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FANTASIA 2022

Raúl Cerezo, Fernando González Gómez, Javier Trigales and Rubén Sánchez Trigos • Directors and writers of The Elderly

“We liked the theme of older people rebelling against the society that is putting them down”

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- The directors and the writers of this twisted new feature, in which older people are done being ignored, talk about it

Raúl Cerezo, Fernando González Gómez, Javier Trigales and Rubén Sánchez Trigos • Directors and writers of The Elderly
Directors Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez, and writers Javier Trigales and Rubén Sánchez Trigos

Older people are done being ignored in the Spanish feature The Elderly [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Raúl Cerezo, Fernando Gonzá…
film profile
]
, which just screened at the Fantasia International Film Festival, as one family slowly comes to a simple understanding: following the death of their grandmother, grandpa (Eguileor Zorion) isn’t feeling that great either. And he keeps telling them they are going to die. The film's directors Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez and the writers Javier Trigales e Rubén Sánchez Trigos talk to us about it.

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Cineuropa: We all have a complicated relationship with older people, that’s for sure. What made you want to go there?
Raúl Cerezo: It all started with a short film, and for the longest time all we had was that dinner scene – when the grandfather casually announces to his family that they are all going to die. We liked the concept and it kept on developing. We also liked the theme of older people rebelling against the society that is putting them down.

Fernando González Gómez: What’s really terrifying is that, considering it started from an idea that was developed 10 years ago, the position of the elderly remains exactly the same. At least in our society.

Javier Trigales: There is also another reason, a cinematic reason – we just love horror movies and we love seeing these people sitting in the dark, as if having this connection with death. We thought about such films as The Shining or Rosemary’s Baby, or Poltergeist II: The Other Side, which had this powerful character, Reverend Kane. They are nearer to death, you could say, so they bring something darker into these stories.

Yes, but you almost feel guilty when being afraid of them. After all, they are just older!
Ruben Sanchez Trigos: We want to respect the elderly but, again, when you think about something like Rosemary’s Baby, they can also hide things. It’s the same in this film. In the end, we are afraid of something we shouldn’t be afraid of.

RC: That’s why the title of the film in Spanish is a bit pejorative. Many years ago, I talked to this big production company in Latin America. When I pitched the idea, they weren’t interested at all – they didn’t want to show older people this way. What’s more, they felt disgusted by it. The fact that they felt this way made me want to work on the script even more.

And as a response to that you added full frontal nudity?
FGG: To show that they were wrong! It was important to show that, also because it’s natural. It’s life. It’s people getting older. In the case of Zorion, who is such a good actor, when we were shooting the shower scene, people were running to him, trying to cover him up. He refused, walking around completely naked [laughter]. For him, it wasn’t a problem. For others, we had to make them understand that it was important. We wanted to really take care of these characters, make sure they all fit inside this world.

JT: It’s important, also because your body changes so much as you grow older. It’s weaker, you get sick, you don’t recognise your reflection in the mirror. It’s still a taboo in our culture, so we wanted to put it up front.

RST: I was always so scared by this scene in The Shining, with a young woman in a bathtub suddenly ageing rapidly. I was more scared of her than of these twins! There was just something about the way they showed her body.

FGG: You have these scenes of crazy vulnerability, of someone exposed like that and, suddenly, he isn’t just “crazy.” He is an old man talking to a young girl about the past. We see this evolution, all these different moments. You see that he asks his granddaughter: “How many times have I told you that?” “Many times.” He says: “Thank you.” He is grateful, because normally, people just get annoyed, hearing the same story over and over again.

Could you tell me a bit about this atmosphere? It’s so hot, people are tired. It’s not a pleasant kind of summer – you can almost smell it.
FGG: Or taste it [laughter].

RC: We wanted to introduce some browns into the film, make it all look a bit rundown. We talked about Goya, for example, as a visual reference.

FGG: Also when it comes to the use of light in these paintings. We wanted to show that this world is disintegrating. The characters fall apart too.

There is this thinking that if you can’t trust your elders, who can you trust? But family doesn’t offer protection here.
RC: We show a broken family, yes. They have so many problems and then everything just implodes. But what’s very telling is that they don’t really support each other. Everyone deals with these issues on their own.

JT: For me, the scariest films are the ones where you can’t trust the people you know. Like in Invasion of Body Snatchers, The Thing. Something happens and your father, your friends, they turn into enemies. It’s terrifying.

FGG: We wanted to take out time building up tension. They are having dinner and then something strange happens. They look out of the window, and something strange happens. There are so many elements that start to invade this daily, normal routine. They are spreading. Soon, it becomes clear that something is happening, something bigger. It’s not just their grandfather who suddenly went crazy.

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