Acclaimed in Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2019 for his debut feature film, Our Mothers [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: César Díaz
ficha de la película], which won him the Golden Camera, César Díaz is returning with Mexico 86 [+lee también:
crítica
entrevista: César Díaz
ficha de la película], exploring the origins of the civil war which devastated Guatemala for over 10 years while following in the footsteps of Maria, an exiled fighter who’s held back by motherhood. It’s an intimate spy film which raises questions over parenthood and social engagement and which was presented in the Locarno Film Festival’s Piazza Grande.

Cineuropa: How did this project come about?
César Díaz: It’s a story I’d had in my head for a long time and which took very different forms. Initially, the film was about a nanny in Brussels who’d left her son in Guatemala but who found herself forced to take care of him when his grandmother died. But in this version, the subject of immigration overshadowed everything else, whereas in my mind, the film’s core should be the relationship between the mother and her child.

So I took a second look at the real origins of this project. It was my own personal story. My mother had to leave Guatemala because she was wanted by the authorities. I grew up with my grandmother. I travelled between Guatemala and Mexico a few times, until I decided to go and live with her. When we met, I was 9 years old, and we were strangers to one another. Our relationship developed in a strange way. We’re actually more like friends. And I had to explore the question of social engagement in order to better understand the mechanics of the story. I did a big tour of Brussels and four wrote four versions of the screenplay to get back to the crux of my story.

The story is told from Maria’s viewpoint, she’s central to the film.
I wanted people to feel empathy for Maria, for how it is to be her. I was afraid people wouldn’t understand her choices and that they’d judge her. I wanted to show what she was going through. If we showed anything else, we’d risk losing her. As a child, I met plenty of activists; I was inspired by the way they talked and articulated their ideas. Socially engaged people have a very particular way of living and being. I wanted to depict a woman who was very strong without being hard, who could have moments of weakness but which other people wouldn’t witness. When I worked with Bérénice, I told her to imagine she was a punching-bag that never moved but which was hit repeatedly.

Maria’s character gets us thinking about the militant struggle and the weight of motherhood.
What’s the price we have to pay for having strong convictions? She leaves everything behind her, her son, her country, her family. But I’m convinced that for real, fundamental social transformation to take place, we need people like that. If we’re half-hearted in the face of dictatorships and injustice, nothing will change. Are we better mothers for staying by our children’s sides or for building a different world for them? I don’t think there’s a definitive answer to this question.

Our Mothers also focused on women in revolt. Is social struggle different for women?
Most men who fought had children too, but that never worried them. They entrusted their children to their mother or to communities without looking back and were proud to have fought. Lots of women around me stopped fighting so that their men could carry on. In Our Mothers, those who remember demand justice. Here, fighting mothers remain mothers, but when fathers become fighters they seem to stop being fathers. In the collective imaginary, a father who leaves home to fight is a hero whereas a mother who does the same is irresponsible.

Maria is faced with a two-pronged fight, against her political opponents and her "comrades" for whom she becomes a target.
Revolutionary struggles have standardised things: we’re no longer individuals, we’re a group. But each of us has our own needs. No-one hears Maria when she says she needs to be with her son. I also wanted to avoid painting this revolutionary movement - which had been built by men with their own contradictions - in a romantic light. If we’re going to be critical of the authorities, we have to be critical of contradictions within the revolution.

It’s a spy film as seen from the inside. What did you like or dislike about these particular film codes?
I didn’t actually want to make Our Mothers 2. The industry has a tendency to put us in boxes. I’d been given the labels "world cinema", "slightly documentarian", "non-professional actors". I wanted to blow these expectations apart and try new things. I wanted to test myself as a director. I also wanted to go against the idea that arthouse films are slow and boring. Just look at French Connection. But I was also really conscious of the fact that I couldn’t make a James Bond, and that I didn’t want to, either. We had to make choices over the mise en scène so as not to betray the film’s spirit. There’s a chase, for example, but it’s experienced from the inside; we didn’t have 50 cameras. Whatever happened, we had to create tension with the resources which came with my own particular film language. But it was a leap into the unknown! I learned a great deal while making this film.