Thank you very much Juanfer Andrés for doing this interview with me.
After watching Shrew’s Nest on Shudder TV and being moved by the film, not only by the actors and the way they portrayed their character on the screen, but by the way the story was developed at the end.
Kirsty Nightmare: How did you come up with the story and what was the reasoning behind it?
Juanfer Andrés: The story is based on a short film written by Ángel Amorós, our Director of Photography, in 1996. In that short film I was Assistant Director and Editor and the co-director of “Shrew’s Nest”, Esteban, produced it. A year later we were looking for a story to make our first film and Angel reminded me of that short film. He told me that when he wrote it he imagined the kind of short film that I would do. Determined to adapt that story, for the script of the film I contacted Sofía Cuenca, a screenwriting friend who has an incredible talent. It’s a very feminine movie, and I needed to tell it with a woman. Although we both lived in Madrid, we came from villages. So we began to remember the stories that our grandmothers, our aunts, our mothers told us about the Spanish post-war period and what life was like for women, crushed by a very oppressive religion and a very macho political dictatorship.
Kirsty Nightmare: What was the reason for putting this movie in 1950’s Spain?
Juanfer Andrés: Spain experienced a terrible civil war between 1936 and 1939, which resulted in the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. The postwar period was terrifying, as traumatic as the war itself. Hunger, misery, extreme poverty. Interestingly, this freed us from participating in World War II. Spain was left alone, isolated, forgotten by the rest of Europe and the world. In the 50s was when Spain began to recover little by little in the economic, but not so in the emotional and social. The country was dejected, exhausted. The generation that lived through the war and post-war only had the strength to survive. It had to be the next generation that forced the political changes. We thought there was a clear parallel of all this with Montse and La Niña. In principle, Montse had overcome a terrible and traumatic past and had managed to create a normal home for her and her sister. But when La Niña is growing and has its own opinion, the world of Montse goes to the test. Everything works if it is subject to its strict norms. But are those rules fair? Are they the ones we want? Suddenly, Esteban, Sofía and I realized that Montse and La Niña did not stop being a representation of “the two Spains”: a conservative, traditional, strict and severe; the other progressive, dreamer, nonconformist and audacious. Two very different Spains, condemned to fight but, nevertheless, emotionally needed, they feed back and end up making similar mistakes.
Kirsty Nightmare: How and why did you choose the actors?
Juanfer Andrés: Here our producers helped us a lot, Kiko Martínez, Carolina Bang and especially Álex de la Iglesia. Álex is one of the most important directors in our country, he has worked with hundreds of actors. The idea of Macarena Gómez for Montse came from him. Although Macarena is a star in Spain for a comic television series, Álex had worked with her on “Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi” and insisted that she was a huge dramatic actress. It was a great success. Nadia was Carolina’s idea, although we had already done with her in a short film, “La sorpresa de Aquirana” and we loved working with her. For Carlos and El Padre we needed actors with great charisma. Carlos because he throws almost the whole movie in bed and El Padre because he appears very little but is a transcendental character in the plot. Many names were considered, but as soon as those of Hugo Silva and Luis Tosar appeared, we stopped searching. It was them. Perfect
Kirsty Nightmare: All the actors did an incredible job, plus Macarena Gómez, who played Montse. What did Macarena like to work with?
Juanfer Andrés: Well, here I have to say that the person in charge of the direction of actors is my partner Esteban. And yes, I agree: his work was colossal. The cast is wonderful, even those characters that only come out a couple of times. Esteban is a genius with the actors. And of course, when someone like him joins someone like Macarena Gómez, every second captured by the camera is pure gold. Macarena is a titan of interpretation. Only two days after reading the script, I already had notes to write another script and had realized aspects of the character in which we had not repaired or Esteban, or Sofia, or me. The best thing about Macarena is that, although it is prepared in depth, then it is very attentive to your intuition. I always put this example, which is wonderful: we shot the film in December and January, it was terrible cold in that apartment and Macarena is very cool. When she went to shoot her first scene, she incorporated to Montse the body position that caused her cold. The movie does not mention winter, so what you see is a woman whose body position transmits shyness, weakness, shame … but also restlessness. Macarena gave herself to her character. He always does. But Montse was very demanding, a character very introspective and at the same time very physical. Macarena lost 5 kilos during the filming and ended up bruised on all sides. With this it is all said.
Kirsty Nightmare: What was the actor’s reaction to accepting their roles?
Juanfer Andrés: Everyone accepted immediately. I imagine that the fact that the calls were made by Alex de la Iglesia would help, hahaha. But then, some time later, Macarena told me: “Do not make mistakes. If Álex sends you a script, you certainly read it. But if the script is crap I do not do it. ” What is a great honor in my part writer
Kirsty Nightmare: The protagonist Montse (Macarena Gómez) has a serious affliction of agoraphobia, in my opinion, it works very well, but why did she incorporate this particular condition to the film?
