When Booker Prize-winning British author John Berger hit a patch of writer’s block, he turned to his friend Isabel Coixet for help. And the Catalan film director, a die-hard fan of Berger, was only too happy to oblige. She had already dedicated her movie The Secret Life of Words to him, and had actor Mark Ruffalo read from Berger’s To the Wedding in her Goya-winning My Life Without Me. Another of his books appears in Elegy, which starred Penélope Cruz and Ben Kingsley.
The result of this latest collaboration between the pair is From I to J, an audio-visual installation that you can currently see at Madrid’s La Casa Encendida contemporary art centre. It consists of a prison-like maze of cells designed by architect Benedetta Tagliabue in which various well-known actresses can be heard reading from Berger’s book, From A to X, which takes the form of a series of letters written by A’ida to her imprisoned lover, Xavier. Through her letters, A’ida re-creates their past and builds him “bone by bone”.

InMadrid sat down with the director to talk about the project, which involved names such as Tilda Swinton, Monica Bellucci, Isabelle Huppert, not to mention Patricia Clarkson, Sarah Polley and Penélope Cruz.

How did this project come about?
When John was in the middle of the process of writing From A to X, he sent me some letters. He said, “I don’t know if I can go on. I want you to tell me if you think you can do something with it.” It’s different because from the moment he was sending me parts of the novel, I never saw a film. I saw something else, another way to approach it.

Why did you want to use so many actresses to re-create the character of one woman?
All these aspects of A’ida, this woman, this character of the book, are represented by actresses who have nothing in common. Well, with some of them the only thing they have in common is that I’ve worked with them. I thought it was going to be much richer, and at the same time I thought John would love it, listening to his text read by these wonderful actresses.

Do you have a favourite letter, and who’s top of your list to work with next?
I really love Patricia’s letter. I love her voice. It’s so sexy. I’m probably going to do a project with her. I’d love to work with Tilda and with Isabelle. Sophie Calle: I really admire her work and I think she’s magnificent... And Julie Delpy, I really like her, and I love that film she has done as a director.

Do you see a connection between your work and John Berger’s?
I wish. I think he is able to see the world with much more compassionate eyes than I. I think for me talking to him and reading his books and seeing him behave is always a lesson. He’s very humble. I’m not.

You don’t view the world compassionately?
I try. I really try. Let’s say I can see some aspects of the world with compassion, but not many.

What annoys you?
Hypocrisy. Naivety... There are lots of singers in the world recording a song for Haiti. I don’t buy it, because I know how it works. Not a cent of that money will go to the right hands. And that’s how the world works. I think there are people out there who really know how to help other people but I don’t see them in the press saying all this bullshit.

I see a similarity between yours and Berger’s work. His book To the Wedding is about a woman who is dying, and so is your film My Life Without Me. Neither of you back off from these difficult subjects...
To the Wedding is a novel I always wanted to make a film about, but I don’t think I’m ready. It’s a really perfect novel and you can’t better it. My Life Without Me was based on a short story. It was a nice short story, but I wasn’t keen on the language, the words. If I had thought it was a great short story I would never have dared adapt it. In the case of To The Wedding, this is a really good novel, and touching things which are really impossible... this man who loves this woman who is going to die, and how we see the world through her eyes and through his eyes.
But you touch on that in Elegy. Ben Kingsley’s character loves Penelope Crúz’s character, and she is going to die.
She’s not going to die! Why does everyone think she’s going to die? They cut one breast off. People survive.

I’m glad she survives.
She survives. Really. I’m telling you.

Do things always go to plan on your films?
There was this moment on the set in the last film I did in Tokyo (Map of the Sounds of Tokyo). I wrote a scene and for me it was really, really important that the scene was in daylight. Because all the film was very dark and full of shadows and no light and I really wanted to have a day scene, with light and colours and kids.
That day we were late—we started shooting in the amusement park and it was dark at three. OK. But then it started raining, and it rained like you can’t imagine. There was another scene in the film with rain and I didn’t want more rain, and more night; at the same time the park looked amazing and wow, everything was against what I thought at the beginning, but then I saw that it was working. I think this scene is much more mysterious, much more beautiful. But that was not at all my idea.
You also have to let the reality fit you, and I’m an expert at that right now. Because I accept it. This is not working like I thought, but maybe it’s better. From I to J began as an idea. It didn’t have a perfect shape. Now,
I don’t know if it’s perfect, but it’s much better than
I dreamt.

From I to J is at La Casa Encendida, Ronda de Valencia, 2 (Metro: Embajadores). Tel: 902 430 322. Free. Until 11 Apr.

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