By Patricio Ghezzi Novak

Argentinian filmmaker and writer Martín Rejtman came to London for the screening of his latest film, La práctica [The Practice] (2023), in the 67th BFI London Film Festival. After discovering his films on MUBI some time ago, I started recommending them to all my friends, praising them for their minimalism and austerity, their absurdity and their dry sense of humour. La práctica follows Gustavo (Esteban Bigliardi), an Argentinian yoga teacher in Santiago, Chile, in the midst of a comically relentless midlife crisis.

When I found out Rejtman’s new film was showing at LFF, I didn’t hesitate to go. I hesitated more before asking him, after the screening, which he attended, whether I could interview him. Luckily, he is a really nice guy, and he accepted. We met on Zoom and had a conversation about his work and his experience as a writer and filmmaker —one which interests me particularly, as a writer and film student. The interview was in Spanish and I translated it to English myself.

“I think any film or work of art says much more than what its author initially planned to, and than what its author thinks that artwork says. I believe that if an artwork is interesting, it must construct meaning independently from the artist”, holds Martín Rejtman.

I’d say your films and stories have a very distinct style. While you write, do you look to express some kind of philosophy, or to provoke something in the spectator, or do you simply try to tell a story and get carried away by it?

I don’t have any preconceptions when I write. I don’t even have a story. What I do when I write is to try to find that story. I try to write scenes. Both in literature and in cinema, I always focus on writing scenes, characters and situations that interest me, generally because I find them funny, although it’s not always that, but there always has to be something that makes me laugh a little at some point.

In an interview you mentioned that you once told Rosario Bléfari (Silvia Prieto) that her character or her acting was as important for the film as a dessert in the shot, or I don’t remember what it was…
An ashtray —he laughs—. Rosario knew exactly what I wanted. It’s not that the acting is as little important as an ashtray, but the opposite: an ashtray is as important as the acting. Everything within the frame or the scene plays a role, and that role works in function of the film, which is more important than everything else, and more interesting than anything I can say about… the film. I think any film or work of art says much more than what its author initially planned to, and than what its author thinks that artwork says. I believe that if an artwork is interesting, it must construct meaning independently from the artist.

I completely agree. If you say all elements in the frame are equally important… how much do you visualize your scenes while you write them?

I visualize them a lot. I imagine the scene while I write it, I imagine where it takes place. I don’t imagine the staging very much, but generally I don’t work with complex staging. So I have a pretty clear vision of what I want. During production I try to make what I wrote coincide with what I’m filming.

Then, of course, locations change. During location scouting, something more interesting than what I imagined can appear, and I end up using that. Or even actors. I imagine characters in a certain way, I generally write for actors whom I know, although that’s not always the case. For example, for La práctica I wrote the character for the protagonist, Esteban Bigliardi, but, because I was going to film in Chile, I didn’t write for any of the other actors because I didn’t know them. It was precisely that what took me to film outside Argentina: finding new faces, new places.

Sometimes reality changes things a little… And I like that too, having to adapt. Even though I do have a clear image, that image is not always the best.

Martín with Esteban Bigliardi and Camila Hirane in the set of *La práctica*

I’ve also heard you talk about the trust you put in the script, and how you are strict with actors about being faithful to the script… and you say that you write instinctively… I’m interested in how and when you know that the script is what it should be, and in how do you gain such a confidence in the text… and if anything ever changes in the process of making the movie.

The text usually doesn’t change, or if it does, it changes very little. In La práctica, for example, as the film is in Chile instead of Argentina, there were some changes proposed by the actors, with words that, as I don’t know Chilean slang that well…

I heard about one with “remera” (t-shirt). You wrote “playera” but they call it “polera”…

Yes, for example. In those cases I can obviously be flexible, but I always need there to be certain musicality that convinces me. Sometimes there are words that don’t fit with the rhythm and I prefer to find an alternative.

And about the script… more than trusting it, I feel I write a certain way because I want it to be that way because I feel that’s the only way that works. The rhythm of a scene is what makes it work, and I do think about that while writing the script. The scenes can’t work if the dialogues are said in another way or with a different timing. If they are said slower or if there are pauses between a dialogue and the next, the scene can burst or to deflate.

I want to read you an excerpt of the story ‹‹Literatura››, from your book Literatura y otros cuentos (2005).

