By Samuel Brodsky
Matías Bize (b.1979) is a prolific filmmaker who has been a key figure of Chile’s audiovisual boom since the early aughts, playing with the parameters of cinema. His 2003 debut feature Sábado (Saturday), a 60-minute sequential film shot in real time with a MiniDV camera while he was still student at Chile’s Film School, became an unexpected and influential cult hit that heralded a new era for Chilean cinema.
The impact of Sábado—with the success of Andrés Wood’s Machuca, released one year later—laid the foundation for the boom of contemporary Chilean cinema, embodied by global filmmakers such as Pablo Larraín, Maite Alberdi, Sebastián Lelio, Dominga Sotomayor, and Sebastián Lelio, just to name a few.
Starring Blanca Lewin, Víctor Montero, and Antonia Zegers, Sábado recounts an hour in the life of a young bride who learns, on her wedding day, that her future husband has a mistress. Made on a true shoestring budget ($50 for the video tape, famously), the film made a huge splash on the international circuit for its innovative use of the digital camera as a cinematic device.
Sábado
Bize worked and rehearsed with actors for three months to develop the characters and the dialogue in the film, ultimately only shooting two takes of the film: one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Ironically, he chose the Sunday take. Sábado had its world premiere at the Manheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival in Germany in November, 2003, where it won four awards, including the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Prize for Best Film, the Best Actress award and the Critics’ Prize.
His subsequent films have taken on a similar structure: In Bed / En la cama (2005), which had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, entirely takes place on a single bed after a steamy one-night stand. His latest, The Punishment / El castigo (2022), is also a one-shot film that takes place in real time about a married couple who have lost their son in the woods.
Often concerned with inter-personal relationships between men and women, and laser-focused on the writing and performances in his films, Bize has released eight films to date and is interested in exploring, in his own words, “the fundamental questions.”
TropicalFRONT sat down with the prolific filmmaker, who remains in celebration of the 20-year celebration of the theatrical release of Sábado to talk about his debut film and his career.
Sábado
Your first feature film, Sábado is one of the first digitally-shot films to take place in real time with a single take, and you were barely 23 years old. Can you talk about what stage you were at as a filmmaker before making it?
I realized that to be a director, more than having a degree, I needed a movie. And how could I make a big film if I didn't first have a portfolio to present myself, something to present so I could win some sort of grant? And I didn't have a millionaire family that could finance a film for me. So, the only way to make a movie was to make a film that didn't cost anything.
And at that time, digital was just coming out, the miniDV. Now any phone can film much better quality than any of those cameras. And we made a film that was a sequential film that took place in real time from start to finish. And then I finished it, but it wasn’t long enough to be a feature that could technically qualify for festivals, because it was only 59 minutes and many of the requirements are 65 minutes. So I gave the movie a very long credit at the beginning and a very long one at the end.
Speaking of credits: it’s amazing that the final credits of the film are written in chalk on a wall. It’s a gesture to remind the viewer that yes, this whole film was a coordinated effort to shoot in real time.
We were very dogmatic about doing everything sequentially. And in the end, it was a very nice exercise. But deep down I realized that more than preparing or coordinating everything, we had to work a lot with the actors so that they were able to take advantage of any mistake and anything that happened. I mean, for example, when Blanca Lewin drives to a certain spot, at first I felt I had to reserve parking for her. And then I realized that no, that I had to think more freely, more on the spot, and if Blanca does not find parking she will have to act in character to get to the next scene. So yes, the film is very rehearsed. We rehearsed for like three months, as if it were a play. But in those rehearsals I didn't mark a thing. I wanted the actors to appropriate the experience.
Sábado
You built the characters in the film and you rehearsed with the actors so that when anything came their way, they already knew what to do and how to act because they knew their characters so well.
Exactly. It was an exercise in realism. The characters have the same names as the actors, for instance.
The digital and lo-fi element really approximate that realism, as well. Did you think about the new coming of digital and how you might use it to your advantage when making the film?
At that time there was a super strong tradition with established directors in Chile. But with digital, it felt like a new spirit was coming. It was heavily criticized: that's not cinema, cinema is celluloid, etc. There was a lot of prejudice. I realized, however, that cinema was actually about telling a good story, having a good script, and about good performances.
I also felt very influenced by Dogme 95. This movement of sobriety had something very important in its essence, which was to make powerful films with good performances and an important plot with as few resources as possible. And that inspired me a lot and I appropriated it too and I said well, I can make a movie too. Because I feel that the important thing is to make movies possible. To make the kind of movies that we can make. And it's really crazy because it's something I keep practicing. Now I am fortunate to have done eight feature films.
In Bed
Your next film, In Bed was also a formal exercise. It’s a film that takes place entirely on a bed, with only two characters. Do you feel like you need to give yourself certain rules, certain restrictions, to realize your vision?
Yes. Because I feel that the problems of a film are essentially those. That they be well written and well acted. So in In Bed I could do it with two actors and a camera, where on the one hand everything is very controlled. I don't have any production problems, they're not going to kick me out of the location, the weather is not going to affect us, everything is very controlled. What this means is that as a director, I have all the energy and time to make the writing and the acting as good as possible.
