The singing – epic and fragile
Diego Fontecilla is a Chilean musician, responsible for the sound track of some feature films. When we first met to talk about the film, we saw that it would need to have an operatic style because it is about the survivors of a utopia. Below, his experience in the composition of the track of this film:
The main challenge of the music of A memória que me contam was to follow the action, subtly supporting the emotions and situations, trying not to overly dramatize or manipulate the character on the scenes.
Ana’s character served as a guide: a woman that is on the edge between life and death, between the presence and absence. Ana’s state, this coming and going, is for me like the waves of the ocean in the opening scene, a subtle sound, a pulse of life that still remains. Through the music, I tried to show the fragility and the depth of this woman. The soprano’s voice was used as a musical representation of her strong and epic character.
I felt a special identification with the character of Paolo (Franco Nero), in the sense of him being an immigrant. I’m Chilean and few years ago I moved to Italy, and this feeling of not belonging he speaks, of being out of the place we live, I can recognize. Despite being welcomed and feeling comfortable in the new society, there is always a cultural distance and somehow a longing for your own country.
I also tried to present this theme in Ana’s character, in her arrival in France, running away from the Brazilian dictatorship. This combination of loneliness, melancholy, and also the fascination caused by living in a foreign country, are elements I tried to print in the music composition.
The strength of the images
Guillermo Nieto (Bill Nieto) is an Argentine photographer, with dozens of feature films, among them, Leonera, LLuvia and others for which he received many awards of photography direction. I knew and liked his work. I knew that with him we could work with dramatic shades in the rain, like in the opening of the film, and get to the lyricism of many scenes. Below, Bill talks about how it was to make the film:
I’m Argentine and this is the first time I work with a feature film in Brazil. On the first trip, I tried to understand the universe of the director, what she wanted to say and how. In Rio, basically, we visited possible locations to determine what would be more interesting for the film, and in Paulínia, where we built scenarios and needed to make important decisions, we had the first meetings with all the heads of departments.
It was a challenge for me to work with an unknown team, in other language (that, although a sister language, has a different culture and technique), without knowing how they would adapt to my way of working (a little bit chaotic and really intuitive!) and myself to theirs. It was a pleasant surprise to get to know a highly professional team, highly committed with the film, to the director and her history. There was a lot of exchange and this process was really constructive for the film, which really gained over the time. The visual narrative was gaining space over the dialogues adding a lot to the film.
On the shooting, one of the great challenges was the waiting room. How to transform this cold and monotonous place in a warm place with nuances. How to transform the uniform light, which you usually find in a waiting room, is a more directed light around the characters, while still representing a hospital. Also in the waiting room, Lucia asked me more freedom to the actors, as it was a moment in which they had to be freer, there were a lot of dialogues and would be better for their interpretation so they could move without being submitted to a strict schedule of light.
A memória que me contam works with two different times, a past and a present, actually on the same plan. To follow this history – and this was also an important decision for us – the photography should unit these two times and not split them. That is, despite being different historical reconstitutions, the photography should work homogeniously the different times in order to see the film as a whole, contemporary, today.