{"id":619,"date":"2007-02-07T23:12:51","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T23:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/working-to-produce-gems-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu\/"},"modified":"2007-02-08T09:44:52","modified_gmt":"2007-02-08T09:44:52","slug":"working-to-produce-gems-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/working-to-produce-gems-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu\/","title":{"rendered":"Working To Produce Gems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mexican fans of film must be very proud. In recent years the country has given the world many great films, which have exposed a vast well of talented actors, directors and technicians. Hollywood and the European Film festivals have welcomed with congratulatory arms the likes of Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonz\u00c3\u00a1lez I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu, acknowledging them as true masters of their field. The press are quick and keen to hail young actors like Gael Garcia Bernal as \u2018the new Brad Pitt’ and are happy to welcome this newly discovered Mexican talent into mainstream film press. And rightly so. Del Toro’s most recent film Pan’s Labyrinth<\/em> is a fantasy epic that has found him compared to the great Orson Wells, and Cuaron’s last feature Children of Men<\/em> is an assured work dealing with an issue, immigration, important the world over. Winning consistent praise for each of his films thus far is Alejandro Gonz\u00c3\u00a1lez I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu. Considering the recent release of Babel<\/em> marks only his third feature length film (following Amores Perros<\/em> and 21 Grams<\/em>) I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu is clearly a director whose name deserves to be considered amongst the best directors working today.<\/p>\n

The three stories of his first film Amores Perros<\/em> hinge on a dramatic and fatal car crash that acts as the films opening and touch point throughout. Gael Garcia Bernal’s Octavio (the central character of the first story) and his friend crash devastatingly into Valeria (the focus of the second story, played by Goya Toledo). El Chivo (the protagonist of the final strand) witnesses the accident and later we find him to have rescued Octavio’s injured dog. The dog acts as a link between Octavio and El Chivo’s lives; the dog is the catalyst that propels Octavio into dog fighting and the opportunity to raise money to run away with his violent brother’s wife. Believing his actions honourable he na\u00c3\u00afvely tries to protect the girl by having his brother beaten, too giving the chance to make love to his wife. This however only brings further guilt upon the wife and pushes her closer to Octavio’s brother. <\/p>\n

What could be described as amoral confusion is later mirrored in El Chivo’s story. He takes in Octavio’s dog, only for it to kill the other dogs in his care. This animal action, this truly amoral behaviour borne of habit and reaction, goes someway to justify Octavio’s earlier decisions, we understand he is only a product of the society around him, Inarritu’s native Mexico City. The dog’s amoral cruelty does however afford El Chivo some redemption. The man he has been hired to kill, he instead chooses to give a chance to live and places him in a situation with his partner and half-brother (the man who had hired El Chivo), forcing them to confront the gravity of what one brother was asking and to understand the value of life. Left to there own devices however, we are shown two brothers battling to destroy each other. The ambiguous ending of this particular narrative strand invokes thoughts of the blinding nature of betrayal, our inability to overcome our own animalistic nature.<\/p>\n

main_amoresperros.jpg<\/p>\n

The characters of the second act (for all its proleptic and analeptic shifts, the film is essentially broken into three acts) are only linked to Octavio and El Chivo by the car crash. Octavio’s car smashes into Valaria’s on the same day as she moves into a new apartment with her lover Daniel. The crash breaks Valeria’s leg and eventually it must be amputated. Being a model, the injury plunges Valeria into depression and her emotions turn to anger toward Daniel. In turn he, who has recently left his wife and children for Valeria, struggles to calm his distraught new partner and the accident places their relationship under great strain. This strain in is underpinned by another dog (Amores Perros<\/em> literally meaning Love Dogs), which becomes trapped beneath the new apartment’s floorboards. It is only when Daniel is able to retrieve the dog that we see the couple realising the need to start a new life, to accept the loss they have suffered.<\/p>\n

Amores Perros<\/em> is a film about loss, it explores the disappointment in loss; as Emilo Echevarria (the actor who plays El Chivo) says \u2018I think disappointment is the term that explains it. And inside that disappointment by way of punishment you get solitude.’ It is this solitude, this sense of isolation that the actors carry with them throughout the film. It is I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s ability to let them, to be at times unseen as director that affords the film its visceral energy. This together with his and Arriaga’s collaborative script writing (a script that was edited through 36 drafts over three years): where dialogue is needed it is adroitly observed, however, more than this authenticity of dialect and human interaction it is the exact absence of dialogue that often shines; the gaps within the script, moments where Inarritu allows himself to show rather than tell. Numerous scenes find dialogue replaced with music, or sometimes silence. Such scenes act to pull the viewer into Inarritu’s shared reverie.<\/p>\n

amores1.jpg<\/p>\n

It is obvious I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu believes in the power of music to be used in conjunction with film to transcend beyond either single media. Inarritu started as a DJ and early directing experience was gained on music videos and in advertising. It is interesting to see examples of Inarritu’s work in these medias (available as extras on the Amores Perros<\/em> DVD), to see him exploit from music and lyrics a short visual story.<\/p>\n