So, in that sense, they were both giant learning schools. And it's really crazy, because all of my movies have had restrictions in some way or another. Later I did About Crying / Lo bueno de llorar (2007), a movie set in Spain. The circumstances were different: I was shooting in Spain, it was a very fast production, with almost no support in a new location and a new city. But even still there was a schema: to make a film over ten days, about a couple walking around Barcelona on a single night.
So there is the economic advantage to these restrictions. But what about them is important to you on a thematic level?
They allow me to be focused, to allow the film to be fully dramatic and powerful and rich as it can be. It's very important to me that each of my films do not just stay on the surface, but penetrate very deeply on whatever theme they may tackle. In the case of The Punishment, I was thinking, let’s really get into the subject of motherhood, of mothers who have regrets, the contradiction of mothers, the fantasy of motherhood.
The Punishment
So let’s talk about The Punishment. What was it like to make a real time film for the second time, 20 years later? With some of the same cast and crew? How did the process change?
It was super inspiring. Because after doing Sábado I wanted to do another sequential film. I loved doing it and wanted to do it again. It was adrenaline-pumping. And because it's so adrenaline-pumping and interesting, and exciting to do, it was important to find the right time for it. I wanted to find a story that would turn into a better film if I did it in a sequential shot, and not something that was just using the single take like a crutch to get a difficult shot – to “show off,” so to speak.
So, in these 20 years, I did come up with ideas for real time films. And even though in The Punishment we obviously had more resources, more experience than when we made Sábado, it’s not about the talent of moving the camera. It’s still about telling a good story. And that's where this script comes up with Coral Cruz, who is a Spanish screenwriter with whom I've also been working for a long time. We had already been writing this script about a couple who had lost their child in the woods. And in the midst of writing this story I realized that it had to be told in real time, that is, in one shot. Every minute the child doesn't show up is one that is felt with the audience. And that’s drama. And from there I feel that’s where having made Sábado came back to me. We had the experience of how to prepare a film in sequence.
Sábado opens with the actress Antonia Zegers wearing that amazing shirt that says “mother” on the front, “fucker” on the back. We soon find out in that film that she’s pregnant. 20 years later, and the film that you just released, The Punishment, also stars Zegers, and she’s playing a mother!
Haha, yes.
I’m curious about your relationship to actors, like Zeggers for example, and how your relationship with them has grown in the last 20 years?
It’s a beautiful thing. Because it's like a team that keeps growing together. I made a lot of movies with Blanca Lewin, as well. And I feel like it's like a team that's getting bigger, but that's also always changing. But, for example, the director of photography for The Punishment is Gabriel Díaz, the same cinematographer from Sábado.
The Punishment
Many Chilean filmmakers who have received a lot of international acclaim have decided to take a more political or historical approach to filmmaking, such as The Settlers (2023) by Felipe Gálvez or El Conde (2023) by Pablo Larraín to name two films from this year that have had a very successful runs at film festivals and heavy award campaigns. You rarely get involved with politics in your films. Do you think you could make a political film? Are you interested in that topic, which seems to me to always hang over Chilean cinema? Has it been a conscious decision not to talk about it?
I remember a Bolivian director who saw In Bed and he told me: this is the history of Chile. In other words, this is a portrait of Chile. The double standards, the morality, the relationship between men and women. With the individual, I am essentially talking about history, the moment, the country. I do have a very firm political opinion, I have read a lot and have a very clear opinion on the dictatorship. But my movies have to come out from the inside. Looking inward, to consider the fundamental questions. And this often involves our past and present as a country, and sometimes it doesn’t.
At no time would I want to let myself be carried away by a trend. I would never consider, what does Cannes want to see? For me, what’s much more important than any award or festival is sustaining a career that exists over time and that reflects on questions that I am interested in. And those questions are often social questions. In the case of The Punishment, for example, I was thinking about what it means to be a mother, a father, a son, but also how we are as a society. How we deal with parenting, how we organize it. So, while my movies aren't “political” in quotation marks, they probably end up being super political. Because they open up conversations that are personal, but often collective, too.
Perhaps it's fair to say that we all live in a political or social structure, and if you deeply consider human relationships, you will inevitably come across those structures in a drama.
And it's crazy because there's always a political vision. In The Punishment, how would the ending change if she hugged her son? The political vision of it would be completely different. I mean, there is also a political vision of how women have the right to choose if they want to be mothers or not, and them being pressured to become mothers, and by result resenting their children, as happens with men who then resent their wives. So, it’s crazy because every directorial decision, a hug or no hug, for example, is a political decision.
Do you consider yourself a Chilean filmmaker? Or do you prefer to think of yourself as just a filmmaker?
I don't think I believe so much in the border, you know? I've been lucky enough to travel around the world with my films, which has given me a much more global vision. So, even though I was born in Chile, my family is in Chile, I love Chile—I've also filmed in Spain, filmed in the Dominican Republic, co-productions have often been with Argentina or Germany. All my films have in one way or another passed through another country in its making. So they’re much more universal. Even though they are super specific and constricted, I want someone from the United Arab Emirates, for example, to watch two Chileans meet at a party and sleep in bed, and say, this is also my story.
