| |
Nicotina:
Smoking can cause damage to your health
The word nicotine, one of the
principal ingredients of the cigarette, arose from the Frenchman’s name
Jeunet Nicot, who centuries ago in his ambassador's roll of France in
Portugal introduced the cigarette in the royal court with the intention
that European women could smoke. This alkaloid has the quality of
stimulating the neurons and provoking an euphoric effect on the nervous
system, for which it is easy to create one’s addiction.
Today, many years later, Nicotine
turns into the title of a film with a black comedy tone directed by the
Argentinian, nationalized Mexican, Hugo Rodríguez (In the middle of
nowhere, 1993), in that the plot passes during one night in Mexico
City with several stories that are linked by means of situations and
everyday characters. All this about a young hacker and voyeur, a booty
of 20 diamonds and a series of circumstantial crimes misted by the
constant smoke of a cigarette.
Nicotina (México-España-Argentina, 2003)
Actors: Diego Luna, Jesús Ochoa, Daniel Giménez
What it is about...
With the slogan of “nobody dies
only by smoking” the characters’ stories intertwine the low worlds of
Mexico City with a common denominator: addiction to tobacco. Lolo is a
hacker that promises a few hoodlums the keys to access Swiss bank
accounts in return for Russian mafia diamonds. But at the same time he
suffers a mishap with his neighbor, with whom he is in love. All that
provokes confusion that will end the entire affair, having involved a
partner of a pharmacist and another of barbers in a series of conflicts,
partly by chance and partly because everything can happen in a great
large city like this one.
Hugo
Rodríguez
For the filmmaker, who for 10 years
was not filming, this is his most recent film, a Mexico-Spain-Argentina
co-production, it has allowed him to rejuvenate especially by the
renovation in the language. His movie, in addition to taking part in the
recent Toronto and San Sebastian festivals, is outlined as the Mexican
favorite production of the year.
With all the anti-tobacco campaigns,
what happens with Nicotine, that is a film with the term one fancies to
smoke. Whenever I finish seeing it I feel like a cigarette.
Although it was never the intention, the intellectual speech of the
movie is that to smoke can or cannot provoke death. I do not believe
that we have censorship problems, though you sometimes already know that
it is the best thing to publicize a film. Rather, here smoking works
like a‘ running gag.
One of the merits of this production
is the visual design …
A short while ago he wanted to explore with
things that occur a lot on television, that type of language that comes
from the Sixties. Divided and multiple screens are seen from Napoleón,
by Abel Gance. This game of simultaneous images, and to improve the
action, were proposals suggested from the script. He also saw the
decision to do it in high definition, because these processes are easier
to do in digital post-production. Also it was a part of the proposal to
use a naturalistic photography, we practically did not have cinema
lighting.
Are you voyeuristic?
Trust me, no. I am super-modest. When it
began as the topic in the script and we explore the voyeuristic
character, we discover a sinful part of the dark sides of the human
being. But it is also an attractive part. I discovered, likewise, that
it attracts observers to it, there exists an erotic side that it has to
see with the voyeur.
Diego Luna is a fresh actor who
remains with a face of innocence, almost angelic. Since his
participation in Frida, from Julie Taymore, initiated his trot
for the world of Hollywood. He took part in Open Range directed
by Kevin Costner, recently stopped filming Criminal produced by
Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney, and is prepared to be directed in
the film Terminal, by Steven Spielberg. In Nicotina he
gives life to Lolo, a hypersailor of the net that devotes himself to spy
in his neighbor with ‘webcams’, meanwhile he carries out virtual deals
in Swiss banks for a group of gangsters.
How was it to film with Hugo Rodríguez?
He is a guy accustomed to giving
lessons, what allows him clarity as the director, allows him to inform
everyone. He allows people to participate, he realizes well that the
cinema makes the team. He is accustomed to working with guys, to learn
errors and that these teach you to go forward. He is the one director
that likes human pleasures, to eat, football and to have a drink with
his friends.
Lolo, your character, is a voyeur
'hacker'.
Of all the characters I have played, this is the one that looks less
like me. While for me I like to touch; to him, only to see. He is an
expert in computation, a guy that can get into a Swiss bank in half an
hour and know if now it is snowing in Alaska. On the other hand, I am an
idiot with the computer, I only use it to check my email and see how the
Pumas stayed in the weekend. Lolo is shy (reserved). Rather, I like
going to friends’ parties on the weekend, to talk, to face people when
I’m chatting. I had to start characterizing myself by using glasses. I
see very well. He is a guy that does not seem anything like me, that's
why it was so entertaining to do this movie.
He is characteristic of men who
are shy to be voyeurs and even, if they do not dare to face things, to
be ‘Hackers’?
There are 'hackers' that manage, yes, in addition to having a life on
the net, a personal life. Probably not synonymous with reserved and that
you don’t know to be related. For example, there is the one who is
employed at an office and he never finds out the name of the doorman or
the elevator man. Besides, Lolo is inoffensive guy that would not harm
anyone. He is in love with an illusion that appears in the computer,
that touches the cello and that lives next to him. Probably the day she
gives him a kiss in his dream he discovers that he has bad smell of
mouth and everything already finished.
Who will the spectator meet in
Nicotina?
The people who want to go to see the guy of And Your Mother Too
go away to find a very different guy. And simultaneously in life I am
not like Tenoch. To do Nicotina gave me the chance to film
another movie in Spanish and this is something valuable that I do not
want to stop doing. The cinema is important in my language. With the
people that live in me country, that I know, that saw me to grow, they
gave me desire to do cinema in Mexico. Though I am OK in the United
States or Spain, I want always to be with a foot in Mexico with the
people who I admire.
On work abroad, what does one feel to be
touched by the magic wand of Hollywood?
(he laughs) What happened? That
sounds a double entendre. I feel very lucky to be able to say that now,
yes, I live of the cinema, making movies, and what I like without having
to do projects to gain money and to see where I get to pay my rent. In
Mexico, if you are an actor, in this moment it is impossible to live of
the cinema. I have the wonderful luck of working with people who I
admire very much. I know that my work goes away to première in many
parts of the world.
|
|
