The Landscape Is Self-Sufficient

ROGER SALAS IN CONVERSATION WITH OLIVER LAXE

INTERIOR. No furniture. Bare floor. Huge glass walls. Outside, a large empty terrace. Madrid’s night skyline (the silhouette of the Pirulí; below it, a glimmering worm of red lights from a traffic jam). A muffled bustle. Unwelcoming overhead halogens; to the side, the sprawling block of the hospital. Oliver Laxe, as always, takes up a lot of space. A single shot, long and slow, like a half-circular tracking move. There’s a certain echo that my deafness transforms into something tangible—strangeness, distance. I think: this is where the piano should go—black, enormous, polished.

Oliver Laxe – Long time, right?

I like to imagine Oliver came to Madrid to see me. It’s just a fantasy: he’s here to edit one of his works for the Reina Sofía Museum. Now Oliver’s time is, evidently and to his regret, the time of his film—already out there, triumphant, and no longer his. That’s what being moved does: it carries within it the clumsy demonstration that the image, and its pulse, are in command.

Roger Salas – Yes, almost twenty-one years, I think…

O.L. – We saw each other once, fifteen years ago or so, I don’t know… maybe again after that.

We don’t remember precisely, because precision doesn’t exist in memory: recollections slip away from certain specifics—the colour of a wall, the position of furniture, the hour of day (Resnais poetised this in Providence). The fantasy of an image that gathers fragments escaped from reality and reshapes them through the subject’s virtual modelling is one way to circle the notion of filmmaking that Laxe champions. Good thing that resource exists (they call it art, but also neurosis).

O.L. – Had you already gone to see Sirât, or did you go a second time because of the interview?

Oliver hasn’t changed, and from another angle, he has changed a lot; his unhurried ease sets the rhythm for his dense speech. His hair is intact. It’s not shampoo-ad hair—it’s a serious sign braided into his identity, liable to become a totem. His head looks the same, strong like a mane drawn by Dürer, with unruly patches giving him both frame and shelter; the jaw is slightly prognathous—just enough not to seem smug; the mouth is Greek, the eyes Egyptian; there are flaws too, but they join the harmonious conspiracy. What falls on his shoulders pays homage to Dürer’s self-portraits. Oliver is unposed (and that was his charm as a model). A physiognomic spontaneity that made passersby turn yesterday, still makes them turn today (and will do so tomorrow), to check who just walked by. In any culture, Oliver Laxe stands apart. Try placing him in Tangier, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Madrid. Now Oliver Laxe is beginning to be someone who is in many places at once—an unforgiving exposure.

R.S. – No, no. I went to see it twice. In one week, I saw Sirât twice. Naturally, as happens with films, sometimes you have to see them more than once.

Tonight it isn’t particularly cold, but where we are, it feels that way. A single chair for me (age’s privilege). Oliver on the floor, (he landed from Tokyo just two hours ago) his suitcase a peculiar witness doubling as a side table. The ceiling lights are far from caressing. The contrast between our excitement at meeting again and this minimal set is peculiarly perfect, very Resnais. If there’s nothing here, perhaps it’s because we need nothing. We have our discourses, our words. We interrupt each other constantly, but in a strangely harmonious, discursive way, in continuity. That’s the key: continuity. We’re resuming the same conversation from twenty years ago. We’ve met again in a foreign, empty apartment after twenty-one years (Oliver was nineteen, and I was preparing the exhibition and the book Men in Skirts). There’s been no need for introductions. As we used to say back then…

O.L. – With my films, or with films in general?

R.S. – In general. When something interests you, you have to see it more than once. In certain kinds of cinema, it’s even better to let it rest and return to it later. I also saw Fire Will Come twice: first in the cinema, and later when it aired on TVE2. There are things I’d like to revisit, but I don’t know how to find them; I’m terrible at searching online. For example, You All Are Captains [Film by O. Laxe, 2010].

O.L. – It’s on Filmin. I can send you a link.

R.S. – I’d love to see it again, because I’ve always associated that work of yours with Zero for Conduct [Film by Jean Vigo, 1934]. But it’s not fresh in my mind, it’s blurred. And I was telling you I wanted to start our conversation with Sirât because it stirs passions and, at the same time, provokes rejection. The second time I went to the cinema, there was a couple sitting in front of me, and fifteen or twenty minutes in, the girl said: “Let’s go.” He wanted to stay.