‹‹Monica and my father enter my room and confront my things directly. I see them check my bookshelves, which are nearly empty, I’ve always been one of those who believes literature is to be found in life rather than in books. I wonder if that lack won’t make my father and Monica think of me as a weak, a minor, a mediocre writer, a half-writer. I fear that they see my relationship with literature with contempt, as if it were a bastard thing, an inconsequential episode in my life; that they can see that literature, for me, is an accident that could’ve not taken place.››

I’m interested in two ideas. That literature is found in life instead of books, and that literature is an accident that could’ve not taken place. I think it could be applied to cinema, too.

Yeah, maybe. But I’m not that character —he laughs—. I play with that ambiguity sometimes. With La práctica, I also played with it. I’ve practiced yoga for a long time, and I also fell into a sewer. Many things did happen to me, but I’m not that character and I’m not the character from ‹‹Literatura›› either. I agree with many things that character says, and sometimes I do really think it’s weird that I’m still making films, that I didn’t do just one or two; that I’m still making films and writing and that that has some kind of effect somewhere. It feels strange that it’s me who does that. I do feel dissociated in that sense.

I think your work reflects how hard it can be to define one’s identity; how blurry and slippery our identities can be… and your answer made me think… you, who have created so many characters throughout your life, does that affect your identity in any way, doesn’t it feel as if you were a character yourself?

Oh… I don’t feel like a character. It’s like I was saying, I don’t feel like someone who is beyond what they create. I feel at the same level as my characters, my films or my stories. I never feel like I’m above all that. That’s why I find it strange to think that I still make films, that I still write. Perhaps because I have the image of someone who does this type of thing as someone who has a greater mastery than me of the technique or the materials with which I work.

I never felt particularly touched by a magic wand. Perhaps that’s what I mean. I’ve never seen my talent as anything out of the ordinary. For me, getting things done is always a bit of a miracle. It’s hard, although everything seems simple. It’s a lot of work, a lot of intuition, until I find a proper form, plot and story, and then turning that into a film, with actors, etc.… and for that to work somehow… that all seems somewhat miraculous to me. I never have the feeling that I’m someone pulling the strings of his creation from above.

“I never felt particularly touched by a magic wand. Perhaps that’s what I mean. I’ve never seen my talent as anything out of the ordinary. For me, getting things done is always a bit of a miracle.”

I relate to that… whenever my friends ask me about my stories, I don’t know how to answer very well, like… they just happen.

Well, I wanted to ask you about your creative process.

Generally I work in a scattered way. Sometimes I try to set rules for myself, but they never work. Maybe I should try it again… It’s always the same, I say I have to set some rules and I never do, or I try to and then they don’t last for long. I go to write to bars or I write at home. I don’t have an office, which also plots against order and routine, as I’m always home so it’s easier to get distracted. But, well, I sometimes go to cafés to work better.

Generally I try not to write literature and films at the same time, I try to divide them. What usually happens is that, when I write stories, I have to have a film project ready, or a finished script. Only then I start writing literature. It’s been a long time since I’ve written literature. I started writing something some time ago, it’s a story that is quite long, I don’t know where it’ll end up. At the same time I have an idea to make another film, and lately I’ve been mixing both things, but that must be because I was filming and working in postproduction for La práctica and my documentary, so I haven’t pulled the breaks yet to start focusing seriously on other projects. I’ve simply been taking notes, or when I’ve had free time I’ve written a little, etc. So, yeah, my way of working is very disperse, in terms of times and stuff like that. I take notes in notebooks, and now in the phone as well, I make some voice notes, but I don’t like audios so I use text-to-speech.

Now I’ve got some literature vs. film questions… Apart from the fact that in literature anything can happen, a spaceship can fall out of nowhere, for example, while in film something like that would be complicated and expensive… apart from that, do you feel there’s a difference in the expressive capacities of each medium?

Yes, of course. They’re completely different. In film, the spectator sees images, which creates a very different relationship than that with literature, where one has to imagine everything. One writes for film imagining what the spectator will later see. In literature, the author has to imagine everything and so does the reader. Also, in a film script I would never put the characters’ thoughts, unless it’s simply an indication for the actor. Everything you read in Literatura y otros cuentos couldn’t be in a movie; the characters’ thoughts, I mean. The only way it could, would be as voice-over.

