i just finished translating an interview that oswaldo perez conducted with the director of
ruido the interview will be in spanish in the next issue of
la vanguardia de vancouver.
by oswaldo perez
You're going to enter into the mind of uruguayan filmmaker marcelo bertalmio, director of the black comedy Ruido which will screen during the latin american film festival at the pacific cinemateque on september 7th at 9:30pm.
ruido centers around a man living in poverty who seems to be getting into lots of bad luck. his wife is unfaithful, His bosses were jerks, classist assholes. At the end, he was in one of those dead end puzzles, an infinite labirynth that overwhealms him and makes him think of a desperate solution. He moves in a different world that isn't cruel. This is where the situational comedy becomes a little surreal and sends basilio on a trip that will make him revalue his life. The acting is brilliant, the music is amazing and the humour is light while touching on themes that are inherent in the depths of human psychology. this is what describes en existencial comedy for head bangers while at the same time could also be accessible to the whole public. a well made film from marcelo bertamio, one of the emerging uruguayan directors who's communicating through the language of celluloid. Coming up next is a window to his mind.
where do you live? how did you get the financing?
i live in barcelona and the financing was a very long and difficult process. with the help of our producer, natacha lópez, between 2001-2004, she was able to get 2 grants and attracted producers from argentina and spain.
why do you call it an existencial comedy for head bangers?
i noticed that with my head banger friends, i rarely went to see existencial films from bergman, antonioni or dreyer. our film is between kiarostami and bud spencer.
talk to me about the soundtrack
the original music is from maximiliano silveira, a uruguayan composer who did some excellent work. the existing songs are, with the exception of one, from uruguayan bands, that with my understanding, represent the local scene: motosierra, the supersonicos, astroboy and max capote. the only song that isn't uruguayan is manplanet, a band from minneapolis that unfortunately broke up 2 years ago.
what are the symbols of ruido? i see that there's a few clear ones like the noise inspector, but there should be others that arent's so obvious.
unfortunately we had to omit all the symbolisms in the shooting because different events were complicating things: the rain, 3 sunsets, the beach full of locusts...
how did you get the ideas for the film? walking down the beach, thinking of a crab's immortality, sleeping in a truck? in other words, how did you get inspired and how long did it take to turn an initial idea to the final production?
ruido has a few central ideas that came to me in different ways. the noise inspector is based on a friend's adventure, fernando acasuso, who really works as a noise inspector in montevideo. i don't remember where the patients came from, but i'm sure it doesn't come from fernando. the development of all these ideas as a script took me 9 months. writing in various neighborhood cafés.
what would you do if you only had one day to live?
answer questions for la vanguardia de vancouver!
in this chaotic industrialization that we live in, do you believe that human beings spend most of their time doing things that we hate, wasting time and forgetting to enjoy life? ruido is like giving you advice. or what is the moral of the story if there is one?
I agree with you, but ruido isn't a movie with a moral: it's made to tell a story and to make the viewer feel something and identify with the characters, but i don't want to show a certain point of view.
what is your definition of black humour in latin america?
i don't know. there's very little of it i think. i don't know if there’s much of it for that matter. what i like the most is the magazine "barcelona: european solutions for argentinian problems". edited in buenos aires. for me, black humour is garcía berlanga, one of my favourite directors.
what can we expect from uruguayan cinema in the next few years after all these excellent productions lately?
we can expect more excellent productions or on the contrary to not live up to our expectations.
what are your next projets?
a feature film entitled "1983". a comedy about military intelligence during the uruguayan dictatorship in the year 1983.