O.L. – That happens with every film. There are always people who leave. But there was an article in El País that created a sort of opinion wave because the journalist wrote that people were walking out of the cinema. I’ve toured the film across Spain, spoken with exhibitors, and people weren’t leaving. Maybe a couple, someone who has to go shopping, but not an exodus.

R.S. – There’s really no exodus from theatres… that’s true.

O.L. – That was some insecure idiot who needed to twist reality just to make peace with himself. In any case, the film makes people talk, whether they like it or not. It’s not so much about rejection: if they talk about it, it means it’s stirred something.

R.S. – For a work of art to provoke a reaction, it’s already a lot.

O.L. – I liked what you said in one of your texts, that thing about tastes—like someone who prefers their omelette undercooked or overcooked.

R.S. – Exactly. What’s interesting is provoking an organic reaction in whoever watches it.

O.L. – I’d define that reaction as the one a child has when tasting a new food. Even if it’s good and healthy, they often say they don’t like it, simply because it’s the first time and their palate isn’t used to it.

R.S. – Even visually: when they see something on the plate that isn’t what they expected.

O.L. – Exactly. Give them rye bread and they’ll refuse it; they’re used to soft, sweet, industrial bread. But we know rye bread is better for them, and that’s what we want to give. Look, from my point of view—and I agree with what you said—some people will like it, some won’t, and that’s normal. That happens when you go beyond the cinephile audience, which was what I wanted—to make it a popular film. With this movie, the category of “I like it” or “I don’t like it” is transcended. As a filmmaker, I’m like a nutritionist: I know what’s good and what’s bad for my patient. I know certain images, when worked a certain way, will touch something in them—and that’s why I’m happy.

R.S. – With Sirât there isn’t a critical unanimity; everyone points in a different direction. What strikes me is that disagreements are always philosophical or conceptual—no one questions the film’s technical beauty or quality.

O.L. – Even with the most visceral or the most intellectual opinions, I’m at peace. I know the film, for better or worse, has touched something inside them, stirred something. Then human beings project: when they don’t want to look inward, they project outward.

The light in the empty apartment has changed. We pause. Oliver slides open the glass door and we step out onto the terrace for a moment. “They saved my life there twice,” I say, pointing to the rooftops of the pavilions with their tiny identical windows. The wind has picked up.

R.S. – Someone asked me, “What’s Sirât about?” And I replied, “Well, it’s a war film.” Later I thought: there are no trenches or machine guns, but it is a war film. It has the typical tension of war—it can be any kind of war you want to see. Then that person saw it and told me, “I left enchanted and fascinated by the music.” Is the soundtrack going to be released? There’s something powerful there.

O.L. – Well, it’s out on Spotify now, but the album will be released in about a month and a half. It’s going to be on vinyl.

R.S. – The music… it enters you, it reaches far.

O.L. – It won the award for Best Soundtrack at Cannes.

R.S. – Yes, what impresses me is its almost Mahlerian capacity to make you part of it—and that’s very difficult. Because if anything stands out in Sirât, it’s that torn symphonism. That’s why I was asking: how did you come to Haas, to use him in Fire Will Come? [Georg Friedrich Haas: Graz, Austria, 1953].

O.L. – No one pointed me to him. I didn’t have the money to work with a composer, so I bought the rights to that Leonard Cohen song and also to Vivaldi’s Cum Dederit. But this time, I had a bigger budget and could do my own casting of musicians. Sirât is a film I danced to on dancefloors, in raves across Europe and Africa. From the start, it was a project deeply tied to music. My way of writing is very atmospheric; my scripts aren’t canonical. Music creates atmospheres, so my writing is musical. In my scripts, I include links to the tracks; sometimes I buy the rights, and this was the first time I could actually do it.

R.S. – I do that with poems: I associate certain verses with a piece of music so that they can marry in someone’s mind. Yes, but your choices are intriguing; they have a certain appeal. Both share that symphonic pull, that enveloping quality—something Haas has, and Kangding Ray too.

O.L. – Yes. I think art is a balance between meaning and sensation, between light and shadow, between saying and evoking, between the masculine and the feminine. You’re always in that dialectic, and I try to maintain that balance. People think I make very sensorial cinema—not synesthetic—and that’s true, but it’s also poetic. They’re not used to poetry in film; they’re used to audiovisual narratives that aren’t cinematic experiences.

