After his impressive debut in feature film direction with Advantages of traveling by train (2019), Aritz Moreno returns to the Sitges festival with Moscas, a film in which he once again surprises the staff taking the acclaimed novel by Kike Ferrari as a starting point , Which from afar look like flies (Alfaguara, 2018), a portrait of the descent into hell of a powerful and despotic Argentine businessman brought to life by a masterful Ernesto Alterio. “I read a lot of crime novels and when I had Ferrari’s book in my hands it caught my attention because it had elements that interested me, a thriller with a very clear trigger to set up a plot and then it had a very great socio-political critical charge,” says the Spanish director in an interview with this newspaper.
The film was shot entirely in Argentina, despite the fact that the first version of the script was planned to be made in Spain, “but when Vix came into financing there was talk of locating it in Buenos Aires, where the original novel takes place, which allowed me to work with Argentine actors and it has been a blast”. Moreno always had Ernesto Alterio in mind, with whom he already met in Advantages of traveling by train, for the role of Luis Machi, a guy who drives a high-end car, is well suited and believes himself superior to the others.
One day while driving his vehicle he punctures a tire and discovers that he has a body in the trunk. Who placed it there and why? A question that will torment the protagonist, who will find himself involved in a series of the most surreal events. “I think we all have an idea of ??this type of character, who exists both there and here and anywhere. Normally in a thriller a corpse always appears and the story is about who the corpse was, but here the question is about who it is Luis Machi. And the more you get to know him, the only thing you as a spectator think about is the few corpses that have been placed on him.”
Alterio confesses that he loves Aritz’s view of Buenos Aires, a city that appears dirty and abandoned and that allowed the psychological degradation of the protagonist to be visually staged. “We wanted it to be a very Argentine film with a very concrete and specific character, which makes it possible for it to be understood in many places, to be more universal,” says the actor, who had not read Ferrari’s book before getting involved in the project. .
Getting into the skin of this guy “has made it possible for me to explore very dark areas of the human soul” and he believes that Machi “is also a product of this society with an unbridled capitalism that produces this type of monsters who feel unpunished to get rich and enjoy humiliating “.
He says that he explored a lot about this man’s relationship with people, “I insisted that he never say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ and it was something that was difficult for me to the point that during filming I was tempted to save him.” . Alterio admits that he has met several people like his role in fiction. “He is someone who feels unpunished but in the end life puts him in the place where you have to review certain things. And I think of someone who has had a very important sporting position who believed himself above good and evil and no longer has that position,” he comments on the controversial Rubiales case.
The actor, who was born in Argentina but has been in Spain since he was seven, had to practice a lot an Argentine accent that does not come naturally to him and refers to the process that Machi undergoes as that of someone, “who appears at the zenith of its success and at a given moment flies appear which has to do with something rotten and starting to crack.
That man is also pathetic and rude to his own family. He is a womanizer who mocks that his children are inclined towards culture. “He has an excessive ego and at the same time a great inferiority complex. And that mixture produces horrible things. He feels questioned by his own son, whom he does not tolerate being half effeminate.”
A contempt for culture displayed by the far-right Javier Milei, the favorite to win the presidential elections in Argentina on October 22. “It seems tremendous and dangerous to me. They want to charge everything… and it is tremendous that people need to rely on this type of figure,” adds the 53-year-old interpreter for whom making this type of person attractive has been “quite a challenge.” “.
One of Moscas’s characters states that there is more politics in the business world than in politics, something that also happens “now more than ever” in the film industry. “The platforms are very good because they have revolutionized the way of consuming audiovisuals, the industry itself has created more work but on the other hand they are large corporations where the political prevails more than the artistic. Suddenly the decisions are made by an algorithm or a board of directors of a company”.
Alterio is attracted to films “that move things in me, that make me think and take me out of my comfort zone.” In addition to Moscas, among his new projects he has the second season of Todos mienten for Movistar and for Amazon he is about to make a series with Anna Castillo directed by Borja Cobeaga “that takes a very special look at the Spanish monarchy. In good garden I I’m going to put it in,” concludes with a laugh the son of the great actor Héctor Alterio, who has just blown out 94 candles. “He is very well, very active and that is a celebration of maximum joy.”
