Penélope Cruz: "It is irresponsible to limit abuses to cinema"

LUIS MARTINEZ

Updated Monday, February 5, 2024-20:19

There are actresses who justify an entire movie. Although everything points in the opposite direction. Or precisely because of it. Ferrari is the story of a man, almost a myth, named Enzo and played by Adam Driver (there are obligatory surnames). Ferrari is a movie about cars, gasoline and speed. Ferrari is the return to directing of one of the most revered personalities in modern cinema. For twenty years Michael Mann (the director of Heat) has been ruminating on a Shakespearean tragedy much larger than life itself. And yet, as soon as the film is finished, it becomes clear that Ferrari is just the opposite: it is the passionate story of a silenced woman, Laura Garello; It is a drama of fractured hearts that has little or nothing to do with cars, although there are cars in every shot, and it is an excessive opera rather than simply a film. And in the middle, Penélope Cruz (Alcobendas, 1974), a woman and actress (not necessarily in this order) who does not like driving and hates speed; an actress who, in effect, justifies an entire film.

He receives us in a central hotel in Madrid. A chance meeting with Richard Gere in the hotel lobby (it usually happens) enlivens the prologue of the meeting with the press. And without further ado, he tells the secret that, in truth, is not such. But yes, paradox. «It is still curious that it ended up in this film given my aversion to speed. My sister was hit by a car while going to school on a pedestrian street. I remember perfectly that she was dressed in red with an anorak. She was left lying down and had to be taken to the emergency room. They told me to go to school with my neighbor. My sister passed out on the floor and I had to go to class as if nothing had happened. Over the years I have realized the origin of my trauma with the subject of cars. That made me very afraid. I recently discovered that this has a name [amaxophobia] that I didn't even know existed. The result is that I am a very bad co-pilot because I am constantly controlling everything and I can't stand the speed.

And then, why Ferrari, the most accurate definition of speed itself? And it is explained, by her and by her character. «I liked, above all, the mystery that surrounds it. A lot is known about Enzo, about her husband, but hardly anything about her. We had to build her character almost like a puzzle, discovering her little by little... I was impressed by the room in which she lived. You walked in there, and by the color of the wallpaper, you realized what level of depression she was living in. It is as if she will try to hide her sadness among the exuberance of the surroundings. "She disguised as joy what was nothing more than a miserable life," she says as if it were a prologue meticulously rehearsed and repeated since she received the script.

He says he spent time with the man who was the doctor of a couple who first had to face the death of a child and then threw themselves into the arms of a necessarily unhappy marriage buried in the most disproportionate of privileges. «I remember that on the third meeting, they gave me some unedited love letters. I was surprised by how much love and affection existed between the two. He had another son and everyone in Modena knew about it, except her," he continues, stops for a second and, yes, manages to give the key to everything: "But what really interested me, beyond being able to work With Mann, it was the possibility of being able to give voice to a silenced and belittled woman, without a voice.

«It was anger that turned me on and decided me. She was a woman among men who wanted to end her. She was the one who worked on the numbers and she did it because she felt the company was a part of her. And because of this, and because she was a woman, they treated her as crazy, as a witch, or even as a bug. They did everything possible to get her out of her way. People who barely knew her and had only passed her twice on the street felt authorized to criticize her and give their opinion about her. She received no compassion from either men or women. His is that other Ferrari story that has been tried to be hidden all this time. This lady, I am convinced, has a life that represents that of so many women and not only at that time and in that place in Italy, but right now anywhere in the world. It is clear.

-Does it seem like you are talking about the world of cinema and the eternal Metoo in which you seem to find yourself after the cases of abuse that have come to light?

- The problem belongs to the entire society. Equality is a process that was never said to be short or easy. We are still very far from reaching something resembling equality. But it is very unfair, and irresponsible, to limit the response to the world of cinema. I am working on a documentary that deals with all this and I come across cases of women of all kinds (nurses, housewives, cleaning ladies...) who after gathering enormous strength to speak find themselves with a judicial system that fails them. There are cases of women who live a real hell and do not receive any type of protection. It is definitely irresponsible to leave it as a problem in the world of cinema. For the rest, and as far as equality is concerned, as long as the percentage of women nominated continues to be news as something extraordinary, we are doing something wrong. If cinema has to be useful for something, it is to name the much more serious cases that happen precisely outside the world of cinema, throughout society.

Penélope Cruz, definitely, an actress who justifies more than one film.