R.S. – Exactly. Rather than sensoriality, I’d call it poetic visuality. It’s about approaching poetic power through the visual.

O.L. – Exactly. There are many different kinds of filmmakers.

R.S. – I’m a man of images. That’s why I wanted to talk to you about landscape. Saying that landscape is just another character seems silly to me. I believe that the landscape exerts a powerful influence over the characters, much like in Friedrich’s paintings. [Caspar David Friedrich: Greifswald, 1774 – Dresden, 1840].

O.L. – Yes, it would be to anthropomorphise the landscape, when it’s actually a mixture of immanence and transcendence. The landscape is self-sufficient—it manifests, tests, and cares. I’m not interested in filming a place just because it’s beautiful, but because nature is the mystery of existence, the most visible reflection of that mystery. That’s what I’d like to evoke with my cinema.

R.S. – In any case, it’s clear that you avoid interiors.

O.L. – I don’t do it consciously, but it’s what I enjoy most. You can tell, yes, but it’s not an intellectual or premeditated decision; I’m guided by the images and their flavour. Now I’m thinking of a film, and the images take me to the Amazon, to Siberia, to the desert. I don’t know, really.

R.S. – It’s curious that you mention the Amazon now, because one of the topics I wanted to discuss with you was precisely the Yanomami people—how they plan, design, and represent life as a circular journey.

O.L. – Where do the Yanomamis live?

R.S. – In the northern Amazon, bordering southern Venezuela and northern Brazil.

O.L. – Tell me about them later. You’ve made me think of a Tuareg proverb that says: “For bodies, there are plains full of water; for souls, places full of sand.” I like that—the desert as a place of the soul. In your text, you compared Galicia to the desert.

R.S. – Yes, that contrast. It’s as if you move without a middle ground. You don’t know the middle point: either that total humidity up there, or that dryness down below. I don’t have an answer, but that’s how I see it. That’s why I compared you. I saw there was no middle ground: the contrasts in your imagery are strong—cold and heat, light and darkness.

O.L. – And you, who knew me at twenty, did you notice in me a slightly radical or extreme personality?

R.S. – I don’t want to boast, but I remember perfectly well that I told you: “You’re going to do great things.” I imagined you as a poet, heading toward a luminous poetry—impactful, full of grand images—but cinema was waiting for you with open arms, like an Alma Mater.

O.L. – Why’s that?

R.S. – It was an intuition. I don’t want to sound like a guru, but I observed you a lot.

O.L. – No, no. I appreciate you sharing this with me.

R.S. – You have to look into a mirror beyond what the mercury shows you—a verse by Hermann Broch deals with that. The first time we met was because a Galician choreographer showed me a photo of you. I said, “Where is he?” That was the whole exchange. Later, I learned you were modelling for a Galician designer.

O.L. – Yes, I walked for him at Cibeles, I think.

R.S. – Exactly, in the newcomers’ section. When I began recruiting young designers, I didn’t want only well-known names, but also new emerging talents. And that’s where I found you again—and to this day.

O.L. – I remember you came to talk to me after the show.

R.S. – Yes, because I felt… I was already making plans with you…

O.L. – And that same year, I left. I only modelled for a year and then moved to Morocco.

R.S. – You left right away! Later, I had someone track you down again.

O.L. – Yes, and I remember now that after the show, you talked to me about poses.

R.S. – The idea was to show men expressing themselves through the masculine skirt—men with ideas, not just ones who knew how to sew or display them on athletic hangers. Clothes responding to a social discourse.

O.L. – Then I went to live in London. I was finishing my degree in Audiovisual Communication and shot a short film there called And the Chimneys Made Him Escape.

R.S. – Something that intrigues me: was your grandparents’ house always in your hands?

O.L. – No, I had rights there, but I bought it from my uncles after finishing my degree. I was very happy there. I was always fascinated by that house and that village. I always wanted to return. That’s where I wrote my scripts—it’s a bit like Castaneda—or rather Don Juan—would say: a place of power.

R.S. – Yes, as long as one has somewhere to return to. I belong to the lodge of those who have nowhere to return.

O.L. – I’m lucky.

