Today it arrives at the cinemas of Hegoalde “The top”, the fourth feature film as a director by another Biscayan producer Ibon Cormenzana. The story, starring Vitorian actress Patricia López Arnaiz (“Ane”) and Javier Rey, is set in the Himalayas, where the paths of Ione and Mateo converge.
The character of Ione, inspired by the Gipuzkoan mountaineer Edurne Pasaban, faces apart from society the vital emptiness in which she finds herself after achieving the goal she had focused her life on: climbing the fourteen eight-thousanders. Mateo, for his part, wants to fulfill an old promise.
In the film, in which EITB participates, an accident will unite both, and will test whether there is salvation, a valid “summit”, beyond the collective.
Where is “The Top” born?
“The top” is born from trying to explain a feeling you have when you reach a top after a lot of effort. Feel the nothing a first moment, surrounded by an infinity of mountains with no one around you, and the connection with life for being part of everything. Difficult to explain in words, I thought I’d try to explain it with pictures.
Overcoming great crises or losses is also a subject that attracts me. Climbers struggle metaphorically in their ascent to peaks, where sometimes they finally get there, sometimes they never get there and sometimes they die trying.
Mateo and Ione need to ascend to the Annapurna to rejoin life.
‘The top’
The plot is your original idea, and the film is directed by you, but you have had the collaboration of Nerea Castro in the script. What were you looking for in it? How is the process of opening your own and personal idea to another person? What creative tensions arise and how are they managed?
De Nerea wanted to give these two characters personality, that with little and little talk they could move us and communicate a lot. The world of the mountains and the mystique of mountaineering also attract her a lot, and we connect with that right away. It was clear to me that she would take care of those characters in her writing.
Opening an idea is hard. Naturally, each human being imagines the same story differently. Finding ourselves in a place that both of us would be satisfied with is a matter of talking a lot, opening up to new ideas and a fellowship like that of mountain climbers.
As a director, the script that comes out of this collaboration has to be something that you believe in 100% and that you will put all your efforts into to give it the best possible life.
Patricia López Arnaiz and Javier Rey bear a great weight in the film, which is absolutely focused on them. What were you looking for in both, why did you choose them and what would you say they have given to the film?
In Patricia I was looking for a Basque matriarch: someone strong in appearance and with a lot of sensitivity. That’s how I see my mom, and that’s how I saw Patricia years before making this movie, when we met briefly in the movie “Joy and Sadness.”
Patricia Lopez Arnaiz
In Javi I was looking for someone who was capable of giving me light and enthusiasm for life, despite having had a bad time. Someone with whom you empathize, despite making you angry at their madness. With the script finished, I immediately thought of him.
Both have given me a lot of truth, they have committed themselves to death in the film and I am happy to have joined them in this adventure.
They are two very positive people who have generated very good energy in the film team.
Watching the film, one guesses that it must not have been an easy shoot.
It was very cold, -17 °Cand big blizzards, the Filomena storm, the rain from the Sahara that left us with the red mountain for a few days, the covid that made us stop filming for several days…
I suppose that in order to accurately portray a world as specialized as that of mountaineering, there must have been a great deal of documentation and advice. How have you worked on that aspect and what importance have you given it?
He had read many books on mountaineering and seen many documentaries. In addition, Jordi Tosas collaborated with us in the physical and mental preparation of Javi and Patricia so that they knew how to move, walk and breathe like true mountaineers, and approach that mystical quest to reach the top.
Filming of ‘The Top’
The film underlines at various points the power of the community in the face of individual existential emptiness and isolation. Is there any chance of individual redemption? Do you think it’s a hopeful movie?
I think it is a hopeful film in that it feeds the desire to live and take risks versus standing still, dead in life, despite the circumstances. We have only one life; if we are in it, let us live, even knowing that we will have obstacles.
Going up and down a peak perfectly reflects that spirit.
What would you like the viewer of “The Top” to take with them after seeing the film?
Wanting to walk in the bush, I would like to take you to appreciate your existence outside the noise of the city and technology. And that later it would lead him to gain self-esteem for being able to climb a mountain he had never climbed, and to share that journey with others, and to appreciate a simple sunset and see the luck that it means to be alive and to be able to see it.
‘The top’
Almost simultaneously you have shot another feature film, “Culpa”, which will hit theaters in May. What can you tell us about him?
It is a family film made with a lot of love, commitment and passion. It deals with gender violence, and how difficult it is for a woman to communicate and overcome that trauma.
Manuela Vellés has sacrificed herself for this role and she is incredible.
Source: Eitb
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
