This is the story of two failures. Of Colombo and Mario. About two guys who have lost their way and hit the road, maybe to lose their senses completely, maybe to find themselves.
Pau Durà directs Javier Gutiérrez and Luis Zahera in Pájaros, a road movie that takes Colombo and Mario from Valencia to Romania, passing through the Costa Brava, Turin and Slovenia. The film hit theaters this weekend, so Durà and Gutiérrez stopped by the La Vanguardia editorial office on Thursday to tell a few things about their Pájaros.
“I like that the characters are the ones who create the plot and not the other way around, so when I started planning the film I thought of two guys close to me in age to be able to dramatize things that worry me, like the passage of time, guilt or love, serious themes that can also be treated lightly, with affection and irony, without the need to reach tragedy,” says the director.
When he had the script ready, Durà sent it to Gutiérrez, knowing that he would be an ideal Colombo, a separated man who forgets his son’s birthday and who survives thanks to a job as a night watchman in a parking lot.
“I read it and I fell in love with the character and the story,” says Gutiérrez, “because at this moment there are many middle-aged men in our society who are lost, who need to reset many aspects of life to get into the rhythm of the day. a day. And in the film the lack of support that the characters have is very recognizable,” he adds.
And the audience empathizes with the protagonists of Pájaros, “with two losers, because most of us have failed miserably on many occasions in relationships or at work and sometimes we don’t know how to handle our children.”
One night Colombo meets Mario in the parking lot. Mario, played by Luis Zahera, is a sick man, who stutters, who needs to escape, but does not know how to drive. He proposes to Colombo that he be his driver. And so begins the adventure of “two wounded birds that are looking for his flock,” says the director.
They are also “two rogues, something that is very Spanish, who lie, who constantly try to deceive each other until they decide to take off their mask and be honest with each other,” he adds. And Pájaros is also a song about friendship, because “from the moment Columbo and Mario get rid of their shells, they begin to build a friendship between them.”
Where there was no trap or cardboard was in the filming of the film, because the team filmed in Spain, Italy and Romania chronologically: “A commitment was made to really get involved, there is no chroma key, the film takes place along roads, paths and real highways, Slovenian mountains, plains and rivers, we set foot on two seas, which is not bad at all for an artisanal and humble film,” says Durà.