R.S. – Yes, it’s true luck. Those of us without a home must create a moral homeland every day, without ever becoming patriots. It has to be invented constantly. The story of Fire Will Come—how did you get there?

O.L. – It’s hard to theologise about the intentions behind each film, because they’re born from images and intuitions. Fire Will Come was born from the desire to film fire—an aesthetic approach, but also a personal one: in ’99, fire reached my house and burned the hórreo (a traditional Galician raised granary). There was also a political aspect. I have relatives, mountain bachelors, cousins with different sensibilities—caregivers of their mothers, without the tools for modernity. They tried to live in Lugo or Barcelona, but they came back.

R.S. – Of course, they return to the place where they feel safe.

O.L. – Exactly. And I wanted to make a film where there was mercy, passion—something of that at the end.

R.S. – The subject of mercy is one that should be discussed deeply, because it’s so misunderstood in the modern world.

O.L. – Yes, mercy, submission—they’re misunderstood. From the modern perspective, everything is measured on a human scale: faith, religion… but in truth, these are terms that appeal to what transcends the human. Today, when you speak of submission, people get defensive.

R.S. – I’ll say something debatable: all that—mercy, submission, faith—doesn’t fit with the aesthetics we’re forced to live in.

O.L. – Exactly. Those terms have been deeply tainted by religious institutions. I get it. For example, when I talk about spirituality with Pedro and Agustín—the Almodóvar brothers—it sounds to them like Opus Dei. But not for me; I’m from a different generation. We don’t carry the weight of religious institutions. We’ve approached the spiritual in a freer way.

R.S. – Your scripts: always original. And adapted screenplays? Have any crossed your desk?

O.L. – Yes, they have. Right now, I’m in a moment where proposals have started coming in—American agents behind them. Just the day before yesterday, I decided to work with one in particular. I’m very open to being approached with projects. They mentioned an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick book, which I love. The thing is, my creative process comes very much from taste, from sensation. I’m a filmmaker of images, and my way of connecting to a project is through the flavour those images give me. Once I have them, they intoxicate me—they’re like a poison that keeps me following them. I can read a script and see images and get hooked, but often these scripts have no images. Not a single one.

R.S. – They’re narratives that could then be translated into pseudo-images.

O.L. – People want to say things through images, and that’s why they kill them—they arrive dead in the edit. An image is something very complex and mysterious, full of layers of symbolism, of universal archetypes. That’s the great tragedy of cinema: images that arrive dead. Those scripts weren’t conceived from living images, you see? That’s why those projects don’t grip me as much.

R.S. – And there’s a related detail: since you work so much with exteriors, the scenographic decision often escapes you.

O.L. – What do you mean?

R.S. – I go back to that refrain—that the landscape rules.

O.L. – Yes, but I choose landscapes.

R.S. – You delimit them, let’s say.

O.L. – Yes. Then, fortunately, life decides what you can shoot and what you can’t: the place, the weather conditions… Sometimes you have to sacrifice a landscape because it’s inaccessible. I’ve always looked for trouble with my films.

R.S. – In what sense?

O.L. – I’ve always wanted the film to be made despite me. I always say this: the main enemies of our films are we, the filmmakers, because we load too much weight onto the images, wanting to convey too much. We have the arrogance of believing we are gods who reinvent reality. Cinema is the art of inventing the world. It’s like playing God, but…

R.S. – Still, you’ll find people who say, “Yes, it’s beautiful, but nothing happens here.” I’ve heard that comment quite a few times.

O.L. – They said that more about Fire Will Come; I don’t think they’ll say it about Sirât. What else could possibly happen in Sirât? What do they want, for us to kill everyone?

R.S. – For the heavens to open and someone to come down and start raving.

O.L. – Exactly, damn it! No, I think it’s a comment that all filmmakers who make fragile, delicate cinema always get. Cinema of the subtle. It’s normal—it’s like a small child being given something and saying, “This doesn’t taste like anything.” They’re used to sugar, to the drug, to excitement. It’s a kind of viewer addicted to the world’s stimulation. The one that series and television can satisfy. Then, when they watch a film made with innate time, with poetic time, they get anxious.

R.S. – There’s another thing: your relationship with non-professional actors. In your films, some characters keep their real names while others change them.

