Mónica del Carmen Leaps Past Mexican Taboos

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Interviews

Published on Saturday, 21 August 2010 17:00

Written by Laura Blum

Mexico is no stranger to violence. And sadly, "feminocidio" in border town Juárez has serialized images of marred women on national news. But it remains to be seen how Mexican filmgoers will stomach the fiendish sex play lensed with auteurist naturalism in Leap Year/Año bisiesto when the film opens in domestic theaters September 24.

Here at the 2nd Chihuahua City International Film Festival -- in the capital city of the same state as Juarez -- Michael Rowe's first go at directing a feature has ignited fiery debates. Exploring the carnal abyss during February of a leap year, the Australian-born filmmaker eyes his adoptive culture with the distance needed to vault taboos.  

Some hail Leap Year as the nerviest entry in Mexico's New Wave of sacrificial eroticism let loose by Carlos Reygadas (Battle in Heaven, Japón). Others dismiss it as a frontal assault on morality and the senses; some 15 of the latter fled Festival venue Cinépolis half-way through the August 20 screening.

Granted, Chihuahua city and state are among Mexico's most conservative folds. Yet the Camera d'Or winner of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival asks a lot of its audience, and in a country where homegrown movies are hard pressed to contend with big Hollywood entertainments, what hope can an X-rated arthouse release have of striking gold?

Hope, and whether Leap Year offers any, is one of the ropiest issues dividing viewers. Another is Rowe's choice of decidedly un-European-looking Mónica del Carmen as his leading lady.

Del Carmen plays Laura, a young journalist working and living coldly alone in Mexico City. She has ventured there from Oaxaca, which is short code for the country's underdeveloped, predominantly indigenous South. Hardly the svelte silhouette of your typical Mexican starlet, this poster girl for displacement is first seen shopping for undernourishment in a supermarket. It's the last we'll see of her out-of-home, though not out-of-body.

From masturbation to full-on S&M, Laura's adventures of the flesh explore themes of freedom and domination. After several one-night stints with strangers, she encounters Arturo (Gustavo Sánchez Parra), with whom notions of victim and master, cruelty and tenderness and Eros and Thanatos are given a good shake.  

American audiences will recognize del Carmen from her supporting role as Lucía in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel. Currently gearing up for French production about Mexican immigrants to the U.S., she has also appeared in Eduardo Canto's Buen provecho, and in political theater.

Following a press conference at Chihuahua, the hard-burning up-and-comer sat down with FilmFestivalTraveler.com for a cinema tertulia.

Q: What were some of your biggest fears in participating in this daring film?

MDC: There were lots of risks involved. For one, it was a very low budget production. It was the first film for all of us: me as protagonist, Machete Films as its first project, and Michael as debut director.

Q: How did you feel about participating in a film with extensive nudity and violent sex play?

MDC: A lot of people have asked, "Why do a film like this? It's not necessary to show such pain -- you could have showed the same story without burns, beltings and chokings." I felt that way at first. But once I saw how much integrity there was, I thought, Why not show a penis or a vagina if it's part of us?  For me it's part of our encounter with what we have -- but don't usually see -- so that we won't be afraid of our genitalia. It's a point that we need to work on as a society, to overcome what we are afraid to look at. And when we start to see sex as something liberating, we are going to be able to free ourselves in social realms that go beyond just sex.

Q: For example?

MDC: After the screening (in Chihuahua) a man came up to me and said he didn't identify with the sex on screen, but very much so with the solitude. He started crying and said, "I've lived a terrible solitude, but this is the first time I've seen it portrayed like this in a movie." Some people see the film as a solitary, sad love story; that's what women, especially, said in France.

I think (showing nudity) is part of changing the public stance, and to be able to speak about abuse, sex and solitude. To see this film is to confront a reality that the public is always evading. So I think it's very important to share Michael's idea. Sex in the film is just the tip of iceberg.

Q: What lurks beneath?

MDC: Underneath it all is a portrait of Mexican society and world capitalism. For example, Mexico City, which is a big metropolis where someone comes to from the province, is the monster they encounter, the big city. It's difficult to create relations there that are genial, permanent, stabile. We're always trying to be part of a group. The definition of happiness is of having success, having friends, having a good car. But basically these are things that don't really fulfill us. After a few wanderings with people and things, this makes us feel very alone.

Q: Michael himself had a taste of feeling lonely among millions of people when he first came to Mexico City, right?

