HOW THEY DID IT
32 WINTER 2019 MOVIEMAKER.COM
EFORE I WENT
to Spain to make
my new film
Everybody Knows—
a thriller which follows the
tumultuous events that ensue
when Laura (Penélope Cruz)
returns to her hometown near
Madrid with her daughter Irene
(Carla Campra) to celebrate a
wedding—I felt the experience
shooting there would be different
than when I made films in Iran or
France. But once I arrived on set,
I discovered that my method of
working is always the same.
Of course in Spain and France, I
felt freer than I did in Iran, since I
didn’t have to worry about dealing
with censorship restrictions. At
the same time, if you make a film
in a foreign country, you’re faced
with another restriction: You
MOVIEMAKING FROM
THE OUTSIDE IN
To write and direct Everybody Knows, Iranian auteur
Asghar Farhadi lived in the country of his Spanish-speaking stars
BY ASGHAR FARHADI, AS TOLD TO CARLOS AGUILAR
B
PHOTOGRAPH BY TERESA ISASI / COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATUREScannot just come up with any
story idea. While your approach
to directing and relating to your
cast and crew may be no different,
there are regional differences that
you have to respect during the
writing process.UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
As I went scouting in Spain,
it occurred to me that, in stark
contrast to my previous films,
Everybody Knows must be set in a
village. Whereas most of my films
tend to take place in apartments
in metropolises and often depict
the complexities of urban life, the
events that unfold in the village
locale of Everybody Knows are
surrounded by nature. The film’s
characters are simple people
who happen to be thrust into a
complex crisis, and they have toconfront this crisis with their
simplicity. Choosing a setting like
this allows you to write characters
who are aware of each other’s
pasts, because they live right
next to one another, as opposed
to compartmentalized big city
dwellers, who seldom know each
other. Building a world in which
characters hold knowledge of
each other’s personal histories can
also help you focus your narrative
on the passage of time—and in
my case, that was one of our film’s
central themes.LAYERED WEDDING TAKE
When preparing to shoot
our big opening sequence, in
which Laura and Irene attend
the wedding, I went to several
weddings in the south of Spain
to conduct research. I quickly
realized that these celebrations
resembled my own memories of
weddings I had been to as a child
in Iran, and I knew that I would
have to reproduce that beautiful
atmosphere I’d experienced in my
youth in my opening shots.
Underneath the surface of this
scene, which gives the impression
of a joyful occasion, we sought to
subtly integrate details and clues
that would allow for multiple
interpretations of its unfoldingevents. Our shoot was long, and
demanded multiple sessions.
When you’re working with as
many characters as were involved
in this scene, it’s crucial that you
remain as faithful as possible to
your storyboards while shooting.
The sequence would only be
special, we surmised, if we could
design it so that audiences who
see it for the first time would
take the performances and other
elements for granted, assuming
that they’re normal details of a
wedding—but upon a second
viewing, they would discover
additional layers of the story.THUNDER AND LIGHTING
During the wedding sequence,
Irene is kidnapped by a group
who covets Laura and husband
Alejandro’s (Ricardo Darín)
fortune. To pull off their crime,
the kidnappers cut the power
in the building as a storm rages
outside, which meant our crew
was left to work only with
candlelight, moonlight, car
headlights, and the light from
characters’ cell phone screens.
Luckily, our cinematographer,
José Luis Alcaine, specializes
in light sources reminiscent of
classical paintings, and was able
to draw from this area of expertiseCITIZEN OF THE WORLD: TO OVERCOME THE LANGUAGE BARRIER ON THE SET OF EVERYBODY KNOWS, WRITER-DIRECTOR ASGHAR FARHADI (L) AT TIMES DIRECTED STARS
RICARDO DARÍN, (FAR L) PENÉLOPE CRUZ, (R) AND JAVIER BARDEM (FAR R) WITH NON-VERBAL GESTURES