Alejandro Gonz\u00c3\u00a1lez I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu was born in Mexico City in 1963. As he was performing as a DJ he also began studying filmmaking and theatre. He found a career in Mexican Television and this is where he was able to begin to build experience, directing the aforementioned music videos and advertisements. Whilst still studying directing in Los Angeles and Maine, under polish director Ludvik Margules, he set up Zeta Films, which he would go on to use to produce his own films. Searching for stories, he eventually stumbled upon the Mexican scriptwriter Guillermo Arriaga. This partnership produced Amores Perros<\/em> and together they would go on to write Inarritu’s next two films.<\/p>\n

I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s second feature film was 21 Grams<\/em>; though in some ways it was a first for Inarritu as it was the first experience he would have working in America and for a Hollywood major. I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu did however take with him onto 21 Grams<\/em> the majority of the crew he worked with for Amores Perros<\/em>. This becomes apparent watching the film: we see a director and crew working to perfect an obvious style, adjusting minute details, experimenting with techniques; we see a confidence that was burgeoning in Amores Perros<\/em>, alive here in 21 Grams, being worn boldly on its sleeve.<\/p>\n

The film’s story, again collaboratively scripted by I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu and Arriaga, is much tighter, tauter, the triptych of the three protagonists’ stories interwoven much closer; there is a thick narrative heart that can be followed to arrive at the three characters’ final meeting. Paul (played by Sean Penn) is dying, waiting for a heart donor. When Benicio Del Toro’s Jack runs over Christina’s (played by Naomi Watts) husband and children, a heart sadly becomes available for Paul. Troubled by having another man’s heart Paul searches for and finds Christina. In each other they find solace but are led eventually to an attempt on Jack’s life as an act of as revenge. This final meeting, for all its tension and hatred, allows the characters the forgiveness and redemption they were searching for, and ultimately their meeting finds them peace.<\/p>\n

The strength of story affords I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu greater opportunity to play with the narrative structure. The film’s delivery is so deconstructed and reconstructed as to have the effect on the viewer of witnessing a story, they seem to already know, flow over them, at once seeing past, present and future. As I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu says of the film: he wanted to \u2018achieve something lyrical, something that people felt that [he is] just telling them stories.’ It can be a strange sensation and the disparate nature of the scenes often comes under criticism for being too cerebral, clever for the sake of being clever. On first viewing questions could be asked as to the point of such a method of storytelling. However, employing such a disjointed telling allows the story to shed the concept of beginning, middle and end. Instead it embodies itself as a whole, a chapter in lives that exist before and after. Perhaps this is I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s goal, to avoid the insular nature of film, \u2018a film,’ he says, \u2018should not have an ending because life does not have an end [\u2026] it’s a lesson, a constant lesson, a painful one, but beautiful.’<\/p>\n

Though at times dreamlike, a shared experience between characters and viewers, there is a contradiction in the filming technique used throughout 21 Grams<\/em>. I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu pays close attention to the minutiae of life at each stage of the story’s development. Much of the film is in close up. Characters and artefacts, machinery and mementos, are observed in detail, giving the viewer a sense of involvement, a closeness that leads to greater sympathy toward the characters of the film. This closeness seems however to be constantly undermined by Inarritu cutting to a long shot that places something between viewer and character. We are only able to see a reaction over someone’s shoulder, through windows, in the crack of an open door. This intentional choice to create distance seems, at first, to be at odds with the intentions of I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s storytelling. However, when considering this imposed distance it becomes clear that it is in these moments we see the true hurt, the loss, or even the love of each character. It is from this distance we are able to understand the personal nature of their sadness, the isolation we all often feel. In understanding this, we are able to return to their closeness having now empathised on another level, a level we may have missed if not for Inarritu’s use of contradicting camera work.<\/p>\n

An important factor, which deserves I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu such high acclaim, is the use of colour within his films. Together with Rodrigo Prieto (the Director of Photography I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu has used for all his films to date) they have developed a rich palette; stills from I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s films could often be taken as pieces of art themselves. He and Prieto’s eye for drawing out the natural beauty of their chosen locations is a true skill. Be it the bustling, energetic streets of Mexico City, the dustbowls of the America, or the soft interiors of suburbia, I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu manages to find them in the light in which they should be seen.<\/p>\n