MDC:  Yes, and he drew on it. Michael has a vision of Mexico that's very panoramic and through which he analyzes situations of Mexican society. He worked with Vicente Leñero, a very well-known screenwriter in Mexico, focusing on solitude. And after several months of collaborating with him, he said he wanted to write a story about two brothers, Raul and Laura. But in hearing stories from his friends, he realized that sex should be mixed into it because of its value as a tool in controlling human relations, and because of it being very repressed in a society like Mexico.  

Sexual expression runs the gamut from external cues -- clothes, makeup, whether you wear a skirt or pants – to practices like sadomasochism or homosexuality. Mexico is grappling with this now. They're deciding whether to legalize child adoption for gay couples, or in the opposite case, whether women in Mexico City can interrupt an abortion. The Pro Life movement outside of the Federal District is trying to counter this. We have the tools to show the exercise of sex that is free, enjoyable, not obscene, pleasurable. So speaking of sex so controversially is very important. Film is a very powerful critique; when people left the theater, I wondered, What's happening to them that is so powerful that they couldn't stay?

Q: What sort of people took to the exits?

MDC: Women of a certain age, a couple, upper middle class people, which leaves me with the impression that they could only see the sex and couldn't see anything past that. So what is it with sex that we can't honor it in all its manifestations, including practices that run from the most normalized to the most exotic and strange, like sadomasochism?

Q: In Mexico's politics of race and class, Laura's skin is too brown, and her home décor is too modest. Is the movie a metaphor for the country's power relations, and how the traumas of the past play out in the present and future?

MDC: You can see it as saying something about colonization and the power struggle between someone who wants to be colonized but struggles all the time not to be dominated. I think the metaphor is very elaborate, but it has many interpretations. You can note that the film correlates with issues of power among class, race and gender.

Q: Lots of taboos get upended in the film, including what passes for conventional beauty in Mexican cinema.

MDC: It's no coincidence that Laura has indigenous traits. The most vulnerable women in the country are from environments like Oaxaca. Having grown up in the area, I have met with many women who have suffered sexual abuse from a close family member, and many who have also suffered domestic violence. The film is open to different interpretations on the level of history.

Q: The role of Laura calls for acts that many viewers in your native Oaxaca and elsewhere in Mexico may see as scandalous. How did this affect your decision to sign on?

MDC: When I was trying to decide what the do, my mother said, "To do something with fear is the worst thing you can do in life." I know people back home will want to see the film, though it's going to be shocking. If I can't go back to my village, I'll have to see what I'll do…But whatever happens happens.

Q: What allowed you to be so at ease in baring your skin throughout the movie?

MDC: I'm a bit of a rebel. Taking my clothes off isn't a problem. It's my body and I'm comfortable with how I am. This is who I am, this is my body. Modesty doesn't go with the movie. This was something that I enjoyed doing, confronting sexuality in public without shame.

Q: In transcending shame and guilt, is the film taking a stab at religion?

MDC: Suffering is always Judeo-Christian. This life is transitory, so that after life there will be a compensation in heaven. As ordained by God, we have been taught that sex is bad, and that feeling pleasure is bad. If you are a woman and you feel pleasure, you are a slut and an easy woman. So the only way you're allowed feel good is that we are going to suffer and have guilt. It corresponds that there is an establishing of faith.

Q: Is Michael is a conscious disciple of the Carlos Reynadas school of filmmaking?

MDC: Reynadas is a watershed in this kind of movies that show things as they really happen, naturally, but the difference between him and Michael is that Reynadas sees it from within the Mexican society and Michael sees it as a foreigner looking in. Michael is more rigorous with the type of cinema that he wants to do; the set is all of one apartment, and he didn't want music because he said it was a manner of manipulating the viewer. The light was as realistic as possible. They used house lamps and cinema lighting, but always so that it would be as natural as possible. Michael wants to install a European approach to filmmaking.

Q: No-frills Dogma.  

MCD: He loves Dogma.

Q: The camera is both very explicit and suggestive, creating a charged atmosphere that lets viewers project some of their own pain and dread.  

MDC: A main proposition was to show sex on the screen with a reverent eye. Very seldom are such issues dealt with so frankly and shown so frontally; so it was shocking. At the same time, Michael didn't want to define distinct interpretations.

Q: He certainly left the last scene open to discussion. What's you take? (SPOILER ALERT!)

MDC: My very personal point view is that I want to stay with the image of her opening the calendar page to March, plus the fact that she has her adored brother, who can be her salvation. What happens after she turns to March is up to everyone to decide. Michael leaves it vague, open to different interpretations.

Q: So you agree that there's room for hope?

MDC: The opening of the March calendar is possible to interpret as hopeful, as does the beloved brother.

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