You also moved thru other areas of the cinema ...
RAG: No, it is written so, but it is not true. I have not stopped writing, I did not have subsidies. There were projects that I wanted to do but had no money to produce them. They were films that I could make them happen and produced as in the case of the "fragile", which is one of the great films I've done and even the "altar".
Let's talk about the fragile; it's black and white why?
RAG: Black white and colors. I cannot make a movie in black and white because I can't have a negative dichromatic and them color. It's a whole movie in color, except that there are parts where there are two. I wanted to introduce an atmosphere passing through the black and white.
You chose this dichotomy of colors to highlight the feelings of the characters or the scene that surrounded them?
RAG: I think specifically in the case of the fragile was very convenient. The idea came about through a newspaper, which I think it was in the "Capital", was a picture which occupied the whole page with a landscape in Alentejo, which had focused on a young couple and a cork tree, they were just fourteen years old they were found dead along the trunk of that tree. What caught my attention was that the parents did not understand the reasons, they were good students, had no drug problems, or social adjustment, everything was fine the evening before, never saw any symptoms and yet they killed themselves. I think in a movie everything you see, the image you watch must have a reason to be there, if not must be suppressed. Sometimes we do not know very well in some movies, why it appears a certain color over another because they all have a meaning. When you see "fragile" time there is a passage, from a more real and concrete that is this duality.
The sound of the earth shaking was another of the films produced. Tell us a little about it.
RAG: I managed to get the minimum support of the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual (ICA) and had help from RTP thru Joao Lopes which was already something. It made with a very low budget. At the time I was reading André Gidet, the "palude" which I felt very close and "the sound of the earth shaking" was prepared for so long, because I wrote, rewrote, lay out and returned to crush the text that clung on me. Turned out to be a series of things that had passed, it took seven years to be produced, and it was funny because it became a huge thing, I had to remove, clean and take off some things before shooting.
Changing the subject, tell me what do you think of the filmmaker in Portugal?
RAG: It is not easy, I sometimes do not know, there is this being of things, whether is a woman, a man or someone who lives outs of Portugal, in which everything is connected to numbers. It is the illusion of an economy, which greatly minimizes certain art forms, whether film, music or whatever. We are in an age where what counts is the word, there is a Nobel Prize for literature, there is no such thing for cinema, theater. The thing dignified and distinguished is literature. I think at this juncture is much needed toughness for a person not to die of disappointment, fatigue and opt for other lives. I could have done other things in life, but for some reason I chose the cinema, I love films, it's all down to me. Sometimes when I am filming, I feel that this is my place in the world.
There was that feeling in this latest film?
RAG: Yes, there were times and only during the making off. There is something I do not know what, that justifies the rest.
Anyone who has followed the Portuguese cinema in many ways, how does it look now? Do you think there is an evolution?
RAG: I do not know if this question means up or down, but there is always an evolution. I unfortunately in recent times I have not been following under the circumstances this movement, but I see now and are appearing good movies to watch. Then there is also a reaction to the past of Portuguese cinema like death to the king and want a new king. I do not think its faire; it would not be here if they had not been other people before us. I do not feel very involved in a group that makes movies, it did not happen that way to me, because I always try to produce them without money. Because if there were pauses what happens? When someone makes a movie and begins to feel wrist to move forward, eventually it ends. Then, if you not spent much time to do more, gets no exercise at all. As the singers, I can have an extraordinary voice, but I have to study, is not disapproval, but this practice it's needed.
What was then Portuguese film you saw recently that you were amazed?
RAG: Well, everybody has the habit of saying that I am an Oliveira fan, I say thankfully, because I like Manuel, not only as a person but as a filmmaker. The last movie I said to myself what is this it was the "singularities of a blonde girl." It is an extraordinary film, no matter how much you know and see there's always a new detail. I like being surprised at the movies.