This accomplished use of colour is further enhanced by the choice of film stock. Each of I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s films has a graininess, which at once suggests authenticity, often unseen in major American pictures, and too, it reaffirms the disparate, dreamlike quality of his storytelling. Another member of I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s team who plays an integral part to the success of his films is Gustavo Santaolalla. In I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s films the use of music, both recorded and original, is a key element in conveying to the viewer the mood of a particular scene, the internal conflict of characters, the progression or even regression of the narrative. The most effective musical technique, which can be seen developing within each of I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s films, is in the placement of Santaolalla’s original compositions. These pieces, often haunting and sparse, creep into the end of scene and carry you away to the next, somehow giving you time to consider the character’s feelings, almost allowing you to reflect on what you have seen so far.<\/p>\n

rinko1.jpg<\/p>\n

The development of this use of music to pace is none more apparent than in the recently released Babel<\/em>, I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s third feature length film. Babel<\/em> is in much the same style as Amores Perros<\/em> and 21 Grams<\/em>, yet in practicing and experimenting with the composition of narrative, Babel<\/em> doesn’t seem to have quite the same energy as 21 Grams<\/em> and like Amores Perros<\/em>, a link between one element of its many conjoined stories, is somewhat tenuous. The story in chronology sees a Japanese Hunter give a Moroccan guide a gun, who in turn sells it to a local goatherd, who’s sons accidentally shoot an American tourist, who in not being able to return to America forces their children’s nanny to take the children across the border to Mexico, to her own son’s wedding only to loose the children in the desert due to complications returning to America. The narrative cuts between each element of the story, focusing on the Goatherd’s family, the American tourists (played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), the Nanny and her wild nephew (played by Gael Garcia Bernal, returning from Amores Perros<\/em>) and also on the Japanese Hunter’s deaf daughter Chieko (played by Rinko Kikuchi). Here lies what could be seen as a flaw with Babel<\/em>: I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s decision to focus on the Hunter’s daughter. Her link to the American tourists, who everyone else is essentially linked to, is tenuous and her story really has very little to do with them. However, there are two good reasons in support of her inclusion. The title \u2018Babel’ gives away one of the main thematic strands of the piece. It is a film about language, it is a study as to how, now we have been cast from Babylon, our lives are so much more difficult, there are so many misunderstandings because a breakdown in communication; the film shows our ignorance of language, our ignorance of each other, when we are all ultimately the same, human. Chieko’s deafness represents, in extremis, our isolation from each other; by not understanding each other’s language we are in essence deaf to one another. We see the shooting of the American tourist, the search for the terrorists assumed responsible for the shooting, the trouble at the border crossing, all made worse by our inability to communicate.<\/p>\n

Secondly, delving into Chieko’s life as the Japanese Hunter’s daughter allows I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu to explore a theme which is present throughout all of his pictures, a theme which in itself has dictated I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s employment of disjointed narratives. It is the element of chance, the seemingly tenuous links in life that actually unbeknownst to us, shape our lives and push us to meetings and actions. In the final scene of Babel<\/em>, we see Chieko and her father in embrace on the balcony of their Tokyo apartment. The camera slowly pans out to reveal the city’s skyscrapers, thousands of similar windows, each containing people and other stories. Seeing this vast metropolis reminds the viewer of all the people in our overpopulated world and we are able to realise how, though we may not understand it, we are all linked, effecting each other in ways we can never know.<\/p>\n

Babel<\/em> is a spacious film, its long silences, meandering close ups and long scenic sweeps give it a slowness that might alienate some viewers. In its slowness however, lies a fragility, a sense that all could break if we did not take our time, did not take the time within the film to absorb what was happening before us, to consider each character, to empathise with them, and to understand how we are involved, how it is a reflection of ourselves.<\/p>\n

The film’s strength lies in this fragility — it is moving<\/em>. And too the films power lies in its detail, its observation. Too many films being made now are merely \u2018political thrillers,’ concerned with preaching anti-terrorism and entertaining with explosions and contrived tension, what Babel<\/em> does is avoid being weighed down by politic by concentrating on people. Watching, we know the politics that lies around the story, but I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu rarely concerns himself with it directly, instead allowing us to witness humans dealing with a much more fundamental concern, that of communication.<\/p>\n

Babel<\/em> is likely to be I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu and Arriaga’s last collaborative script due to rumoured conflict between the two men. If it is true, it will be a great shame. The three films they have made together are evidently the work of very talented men, it is a partnership reminiscent of Krysztof Kieslowski and Krysztof Piesiewicz (The Dekalog<\/em>, Three Colours Trilogy<\/em>) and knowing Amores Perros<\/em> started as a far reaching collection of short films based on Mexico City, it would be interesting to have seen the two continue together and perhaps make something akin to Kieslowski’s Dekalog. <\/p>\n

I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu is already a masterful director but in years to come, his obvious need to experiment and develop new techniques will undoubtedly produce some beautiful and challenging films. With so much bilge being produced in the film world today, we can be safe in the knowledge that some people are working to produce gems.<\/p>\n

headshot.jpg
\nABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong>
\nGlenn Fisher<\/strong> was born in Grimsby, in a county that no longer exists, in 1981. After working in local government since leaving college in 1997, he took very early retirement in 2004. He is currently studying on the Professional Writing degree course at the Grimsby Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"rinko.jpg\" The press are quick and keen to hail young actors like Gael Garcia Bernal as \u2018the new Brad Pitt’ and are happy to welcome this newly discovered Mexican talent into mainstream film press. And rightly so.<\/p>\n

\nGlenn Fisher<\/b> examines Alejandro Gonz\u00c3\u00a1lez I\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00a1rritu’s works in the context of Oscar-nominated Babel<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}