“Reality needs fiction to be experienced and told”

On Wednesday January 8, the 23rd film by Spanish cinema icon Pedro Almodovar hits theaters. But this is the first time, in his 45-year career, that he has filmed in English. With The room next doorit even takes us across the Atlantic.

We’re in New York. Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) are old friends who have lost touch. When they meet again, one will ask the other to help her die.

franceinfo: Your film evokes the right to die with dignity, to choose the end of life. You still need to be accompanied to do it.

Pedro Almodovar : Supporting is sometimes the best we can do for people who need it, whom we love. And it’s very important, sometimes even without even speaking, to be present. At a time when the world is more polarized than ever, where hatred is organized through networks and constantly manifests itself in the media, I think it is very important to remember that being next to someone is the best thing we can do for others.

Ingrid and Martha are old friends, but they haven’t seen each other for a long time. This friendship stands the test of time?

I think we’ve all experienced it. There are times when you haven’t seen a friend in a long time and when you do see them again, it’s exactly the same as last time. It also happens that even if you cultivate a friendship, you realize that it is already dying, even if you don’t want it to. But old friendships are what allow you to stay in touch with your youth, with a bygone era. And it’s really nice to rediscover these memories from a few years ago.

Martha asks Ingrid to accompany her to her death, after several refusals…

Yes. The truth is that the rest of his friends didn’t want to. It wasn’t Martha’s first choice. In the United States, where this story takes place, there is no law on euthanasia, in Spain, yes. In the USA, the person who helps is denounced because he commits a crime and goes to prison. Ingrid is terrified that she will be the one to discover her friend’s death, but she realizes that Martha really has no one to help her, so she decides to go with her.

We talk a lot in your films, here much less. Was filming Silence a challenge?

Here, the silence is on the face of the listener, it is difficult to interpret. Julianne Moore spends at least half the film listening to Tilda Swinton. And the spectator must read in the eyes of the character what the other is saying. My films are always very oral. In other words, the characters talk all the time.

“I have to admit that making a mostly silent film would be very difficult for me.”

Pedro Almodovar

at franceinfo

It’s not a real melodrama. You have put a certain distance from the strong emotions that the film arouses.

Since we are talking about death, the easiest thing to do was to fall into sentimentality. So I wanted to move away from any excess sensitivity. In this respect, the film is very austere, even if the colors are always the colors of my films, but in terms of interpretation, tone and narration, I wanted it to be very austere so as not to fall into sentimentality .

You said in Venice that, despite everything, there was a “Spanish spirit” in this film?

The character of Tilda is a character who could be a Spanish woman. This powerful woman, who goes to war, recognizes that the war made her addicted to sex. I’ve read several books by war reporters and it’s true that the experience is so strong and so devastating that in the evening, they drink a lot and have a lot of sex. This spirit is therefore very Spanish, the spirit of excess.

Visually, we find your aesthetic, these pure lines, these colors, it’s to comfort us, right?

I realize that I am not able to do without reds, yellows, greens. It’s my way of thinking about cinema, because when I started watching films, it was in the Technicolor era. And I think I was already subconsciously looking for the bright, explosive bloom of Technicolor, which is the color of my childhood films.

Let’s return to the main theme of the film, the end of life, is it a fight that affects you a lot?

Yes, this seems to me to be a right of every human being. We are the authors of our lives and we must also be masters of our death. Especially when life only offers you pain, right? Even if the subject is heavy, I wanted to treat it with light, nothing sordid or dark, because it is a vital decision. In other words, Martha makes her decision with vitality, with dignity. This is a debate that concerns the whole world, but of course, religion, religions come into conflict with this right. For example, in Spain, despite the existence of a law on euthanasia, the conservative and ultraconservative side, which we have, tries to obstruct this law. Some doctors reject it as conscientious objectors. No one is forcing them to make that decision, but it’s about respecting the person who makes it with a doctor and who makes the decision in specific circumstances. In other words, if they don’t make a decision and follow through on it, they are doomed to severe pain.

In 2024 your book “The Last Dream” was published in France (by Flammarion). We learn in the short story about your mother that it was she who gave you a taste for fiction?

The street where we lived in the 1960s when we left La Mancha was full of illiterates. My mother read letters from neighbors and I wrote for them. She invented lots of things. I could see she was lying, I knew the lives of each of them. She told me: “Have you seen how happy they are?” I was ten years old, I didn’t know that I would write one day. Then, as I thought about it, I realized that actually, yes. Reality needs fiction to be experienced and told, even when you are writing about your own life.

“We need a daily dose of fiction to keep us going.”

Pedro Almodovar

at franceinfo

The Room Next Door is your 23rd film. Your audience, who has followed you for decades, has grown up with your films. Do you realize how much you are a part of people’s lives?

It’s wonderful! It’s always a surprise when people say to me in the street: “I grew up watching your films.” I tell them that it gives meaning and justifies everything I have done as a filmmaker. There is nothing better than finding this complicity with the public. When we film, the audience has no face. When he identifies, when he is moved, it’s a miracle, it’s wonderful.