Juanfer Andrés: The idea came because we were creating a very psychologically unstable character and we needed something to articulate all that mental mess. Agoraphobia was the great answer. That she could not leave the house forced us to tell the whole story on the floor. That detail changed everything, forced us to trace the past of the character, and there was gradually configured the Montse of “Shrew’s Nest”, a character of which we are all very proud. The truth is that the agoraphobia was a happy idea because, in addition, it allowed us to tell the whole story in a single space. As I told you before, the script for “Shrew’s Nest” was written with the aim of being our first film as directors. It is very difficult to make a first film, so if, in addition to good, you get it cheap to produce, you have some other possibility.
Kirsty Nightmare: There is a movie called Intruders in which the main character has the same condition as Montse. Was not your condition inspired by that movie?
Juanfer Andrés: No, we did not know her when we made the movie. The references for Montse were, on the one hand, Bette Davis’s “What became of Baby Jane?” And Kathy Bates’s “Misery.” But there was one side of Montse sweeter, more … type “Cinderella”. You know: the humble and selfless girl who devotes her own life to caring for the family, even when she does not treat her very well. That, by the way, had a lot to do with the time. For years, the propaganda of the dictator Franco proclaimed that this was the only possible way to be a “good woman”. Or that, or become a nun.
Kirsty Nightmare: La Niña also did an amazing job and it seemed like she was made for this role, what did she like to work with throughout the process?
Juanfer Andrés: Nadia de Santiago debuted with 8 years in a television series and since then she has not stopped working. Spain has seen it grow in front of the cameras. He is young, has talent and experience. He has a great instinct to capture the energy the character needs. I think that when he understands that, he lets himself be carried away by the concrete emotions conveyed by the scenes. I have to say that Nadia is the actress with the best “listen” I’ve seen my life. For me, an actor or an actress shows his talent not when his character acts or speaks, something that determines the script, but when his character “listens”, because that is not usually specified by the script or by the director. And, in addition, she is a wonderful companion: Macarena always says that she is the actress with the best one understood. They had an explosive chemistry. The team was very happy the days that there were scenes with both of them. They used to be anthological.
Kirsty Nightmare: During the film, Montse has visions of her father Father and, for all of us, we have the feeling that not only does she have agoraphobia but hallucinations, what was that medicine from the dropper she was taking?
Juanfer Andrés: It has to do, yes. What it takes is nothing less than morphine. Although it seems incredible, at that time it was sold in pharmacies. It was used as a sedative, among other things. He retired because, obviously, he caused tremendous addictions. These visions of the Father, in reality, is a resource to create an internal dialogue for Montse. It is not really his Father, but his guilt, which manifests itself in the form of the man who put such conservative precepts into his head. Luis touched he understood it to perfection. He told us that, except in a couple of scenes, which are really flashbacks, he did not interpret the Father, but Montse. The dark side of Montse. He understood it the first time, just by reading the script. That’s why he’s a great actor.
Kirsty Nightmare: How long did the entire creation of the movie Shrew’s Nest take?
Juanfer Andrés: The truth is that this is very curious. The film began to preproduce eight years! after finishing the script. But then, once preproduction started, everything was very fast. In three months we were shooting. Filming lasted only 21 days. The film was performing at the Toronto Festival in October 2014, exactly one year after starting to produce it.
Kirsty Nightmare: Will there be a part two?
Juanfer Andrés: LOL. No, I do not think … Although we joked a lot with Nadia about it. Go back ten years later to the apartment and see what La Niña became. Had she become the new Montse? Did Montse die, really? LOL
Kirsty Nightmare: Is there a novel to accompany this movie?
Juanfer Andrés: Almost all the novelists that have influenced me are classics: Stevenson, Poe … During “Shrew’s Nest” I thought a lot about Kafka, for example. Above all at the atmospheric level: “The process” is a novel that impacted me a lot when I read it and that always inspires me. But perhaps the two clearest literary references of “Shrew’s Nest” are Stephen King and Federico García Lorca. The impact of King on my generation (I grew up in the 80s), especially if you like horror movies, is incalculable. And, if you live in Spain, something similar happens with Lorca, although he is a much older author. The Montse of the beginning of the film, and that of the end, has a lot of “The House of Bernarda Alba”, an essential work of the poet and playwright. But that costumbrismo mixed with that monster that can become, takes it a bit to King territory, no doubt.
Kirsty Nightmare: I loved how the actors brought out their character in this movie and how Montse slowly showed how evil and psychic it was, this film gives you all kinds of feelings in the end for feeling sorry for Montse but also for hating her character in a good way. Is this your destination for the spectators?
Juanfer Andrés: Our strategy, in effect, was for the public to understand the monster. Not for him to approve the barbarities he does, but for him to be affected. There were spectators who told us that they did not want Montse to kill, and that when she did they felt an immense sorrow for her. The public understood that Montse is an executioner because she is previously a victim. She has been educated in violence and that is why when her world falls apart her only response is violence
Kirsty Nightmare: Did this film get the critics I expected?
Juanfer Andrés: Far above expectations. We knew we could like it, but really its impact was greater than we had imagined.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:
Juanfer Andrés is an editor and director, known for Shrew’s Nest (2014), 036 (2011) and Es un buen chaval (2013)
WHERE TO WATCH:
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