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Pedro gives Javier Camara & Dario Grandinetti directions at the Hable con Ella sets.
Pedro dances with Rosario Flores.
Q: What is the reason for the detour of the main story?
A: The story does not stop, it melts. In any way, when I was writing the script, it was so that the mute film served as the lid.
Q: The lid for what?
A: The lid to cover what is really happening. I do not want to show the viewer.
Q: That is called manipulation.
A: It is a narrative option, and not an easy one, but I am happy with the result.
Q: It is not the first time your characters express themselves by means of a movie. In Tacones Lejanos (High Heels)…
A: Victoria Abril was shouting at her mother, Marisa Paredes, a scene from Sonata de Otoño to express the love and hate she felt towards her. For me the films I watch become a part of my experiences. There is no intention to pay homage to their authors. To tell the stories of the films is something that has to do with my autobiography. I don't mean a forum cinema. When I was little I remember I used to tell the stories of films to my sisters. While I told the stories I reinvented them, and my sisters loved my unloyal and delirious versions better than the original movie. I remember that in those hours of time stopped they requested: "Pedro, tell us the movie we watched yesterday".
Q: Do you see yourself telling stories to your grand-children?
A: I am taking my time in having grand-children. In any case, I don't think I would do it.
Q: You spent the New Year's Eve of 2001 in El Salvador de Bahia, at Caetano Valoso's home…
A: Yes, it brings me luck. I wrote Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) there…
Q: Did you make your flower offering to Yemanya, the Goddess of the Sea?
A: Yes… it is a sensation I cannot describe the feeling of seeing the natives, many of them dressed in white, spreading flowers on the waves.
Q: What did you ask for to Yenmanya?
A: I asked for Hable Con Ella to do well, and to be healthy enough to travel promoting it without getting depressed, for the prejudices not to go against me (I mean, I hope the "politically correct" will not be in fashion again, because if that is so then I have fucked-up). I am also going to ask for love. For all trashy tv programs to end, for the fashion of shooting following actors and getting the viewers dizzy. I have also asked for a son. Also, for finding a new hairstyle, I am sick and tired of the same old style. Not gaining any more weight. Losing some weight, even. And to recover the absurd optimism from the early 80s (without having to resort to drugs). And for Ingmar Bergman to think about me before Liv Ullman when his next scrip is ready. I would have given anything for directing Infiel (Unloyal). Of course, I will also remember the rest of the world, it sounds ridiculous to say that I will ask for Peace, Common Sense, for Africa to be reborn from its agony, no more hunger, no more injustice, no more endemic sickness, no more terrorism, for the Afghan women to be able to look directly at what surrounds them, for them to be able to go to the cinema, for the Argentinians to be able to eat without having to rob… so many things Yenmanya is going to need extra hours to give them to me… When I think about collective needs my sense of humour leaves me.
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