After entering the mind of an ETA member in ‘Maixabel’, Luis Tosar (Lugo, 50 years old) changes register and gets into the skin of Juan, an agent of a special intelligence unit in the midst of an existential crisis, who dedicates himself to perform all kinds of jobs to maintain the fine balance that sustains power. Written by Jorge Guerricaechevarría and directed by Jorge Coira, ‘Código Emperador’ is the thriller that this Friday opens the Malaga Festival and also hits theaters.
-The Malaga Festival opens this Friday. Are there more nerves than usual or is one already an old dog?
-Look, I hadn’t even thought about that until now, you just annoyed me (laughs). In this case, I would tell you that we are almost more excited that the film opens on the same day in Malaga that it reaches theaters throughout Spain, which is quite unusual. That we present it to three thousand people and at the same time that it will reach theaters is beautiful and special.
-What caught you from the proposal of Jorge Guerricaechevarría and Jorge Coira?
-I was very attracted to the genre, I wanted it as a spectator. I really liked the air it had and that a wonderful script by Guerricaechevarría exuded, as always, with whom I have already collaborated on several projects that have always been very fruitful, at least artistically and professionally, whether they are more or less successful. But there were some specific ingredients of ‘Código Emperador’ that brought it very close to a reality that is very much ours and that I think made it very credible for the viewer. And they also linked it to a cinema that I have always liked, with which I grew up, that spy thriller and intrigue from the seventies, which had characters with more depth. The spy movies of recent years are much more hectic, with much more action, with probably less brainy characters. I like them too, huh? But I prefer the other when it comes to seeing it, of facing it. It seems to me more complete and more challenging for the viewer, who is placed in a position and forced to draw their own conclusions and think about the moral dilemmas posed by the characters.
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-It is fiction but scares because of its proximity to reality.
-He is not telling any story exactly true and precisely, although it is inspired by real events, obviously. There are characters very similar to those that the viewer has seen in the news in recent times. It is a compilation of many things that have been happening, but it is a fiction created and recreated.
-If they told a real case, they couldn’t even open it.
-(Laughs) I don’t think that much, what happens is that it is true once you start doing something like that, you would have to be really faithful at least to the documentation that exists. What is being talked about here is the life of a special unit that has many open fronts and then some references are made that the viewer will undoubtedly recognize, but I think that more is said about the institution than about the characters themselves. For example, when talking about football, they talk about what the institution as such means and the influence it has in our society. The reflection that ‘Código Emperador’ tries to make for the viewer is the number of things that are being done to safeguard personal or reputational interests of pillars of power in our country, which often go through the world of sports, culture and, of course, from politics.
-And always in the name of a greater good, of the homeland, right?
-Yes, that is the idea that Juan would have at first. A vocational guy, with the concept of national security in his head and who we caught right in the middle of a crisis because he begins to consider that a good part of what he is doing has nothing to do with that and has much more to do with maintaining the status quo of the people who drive.
-Now that is fiction, a plumber of power with remorse?
-There will be everything. If I have learned anything with this profession, it is that basically there is everything in the world and surely there will be guys who have considered and backed down, dedicating themselves to the things they do. Throughout my life and thanks to my profession I have had access to people who have atrocious resumes and many of them at some point have turned the tables and realized what they have done and that is terrible for a human being. There will also be many people who dedicate themselves to this and who will be like the character played by Miguel Rellán, who is clear that there is a greater good that must be achieved and the way to achieve it will be whatever it is to maintain that balance. He firmly believes that this is the natural state of things and that it has to be that way and that everything possible must be done to maintain it and surely there are many citizens who believe that things have to be that way, despite everything. In reality, you want to maintain those balances when they fall in your favor, but when they don’t is when conflicts arise.
-The tape talks about the game of forces and balances so that everything stays the same. Everyone seems to have everyone else caught up somewhere and yet the system seems indestructible.
-Because I believe that there are many people working so that it does not fall apart, surely more than we think. Here we present Juan as a very lonely guy, who works in that special unit where he has colleagues but perhaps he can give a false impression that, well, there are four people working there. Surely there are many people working so that things are as they are and more so in the digital society that we have created today. We don’t even realize how much we actively contribute to this every day on social networks, permanently lending our data to anything and all of that is a kind of involuntary collaboration but collaboration that we have accepted as a natural thing.
-And yet, the number of conspiracy theorists is increasing.
-Yes, but they don’t do much to change things either (laughs). Being a conspiracy theorist is fine, but if you don’t have an active policy on this later, things won’t move much. It’s fun, but you have to be more active. I am not particularly active in this sense but I try to observe my environment and the reality and the conclusion is that those in power have it quite easy to run the world because we contribute to it all the time, we get carried away, we clickbait, We buy everything online, we lend our data, and it seems that we are not particularly worried about being handled so much.
-Are you very concerned?
-It worries me, I am quite prudent. I don’t have social networks, I try not to expose myself too much and I try not to let my children do it, so that they don’t participate in this kind of permanent showcase in which we expose ourselves and I do get a little confused by the feeling that everything one does is public and everything is available to all the rest of humanity. I don’t think it is necessary for this to be the case, but well, it is the way in which we have formed our society and it also has many advantages, that is true. What happens is that I have the feeling that we live a little obsessed by all this, ‘blind by the lights’. Because really when push comes to shove things continue to be produced in a totally analogical way and people die in Ukraine because a bomb falls on them.
-Is Juan an antihero or a villain?
I think it has both. I think the intelligence of the film is also in stating that one is not so far from either of the two things. He is an antihero because he is posed like that within the world of the genre, in the thriller, with the classic elements of the genre, but then he is a guy who has crossed quite notable red lines of morality and ethics and who will have a hard time amending everything that it has done wrong because it has passed over things that, in my view, are basic for the coexistence of human beings.
– Can you understand the system without these plumbers of power?
-Man, the ideal thing would be that we didn’t need them but it’s a bit utopian to think that things can work like this. And then I think that in the case of the political class, the parties have an operation that is almost like that of a living organism and, beyond individualism, beyond what a specific person can move for a matter of ambition or perpetuation. of power, I think that the parties themselves are organized in a way in which the instinct for self-preservation and survival function almost as if they were human beings, with a very sophisticated self-defense system, which causes them to push forward and anything goes for be up there and driving power.
-Speaking of plumbers, recently one left the PP amid accusations of espionage. Does it surprise you how quickly we turn the page?
-It is that it is the society that we have built, a society that goes at a speed that we cannot even assume. Very bizarre things are happening in the political class in recent times and we are already beginning to assume them as something that is part of the issue, when it should not be. But I think it is a problem of information overload, that the brain is not capable of assuming as many things as they happen and then, in a certain sense, they have been lucky. The war in Ukraine has been very good for a few.
-Part of the film has been shot in Panama City and Budapest. With the covid in the environment, was it very complicated?
-When we filmed it a year ago we caught a spring season, in which there was something semi-relaxed, but the filming itself is somewhat more complex now and traveling becomes more tricky. We were smaller teams, and we worked with a lot of local team, but in any case it was a wonderful break. I think he opens the film, opens it and gives it a category.
-Is Spanish fiction in good health?
-The health is good in general, there is a lot of production volume thanks to the platforms, but the health of the cinema is somewhat in question due to a basic issue that is the exhibition. We are in a complex health moment, people have not yet regained the confidence to go to the wards. I think we should start doing it now. In September and October, we had a spike and I think the films started to work because there was a certain sense of security, but Omicron just blew it all down. If everything continues as it is now, we should regain confidence by going to see movies in movie theaters, which are very safe places compared to the exposure one can have in bars or restaurants.
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