Chronicles of a Wandering Saint – Interview with Film Writer / Director Tomás Gómez Bustillo

Listen to the interview and read the transcript below — edited and condensed for clarity:

Hi, I'm Shaurya Thapa of Borrowing Tape. And today, I'm joined with Tomás Gómez Bustillo, the writer and director of Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, a supernatural comedy drama from Argentina.

Thank you for having me.

Your film has a lot of magical realism in it, and there are themes of death, religion, eccentric characters from small towns, and we also admitted to, you know, similarities with authors of magical realism like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Was this inspiration intentional? Or did it come to you when you wrote the screenplay?

That's a great question. I think it was there from the very beginning because the first thing that I understood about the film was the tone. Not necessarily the plot.  I knew that the tone I really wanted was to be playful and wanted to weave elements of fantasy into a very mundane space. So, I think the inspiration from these literary heroes of mine was in its DNA from the very beginning.

How did you get the idea to write the story and the lead character Rita Lopez?  Was she inspired by a real-life person?

The first inspiration that I had for this story was when I was finishing my film degree at the American Film Institute. I wanted to write a first feature, and the first thing that kind of popped into my mind was this image of a person who was just a glowing light in the middle of the darkness. And that person felt beautiful and perfect, but lonely as well. So, that was the image that got me thinking about the story and then wondering, who is this character? Why are they? Why are they lit up? Why do they feel alone? And from that, it became an exploration over a couple of years to find the story. The character Rita Lopez isn’t based on a specific person. She's kind of a mix of different people, and a lot of myself as well.

For a movie that has so much on miracles, both real and fake, what has your journey been with miracles? Have you ever believed in divine intervention in your younger years, or even now, for that matter?

I was raised Catholic. So even though I'm no longer Catholic, a lot of that imagery and mythologies has still affected me in many ways into my adulthood. So there was definitely a long time during which I believed in miracles. The miracles are defined specifically by the Catholic Church. But now, as an adult and as an agnostic, I'm even more open to the idea of miracles because it's not limited by a specific definition anymore. So, anything could be a miracle at this point. Because as an agnostic, I try to think anything might have truth in it. I can't dismiss anything because I don't have that kind of certainty over the truth myself. So, they're just kind of different kind of perceptions, of miracles.

I don't want to spoil the movie for someone else. After nearly the first 30 minutes, something major happens as your protagonist, Rita, supposedly reaches the afterlife. And what stood out for me in this scene was the Dutch remix of Bryan Adams’s “Heaven” playing. Why exactly did you choose this particular remix? 

This song, first of all, has a particular presence in my past as well. This is like the EDM song that was a banger in in clubs when I was sneaking into clubs at like 14-15 years old, and so on. It was like the end of the night song,  at 5-6 am. When, like the clubs in Buenos Aries are about to close, people are getting tired, and they're starting to go home. It's like the end song that's sending you off, sending you home, so it had a feeling associated with it. I also think it definitely had a lot to do with providing a counterpoint to that scene so that you could realize the absurdity of what she (protagonist Rita Lopez) is going through. By adding a little bit of that comedic touch of irony.

This was your first full-length feature project as a director. What challenges did you face from shifting from shorts and experimental student films to your full venture? 

I think it's almost a different format. The way that you package it, that you finance it, and that you try to get it made. I think one of the challenges was screenwriting. A challenge was really making sure that the experience of the audience had different layers. Because a short, you can get away with having, like one tone or one layer. One basic idea was communicated. I think the hardest thing in a feature is trying to get something that feels simple, but at the same time, same time, that has many layers and incites different experiences throughout the film as well. Kind of like a good roller coaster. You have ups and you have downs. You have moments of suspense, tension, and release. And so that that's something completely new, that was really exciting to try. And then the other thing is just production. It's so much longer that you really have to have stamina and perseverance.

The most important thing is a good team. On a short film, you can have an okay team or somebody that you don't get along with. But on a feature, you need a team where everybody has each other's backs because if not, you're going to kill each other by week two.

Talking about the team, where was Chronicles of a Wandering Saint filmed, and how long did the principal photography take you?

The movie was shot in this very small town in Argentina, called Antonio Geroni, about 2 hours away from Buenos Aires, and the shoot was 4 weeks.

What particular films or directors influence you in general and this film as well?

There are so many directors that I love, that I could start talking about this for hours and bore everybody to death. But also, I'll speak specifically to the directors that I was inspired from for this particular movie. The first ones that come to mind are Jacques Tati (Playtime). His playfulness and physical comedy, and a lot of his observational approach to film. It almost feels like he’s studying human absurdity. I always found really beautiful.

And then, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the director who did Uncle Boonmee, Cemetery of Splendour, and Tropical Malady, among other works. He also has a certain observational and absurdist approach to fantastical elements as well. I really think he's probably the closest that I'd ever seen to Latin American magical realism, even though he comes from a different culture. So I admire him greatly.

And then, obviously, our Argentinian masters like Lucretia Martel. I remember seeing Zama in theatres around the time that I was writing this, and felt very, very inspired by her work as well. So, those are some of the ones that come to mind right away.

What themes interest you as a filmmaker?  You have one feature film at the moment with magical realism and absurdist comedy. Is that going to be a motif in your future filmography?

I think I'd rather leave it open to myself because if I right away was like “this is what I'm going to be for the rest of my career”, then it might pigeonhole me and keep me from exploring things that I want to explore. So, I think I loved doing absurdist comedy. I could see myself doing it again in the future. But I feel like there are other things that I would love to explore as well, and I'm excited to try different genres and different styles and see and explore. Because at the end of the day, film is a language, and that's kind of the beauty of it. It's always expansive.

Considering how offbeat Chronicles of a Wandering Saint can be, have you received any interesting criticism of your film? The praise is out there, but did you get any absurd criticisms of your film? 

I mean whenever you put anything out into the world, there are going to be people who like it. And there's are going to people for whom it’s not their cup of tea, and that's totally fine.  Me and my friends debate about movies that I think are amazing  and they hate, and the movies that they think are amazing and I hate.

I think the problem would be to make a movie that tries to make everybody happy because then it might be kind of watered down and not really try to do anything interesting. So what I try to keep in mind is just make a movie that I would enjoy watching as a cinephile,,. that's who I was trying to make the movie for. It's just the cinephile and me and what I would like. And then there are definitely people who have critiqued it and different people who don't like it, but that just comes with making anything and putting it out there.

One final question that I had was regarding the visual design of the angels in your film. So I mean, what intrigued me right from the trailer was the glowing outline. And I like that kind of stuff visually. But I just wanted to ask, was that always how you visualize the transformation to be a screenplay? Or did you have another concept of showing angels in your film?

It was always in that tone, the execution might have changed a couple of times while I was writing. But I remember speaking of references, a really big reference for me was always Post Tenebras Lux this this movie by Carlos Reygadas., the Mexican director, which is an incredible film. And it has a sequence where there's like a demon walking into a house at night. And the way that was executed felt so grounded, and some simultaneously so mysterious and beautiful and quiet that I was like, okay, this is going to be the kind of approach that I would do to anything that's fantastical because it just feels right to me for this kind of story. So I don't know that the exact execution of angels was always like that during the whole development process, but the spirit of it was to keep it mundane, to keep it small, to keep it very grounded so that it would stay in magical realism and not you know expand to fantasy.

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