Director John Sayles shoots south of the border for his Spanish-language drama MEN WITH GUNS.
As one of America's most esteemed independent filmmakers, John Sayles has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for cinematic stories in which social politics are driven not only by the various characters, but by their surroundings as well. The writer/director has explored this symbiotic relationship in such diverse films as The Brother from Another Planet (see AC Dec. '84), Matewan (AC April '88), City of Hope, Passion Fish, The Secret of Roan Inish (AC Feb. '95) and Lone Star (AC June '96).
Sayles' latest work, Men With Guns, continues his fascination with unique environments. Set in an unnamed Latin American country, the film concerns the recently widowed Humberto Fuentes (played by Argentine actor Federico Luppi), an upper-class physician whose exalted social position has left him unaware of the political and economic strife racking his largely impoverished nation. With both retirement and an illness looming, the doctor ventures into the surrounding countryside to visit some former students who, as part of an international health cooperative, he once trained to treat the poor. Throughout his extensive travels, however, the naive doctor comes to the grim realization that all of his protégés have been murdered by a mysterious militia referred to by the villagers simply as "men with guns."
AC recently spoke with Sayles regarding about the project, which was filmed at three disparate Mexican locations in the director's second language, Spanish. We also sought out details of the film's evocative imagery, which was shot by Polish cameraman Slawomir Idziak (Gattaca, The Journey of August King, Three Colors: Blue and The Double Life of Veronique). At press time, Idziak was shooting Cathal Black's Love and Rage on location in Ireland.
American Cinematographer: You've previously stated that Men With Guns was inspired by actual events. If so, why is the film set in an anonymous nation?
Sayles: If you set a film in a specific country, you create the responsibility of addressing the specifics of that country. Some of the incidents in the movie are based on events that didn't even happen in Latin America, but in Vietnam, Bosnia, the former Soviet Union, and Africa; in addition, the incidents from Latin America happened in two or three different countries. That's one of the reasons I have such a generic title: Men With Guns. Half the movies ever made could be called Men With Guns. The film is a very realistic fable, a quality which is sustained by not announcing that this is Guatemala, El Salvador, or Argentina. Instead there are generic Spanish names for the locations like Dry River, Dirty Faces, High Mountain and Cerca del Cielo [Close to Heaven] rather than actual geographical names.
Prior to even writing the script, you had scouted locations in Mexico. How did this influence the choices you made in selecting sites for the doctor's trip?
Sayles: The story of Men With Guns was always a geographical journey, so I had a shopping list of locations prior to scouting. My outline says that the doctor goes from a large city of plastic and glass through a dry plain, into more irrigated rolling hills, through foothills where coffee grows, and finally up into jungle mountains. Therefore, we needed a big city, an absolutely flat and uninhabited dry plain, flat canefields, rolling coffee and banana country and a steep mountain jungle area. If we'd had more money, I might have shot in four different countries starting in Buenos Aires, going through the Dominican Republic and ending up in Bolivia but on a budget of $2.5 million, even the amount of traveling we had to do across Mexico was a strain. We only had six weeks [of principal photography], and shooting in Mexico City, Veracruz state, and Chiapas state is like shooting a movie in New York, Chicago and Wyoming: your location people and art department are all spread out, and whenever you want to check for other locations, you have to get on a plane or a bus for 4 to 11 hours.
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