How did the story of The consequences?
The story comes out because I was pregnant with my son and I was in deep panic of not knowing how to do it right. I think that all women have the stress of motherhood on us. And starting from that fear of saying: “Will I know how to do it well? What would happen if you get to be in danger and I don’t realize it? ”, I began to enter into this story that it is a mother who does not know what situation her daughter is in and all the ghosts begin to appear, ghosts that have a reason for being , Sure. She has an unresolved matter involving her parents. By the eastern point of responsibility as parents and the inheritance of emotions, all this that the later generation leaves, unresolved issues that somehow then explode in your face.
Gabi’s relationship with Fabiola is very complex, as is her grandfather’s relationship with both. How did you work on your characters?
The script is complex because it has a structure where there is a character on the surface. Fabiola does not know what is happening to her daughter and is going in that direction. But then there is the character of César, who is a character that we build downwards: while she is coming out, he is sinking because he feels observed and his own fear, his own guilt, is what is really sinking him. Another thing that we found very interesting was working on the concept of a mirror, that one was seeing each other in the other. There was also the change in point of view. The movie starts with Fabiola’s point of view and then there is his point of view. Then we go to the girl’s and finally we go to the grandmother’s, to Teresa’s. I wanted that when we were all seated at the table, really the only one who had all the information was the spectator, that when faced with that “nothing, nothing, nothing” that the four of them say, the spectator had a position as well. He didn’t feel like having that conversation happen. I prefer to say that it is a film just before the explosion, because that explosion of everything that we intuit that they were told happens in black. We are not interested in hearing that. In other words, better to go with him in the boat, than to listen to what we already knew.
Something that strikes me about the film is that the sea is always very present. It is in many scenes, either visually or aurally, and even in terms of sound mixing, it excels. What does it represent for you?
In the case of the film, it is the one who carries and brings the truths. He’s the one who takes Fabiola’s husband. But on the other hand, he is the one that brings Fabiola those childhood memories and makes her say: “there is something unsolved on this island”. Nature also had things to say, and in that sense, the sea is sometimes the voice of the film, because at times it is quite silent and the sea is the one that is taking the place of the words. That cadence of the sea also helps a feeling of unease because silence can be very violent. When we started writing the film, we were very interested in the subject of subterranean violence, beyond the motherhood I was telling you, this violence that is in the family nucleus, which I think was left with the time of the pandemic very much in evidence, because many of us have been forced to be the four, the three, the five, all stuck on an island within an island within an island, like a matrioshka, and the conversation that we have to have no, no, no it happens. There are always taboo conversations in families, topics that you say: “better not talk because something can happen here.” So I believe the sea occupies that place, the place of no value, of cowardice, of telling the truth.
Right now they have promoted the film at festivals such as Guadalajara and Malaga. How have you felt the reception of the people?
We premiered in Malaga and it went very well. María Romanillo, which was her first film, won an award for best actress. It was a very nice reception. In fact we are in theaters in Spain at the moment. Mexico, it is the first time that the film has been seen outside of Spain. When we began to investigate this issue of abuse – which is not the subject of the film, but obviously they are floating there – we saw that Mexico is the country that has the highest percentage of child abuse in the world, and also ninety percent of the people he says nothing and the figures were brutal. I believe six out of ten cases occurred within the family nucleus. Obviously it is not a Mexican issue, it is a world issue, but it is true that it is a country where a lot happens. So there was a lot of attention in Mexico when I started working on the script and I found it very curious that the film was seen here. People are very moved by the story, like hitting rock bottom. I think the movie does that. When you see it on the big screen, this one is lowered from the divers to the bottom is a letter of intent, almost. When the movie ends you are there and you need time to also be able to go out and assimilate what is in front of you. I like to say that it is an open and immersive movie because it leaves room for you to put together your puzzle of that family, but above all for you to complete with your puzzle, so that you have time to see that grandfather and think about yours, or see that mother and think about yours, or see that family and think about yours. And I think that we get it. I am quite happy with the reaction of the public in Spain, of course, but here in Mexico as well.
How was your exploration of the abuse?
It is clear that these issues are lifelong, about hiding from what gets under the rug, from these unresolved things, from these inherited silences. I think the issue of the gaze is interesting and where are the limits of abuse. I think we are in a moment where intimacy has very fuzzy edges, where we are showing ourselves on social networks, where you are establishing intimacy through mobile phones, through screens, all the time. And suddenly you say: “I abuse a look or no?”. When he says “I have never touched them”, it is less, it is a minor abuse because he has not touched them. Where is the abuse? What are the limits of privacy? And I think that a moment like the present is worth reflecting on that. Beyond the known abuse, the most studied, I think there is one very of our times, of feeling violated by a comment or an image. It interests me a lot, and as a mother of two children, more so. In the movie it happens all the time and that is intentional. We wanted everything to be very ambiguous, that in the same way that Fabiola has no certainties, she senses that something is happening, but nothing seems decisive. In other words, he sees them coming together and hugging, but that may be nothing. He sees that he is passing the towel, but this may be nothing. He sees that they go to town and they go together, but it may be nothing, and they go in the boat, and he says: “I thought you wanted to stay with your grandfather.” Everything is logical. Everything could be innocent. For example, it would be worth asking when he reaches the sea and sees the grandfather who is with the girl in the water, is something really happening or not? I intentionally shot it so we wouldn’t see anything. I didn’t want to see anything either, but the face that the actor has at that moment, what we were looking for is that doubt of saying: “I didn’t really see anything, but I see you with the girl in the water and I can think that something is happening like it happened with me ”, right? In that sense, it is a film that leaves enough room for you to draw your conclusions.