a success is always there; what happens is that I am much less prolific than I would like”.
Remember that, just as before “Wild Tales” he was preparing other projects that ultimately did not materialize, he planned to have directed another film in 2018, “The Six Billion Dollar Man”, which began at Harvey Weinstein’s production company before he He was denounced for sexual harassment.
“Then what we all know happened and that production company disappeared, another studio took it over and the film that I had imagined and wanted to film, in the context of the other studio began to be disfigured, until it became something that did not express myself and, well It ended up not happening,” he clarifies.
When filming “Misanthrope” began, the covid-19 pandemic broke out, so the filming, which was done in Montreal (Canada), was resumed a year and a half later, with masks and at 20 degrees below zero.
On the possibility of winning the Oscar with this ‘thriller’ that escaped him in 2015, the director – who is working on the film adaptation of “Los simuladores”, a television series he directed in 2002-2004 – says: “We’ll see… I can’t think or conceive of this at this time.”