After Che, he is going to do Kerouac

BERLIN: Two years after revving into limelight with the iconic Motorcycle Diaries, Brazilian director Walter Salles returned to the Berlinale to talk to young filmmakers from across the world.

Known for his politically-charged style of filmmaking, Salles traced the journey of the young Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara across the vast Latin American continent in his now classic road film. With a reputation for encouraging talent and using his international clout to the advantage of independent cinema, Salles has firmly established himself as the poster boy of progressive filmmaking.

The fifty-year-old director with boyish looks and a youthful determination to change the world spoke to DNA about bikes, borders and moving on down the road.  

Why are socio-political themes so big in South American films, but largely ignored by mainstream Indian cinema?

Unlike India, we cannot describe our system as a film ‘industry’. It is more of a group of independent directors and small producers making a few films every year. At the same time, television is present everywhere in Latin American countries and is very powerful.

That is our main competition. So simply as a survival tactic, cinema has to offer things that haven’t already been seen on the small screen. That is really the definition of a political film — to show what hasn’t been seen before, to bring voices that haven’t been heard before — and that’s where it departs from the Indian system. 

You searched for a Latin American identity in Motorcycle Diaries…

This identity is something that is very hard to explain but easy to experience. It is what we felt when the character of Ernesto (Che Guevara) sees Machu Picchu in Peru for the first time in the film. Our crew comprised of Argentineans, Brazilians, Chileans, Peruvians — yet we all felt on common ground there. You connect more to stories closer to your roots — I feel more of a bond with characters in Argentinean films than European ones. 

Having said that, I feel cinema is a powerful instrument to understand the other. Films like The Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray or Abbas Kiarostami’s work makes me feel very close to their characters.

Their fears and passions seem very similar to those in my part of the world. Films are important to show that really the distance between us is no distance at all.

Don’t such films often turn into propaganda pieces?

Of course, this approach can turn dogmatic, which is why it is important to approach a film as a question and not as an answer.

I don’t respond to documentaries where I feel I am being led to a pre-determined conclusion. If the director has all the answers, he should not make the film. But if I feel I am on a quest with the filmmaker, who is also searching-that interests me. 

The news is that you’re going to be filming Jack Kerouac’s classic American tract On the Road. 

The book is very important for my generation, so when (Francis Ford) Coppola approached me after Motorcycle Diaries, I felt this may be the right time to do the film.

The book is about experiencing life for yourself, doing things first hand. This was a time when it was all about experimenting, not fitting into the mould, whereas now people tend to live their experiences vicariously — through reality shows for instance.
  
To prepare myself for this film I did a documentary first, where we did the journey described in the book, interviewing the Beat poets and characters who are still alive along the way. So it is a documentary that searches for fiction. 

Any Indian directors you admire?

I am a great fan of Satyajit Ray — I think he was a master filmmaker of the twentieth century. He is greatly respected in Brazil. In fact, my production house is going to release The Apu Trilogy on DVD with Portuguese subtitles.

We are planning this as a series to bring quality films from around the world to South American audiences, and I think Ray is a good beginning.