I really like to use voice-over in my films. I used it for the first time in Silvia Prieto, and after that I used it in all or most of my films. More than to show what the character thinks or to provide a deeper psychological profile, I like to use it to make the story progress; as one more element to make the story go forward, so that it progresses through other mediums and not exclusively through scenes. For me, it’s always important that the story moves forward, that the characters move forward, I don’t like to stop too much. And the voice-over allows that. And also to provide another perspective to the viewer, so that they can know the character from another place, from that inner voice. So, the character isn’t only known for how it acts in scenes, but also for how it tells stuff, in a more personal dimension. I also like to use voice-over for that purpose. But I think I started using it to make the story progress.

It could be considered a literary device, but for me it’s completely cinematic. I’ve been told my films are literary. But I started working with these devices in film, and I actually started to write stories because I wrote many scripts and I couldn’t shoot every script I wrote. So one day I started writing stories, and at first they were very similar to film scripts; then they started changing.

“What bothers me is when I feel that films are deceiving me. That’s what distances me and gets me completely disconnected.”

I like what you say about the reader having to imagine everything. In fact, I feel that in your stories you look for an active reader; actions and motivations aren’t really explained…

I also wanted to ask you about you as a spectator and reader: what do you look to get out of consuming art, and how does it connect to your work… or do you just look to be entertained?

Well, yeah, entertainment, not getting bored, although one can get bored in good movies too. I leave the cinema a lot, more every time. I get impatient and stand up and leave. I don't do it in a mean way, I only feel that I’m not making the most of my time, even if afterwards I go someplace and do nothing. Maybe I prefer that rather than watching a movie I don’t like. More than not liking it, what bothers me is when I feel that films are deceiving me. That’s what distances me and gets me completely disconnected. Completely. I don’t manage to get into that state one needs in the cinema of letting go and giving oneself to a story or to a form of narrating. When I feel that I’m being deceived, that ‘letting go’ is impossible for me.

In literature it’s the same, but in film it’s more evident, because in cinema the pose is easier than in literature, I think. Luckily, there’s a lot of good literature to read and good cinema to watch. So I don’t waste too much time with things that I won’t connect with.

A more abstract question, perhaps… what do you think is ‘making the most of time’?

I don’t think there’s one way to take advantage of time. Everything is useful, really. Reading texts that don’t engage you or leaving the cinema, all of that means gaining experience. I think that, for me, wasting time would be staying to watch a film that doesn’t engage me. However, now, for example, I accepted to be part of the jury in a festival because that’s the only way for me to finish a film, I feel bound to watching them until the end. And maybe that experience is good, too. I don’t know if it’s wasting time, maybe it’s more of putting an effort to see stuff in which you don’t trust and seeing how you can use that experience.

It’s a tough question… I think I’m always wasting my time.

“Everything has a meaning. Everything is constructed in function of finding a meaning. Everything has a meaning within those accidents.”

If you had to eliminate either literature or film from your life… could you choose one…?

Both —we laugh—.

I don’t know… Sometimes I don’t feel like doing anything, neither writing or filming. Sometimes I feel like it’s an obligation, a sort of imposition, that’s why I say that I don’t feel touched by a magic wand, neither do I feel that need or urgency to tell stories, or whatever. I think it’s something that emerges and takes shape as I start working. But sometimes I don’t feel like it, the impulse has to appear slowly… if you told me that I won’t do more films for the rest of my life, I would say “Ok, yeah, I see that.” At the moment, I don’t have an impulse, but probably in a while I will have it again.

I think that what you’re saying connects with that idea of the ‘accidental’ that the character from ‹‹Literatura›› mentions. And it seems to me that, in your films, everything or almost everything that happens feels accidental…

Yeah, maybe. But everything has a meaning. Everything is constructed in function of finding a meaning. Everything has a meaning within those accidents.

Patricio Ghezzi Novak (Lima, 2002) is a third year Film Studies BA at KCL. He is writing this right now and will soon go to have lunch. He had lunch, went to class and is back here again. He will soon publish a book of short stories in Lima, and he is part of the nonexistent literary group Etc.

Literature vs. Film: Conversation with Martín Rejtman

“I think any film or work of art says much more than what its author initially planned to, and than what its author thinks that artwork says. I believe that if an artwork is interesting, it must construct meaning independently from the artist”, holds Martín Rejtman.

“I never felt particularly touched by a magic wand. Perhaps that’s what I mean. I’ve never seen my talent as anything out of the ordinary. For me, getting things done is always a bit of a miracle.”

“What bothers me is when I feel that films are deceiving me. That’s what distances me and gets me completely disconnected.”

“Everything has a meaning. Everything is constructed in function of finding a meaning. Everything has a meaning within those accidents.”