Christopher Frank's novel impressed
me very much. It was a wonderful though distressing experience; it
left me with a terrible feeling of desolation. There is something
in it I haven't yet been able to figure out. I don't even know what
genre it belongs to although I dare say it could be described as an
"internal epic". Why not? Isn't there, after all, an element of
epic in everyday life? Why should James Joyce's Ulysses, for
example, be less epic than "The Odyssey"? [...]
The film is full of dark zones,
strange motives and little mysteries. I doubt this has been my most
ambitious project, because making a comedy and expecting thousands
of people to laugh while watching it is really pretentious… Mind
you, I'd say this has been my most personal and intimate film
[...]
The first thing that surprised me
about Jeff Goldblum is that he knew the script as well as, or even
better than, me. He knew not just his own character but also what
happened in each sequence and the motives which he referred to
constantly, even in the case of simple shots that apparently don't
imply anything. It was moving for me that someone should become so
involved in something I had written. He is a very original actor
with a unique way of performing, genuine and not obvious. To tell
this story, I needed an actor who would feel like an alter ego and
I found him in Jeff Goldblum.
FERNANDO TRUEBA