The Pompidou Center opens its doors to Isaki Lacuesta | Culture
Isaki Lacuesta He's like a boy with new shoes. And not because of the premiere in Spain next Friday Between two waters, with which he became the youngest filmmaker, at 43, to obtain Two Golden Shells of the San Sebastian Festival (Only five others have succeeded). But because the interview takes place a few hours after the filmmaker flees to Paris to finish the preparations for something that qualifies as "a gift". The Pompidou Center opens today a retrospective of his work (open until January 6) with the screening of all his films, the publication of a book about his work, another film he has made as a self-portrait and an installation -The images are- created expressly for the museum. And all this coincides with the exhibition Naomi Kawase / Isaki Lacuesta. Cinéastes en correspondance, that collects audio-visual letters crossed between the Japanese and the Girona.
"With Between two waters I have the feeling that I finish a stage ", reflects Lacuesta," something, which on the other hand I have always felt with each job ", ends with a smile." I am advanced, learning things. But it's true that I think I'm abandoning a film adolescence, that I'm getting hairy, and that the Pompidou is a clear signal. "Lacuesta won its first Concha with The double steps (2011), premiered in the long with Cravan vs. Cravan (2002), this Between two waters is the continuation of The legend of time (2006) ... "I like these games of doubles, of echoes, there is a part of me that likes films composed of many materials, collages, born of the game, "he reflects." In my films there has always been a time when I go away from mother, or that I split in two, as in The legend of time. Now I understand that the filmmaker sees too much trying things, that this hinders the viewer's understanding. Every time I will bet on more transparent forms ".
Social portrayer almost by surprise
Lacuesta has been portraying society in his cinema. More clearly, in the diptych The legend of time / Between two waters, shot in the neighborhood of La Casería de San Fernando (Cádiz). "Over time, I've realized that I'm doing it continuously. In The skin itself I showed closed rural Catalonia. In Between two waters there is a certain hopelessness, because all its potentialities have been cut off. Now the two protagonist brothers project their wishes on their daughters. You can tell his age, my age, that we are parents. "
Of the same duplicity, that of the two Golden Shells, Lacuesta understands that it goes beyond frivolity: "They no longer treat me like an intruder, I feel things have changed, but my position in the industry does not change, and the rejection of some televisions before my films ". He does not want to delve further, although he is somewhat annoyed by these reprobations.
In contrast, in the Pompidou, red carpet. "One of the installations faces one of my films with another. And yes, the dichotomy returns. " Lacuesta takes out the iPad and begins to open videos that illustrate what counts. "Here are the echo images, which are seven screens, three on the right and left and one in the background. The idea is that the cinema serves to be in two places at the same time ". For this he has used previously filmed material, as pedestrians in Johannesburg (South Africa). "They could look like Harlem images from the 1950s." In the background you hear a voice in off which says: "If I did not know where we are, it would be hard for me to guess. When I see the images, I feel that they are living what their parents and grandparents could not enjoy. " There are seven trips to show how the world has changed. "In the end is the everlasting question: where am I?"