O.L. – I don’t have a theory about it. For instance, with the characters in Sirât, we tried to change their names, but it became a mess—they didn’t remember and kept getting confused. In the end, we said, “Let’s make it easy: Manolo’s name is Manolo.” And that was that.

R.S. – Did you test many people before finding them?

O.L. – Yes, although it wasn’t a casting in the sense of seeing lots of people. It was done by Nadia Acimi, a raver friend of mine, who comes from that world. She was looking more for truth than for actors. That proves that art is made of accidents.

R.S. – Absolutely.

O.L. – Nadia did a very unorthodox casting, only within the rave universe. She could have gone to other hippie, spiritual, or alternative centres, but she wanted to capture the truth of that culture. We had a first meeting with fifteen people, then narrowed it down to five. I had five amazing French ones, but in the end, only three remained, because I wanted the film to have a stronger Castilian root. Initially, it was going to be financed in France, but we received numerous rejections there—they didn’t understand the film. Here in Spain, they trusted me because of my track record. They didn’t even look at the script. In France, they did, and it wasn’t quite there yet. Fire Will Come didn’t have the same success in France as it did in Spain.

R.S. – That film’s reception probably helped.

O.L. – Yes, and now many of those who said no are pulling their hair out—the sales agents, the TV people, all of them. But it’s normal; I’m not angry. It’s a very risky film, no doubt. I’ve taken risks on unheard-of levels.

R.S. – Risk, first of all…

O.L. – To be clear: the suicide is you.

R.S. – The one who risks the most is you, the tightrope walker. There were many risks: that the viewer would leave halfway through and never come back.

O.L. – Yes, to keep them from leaving, to make them stay, and for the film to evolve after that. Many risks.

R.S. – Now that you mention Nadia, I saw several clips on the computer—O salvaxe leva o seu tempo [Short, September 2017, with Nadia Acimi]—where everything feels both suggestive and dramatic.

O.L. – What do you think of that piece?

R.S. – I’m in love with it.

O.L. – It’s beautiful.

R.S. – I’m in love because I read so much behind it… it truly inspires me. Even her story, that first dialogue, when she tries to stand upright on the horse’s back—she’s trying to emulate that painting of the equestrian acrobat. I thought of Seurat’s The Circus [Georges Seurat, Musée d’Orsay, Paris].

O.L. – It’s a portrait of Nadia, who’s torn apart because she’s lost her children and speaks about her relationship with horses. And that ending is a bit poetic.

R.S. – Are you already thinking about a new film?

O.L. – I have some images. I know it’s going to be insane. I have the impression it’ll have many different layers and will be open—a different era.

R.S. – Open, much more so, as you said—exteriors.

O.L. – Yes, yes, yes. And much less linear and causal than Sirât. For this one, I want to be freer.

R.S. – Yet the linearity you maintain in Sirât is probably what keeps the viewer inside the cinema.

O.L. – Totally. The goal was to make a genre film. It has that element of physical adventure that helps sustain the metaphysical, somehow.

R.S. – Will you make more films with Santiago Fillón?

O.L. – Yes, it’s funny.

R.S. – Is he as intelligent as he seems?

O.L. – He’s very intelligent.

R.S. – I get the sense he’s a kind of intelligent creature.

O.L. – He’s got quite the mind. And besides, we’ve grown up together.

R.S. – I’ve never met him; I’ve only read about him and heard things.

O.L. – Yes, and we’re increasingly connected. Since Cannes, we’ve barely seen each other, only talked on the phone, but the same things keep happening to us. There’s a lot of synchronicity. It’s another example of how life grabs you to make a film. We’d both like to make a film of pauses, of calm, because it’s intense, but we see that life wants this from us. It’s not entirely clear, but we’re growing together and fusing more each time.And you, here in Madrid—how am I perceived? Am I still that odd creature, like when I was twenty? Do the things I say in interviews still sound alien?

R.S. – No. But when I say I’m your friend, people ask, “Do you really know Oliver Laxe?” As if you didn’t physically exist. You appear in Cannes, then disappear from everyday life. And that’s a blessing.

O.L. – Though I had too much media exposure with Sirât.

R.S. – And you’ll have more.

O.L. – Well, it was good; the film worked in theatres. Let’s see what happens next. What the film has achieved… It’s one of the films of the year. I’m happy, calm, at peace. We’ve earned the respect of both the international cinephile world and the industry.

R.S. – Tell me about colour and black and white.

O.L. – I don’t have much to say. I like colour right now. A lot.

R.S. – Any temptations with black and white?

O.L. – No, no. That would be an aesthetic process. I don’t aim to be an auteur, though I think I am one by consequence. When I make my films, I feel I’m just being normal, clear. I don’t seek to satisfy myself as an artist.

R.S. – That’s honest.

O.L. – Yes, and so is the result. But in the end, my lines come out the way they do.

R.S. – But what stays with me is that there’s not just a hint of honesty, but a depth of it. It’s different to prescribe honesty than to feel it. What you achieve with Benedicta’s character is extraordinarily difficult.

O.L. – In what sense?

R.S. – In the sense that it’s done in a way that allows us to understand her motivations, her uprightness, her truth. You’ve managed to capture and transmit her—or even create her.

O.L. – Yes, it’s different. The person is very different from the character.

R.S. – Of course. But I realised you reach that kind of character and frame through personal searching. It’s as if you use the film in place of the analyst.

O.L. – A little, yes. When I start a film, I always think I’m filming something external, confronting something different. But in that creative process, I end up realising I’m looking in a mirror. With Sirât, I understood that I’m a raver too—that I have the same wound, the same need to go to the edge, to search for myself as an artist as well.

R.S. – And would you agree with me that it’s a very political film?

O.L. – Well, everything is political. Choosing to film an eighty-year-old woman with three cows and her son is political. I’m saying: this matters. Or filming ravers—that’s political too.

R.S. – Even filming violence. There’s violence in the ravers, a violence that sometimes becomes a strange tenderness.

O.L. – I’m happy with Sirât because it opens a new path for me: joining art and therapy. I’m studying Gestalt psychotherapy and have been involved with Sufism for years. In this film, violence acts as a kind of shock therapy, like LSD in psychotherapy. It breaks, it suspends, as I said earlier—it suspends judgment.

R.S. – LSD has become fashionable as a kind of treatment—it’s used a lot in long-term depression.

O.L. – Various psychotherapists and psychoanalysts have told me their patients talk to them about Sirât—that it’s stirred them, made them think, even decide things. So when people say, “Nothing happens,” I don’t care. That’s what I’m after: that the viewer looks inward and doesn’t get distracted. I’m very happy and at peace.

R.S. – And perhaps to accept that violence and death exist.

O.L. – Yes.

R.S. – Because in Fire Will Come, there’s also that acceptance—that death exists.

O.L. – With Sirât, I wanted the viewer to die watching the film. It’s something healthy we should all do.

R.S. – So you don’t see it as punishment?

O.L. – No. It may seem like punishment for the characters, but I’m seeking transcendence through death. It might seem cruel, but cruelty is a modern term. From a traditional view, the question isn’t “why do we die?” but “how do we die?”

 R.S. – Exactly.

O.L. – I understand we don’t want the characters we’ve identified with for an hour to die, but death isn’t negative. From my traditional perspective, people die when they have to, and it’s just—even in its injustice. In traditional societies, the transcendent isn’t questioned. What matters is how one dies. And the characters in Sirât die with dignity, more than many lying in hospital beds. That’s the question: the triumphant death, earning your heavens.

R.S. – It’s a sacrificial apotheosis. And that connects me to Greek tragedy, to Indian myth, to Gilgamesh.

O.L. – Yes, that’s when the hero wins the gates of eternity. By denying death or life, he returns home triumphantly.

FINALE. Interior. I rise from the only chair with a clear sense of incompletion—almost unease. I don’t want to leave. The interview isn’t there; the themes remain loose, dancing around us more frenetically than I’d imagined (as if raving), or like when you leave a rave and something continues—something that will go on without you, yet includes you out of sync, outside any manageable sense of time. It’s the same with Sirât—you don’t leave it behind; you remain within its sway. Sirât was made to dwell in that lacerating continuity, and there are precise musical terms for it: sostenuto, ritardando, rubato… I should head straight back to the cinema. Someone calls: it’s the music, an Arcadian Trumpet, a relentless kick drum that morphs into a blood beat—as sanguine as the image itself, distilled into the paroxysmal lymph that Oliver carries and transmits.