Sam Mendes has wanted to join that long list of directors who have looked back to look directly at their childhood or adolescence and thus build a most personal and intimate story, far from the trenches of 1917 or the fast-paced action of the James Bond series. The empire of light, released on Friday in commercial theaters, would become the Cinema Paradiso of the author of the Oscar-winning American Beauty (1999).
Set in the eighties in an old cinema on the south coast of England, the film is a hymn to the seventh art and tolerance through the interracial love story that tells between Hilary (Olivia Colman) the manager of the Empire cinema , a lonely woman with mental health problems, and Stephen, (Micheal Ward) a young black man who comes to work at the local while dreaming of being an architect and has to deal with the racism of skinheads at the time when Margaret Thatcher led the government.
All this bathed in the beautiful photography of Roger Deakins, nominated for an Oscar for his work. "The film is based on memories I had of myself. My own mother - 83-year-old YA novelist and poet Valerie Helene Mendes - suffered from a mental disorder. And Hilary, the character played by Olivia, is loosely based on her. I grew up as an only child, and she had a big mental breakdown when I was about nine years old, and I guess that was one of the most difficult times of my life. I had to leave home and then I came back. From then on, I didn't trust much that my home life was stable. And I guess I've been looking for ways to try to dramatize that ever since. But I was also interested, in that time period in the early '80s, in racial discrimination, music and movies. And I tried to weave them using the cinema as a kind of prism through which we saw everything," Mendes explained to La Vanguardia by videoconference from London.
The break that was the first months of the pandemic was the key moment to string together all those memories. "I think that for everyone it served as a reflection, a moment in which you had to look at the family, at your immediate environment, and you could not escape. That is why so many autobiographical or semi-autobiographical films have come out at the same time in recent months ", he argues.
That wonderful Empire cinema where the projection of Chariots of Fire becomes quite an event, is located in Margate, a place on the British coast that led Mendes to rewrite the script. "This incredible theater called Dreamland was like a spaceship and I felt the need to write more specifically about its surroundings," he adds.
Shooting took place in the spring of 2022 and stars Colin Firth as the owner of the Empire, a man who takes advantage of Hilary's vulnerability, and the ever-efficient Toby Jones as the projectionist. , a being with family problems who takes refuge in the magic of the light that illuminates the big screen and feeds that desire in the protagonist, who has never seen a film sitting in an armchair. "Movie theaters will survive for the big movies. But if I'm absolutely honest, I don't think they'll survive for the smaller ones. I'd rather they didn't, but the smaller movies are going to be on your TV and theaters will only show movies with a great element of spectacle. And that is really what seems to be happening now", Mendes justifies when asked about how he sees the future of the temples of cinema.
The director of Specter always had Colman in mind to play Hilary, a character that was a challenge for the acclaimed interpreter of The Dark Father or Daughter. "If Olivia hadn't agreed, I might not have made the movie because I only wanted her for the part. It was very exciting that she said yes. It's been a great experience, really, and a really nice way out of it. a period of isolation to be with a group of great actors in a very confined world that we created there."
In this regard, Colman argues: "It was a great honor to read the script and play a character like Hilary. Sam had put all his trust in me and I tried not to disappoint him. I can't deny that I felt pressure, but it was really exciting. Sam manages that the environment is very safe and secure. And if you do something wrong, nobody is going to laugh. It was a beautiful character, flawed, but written with a lot of love and I just had to follow the script, find the right tone for those words so well written."
The Oscar-winning actress from La favorita confesses that it has been very special filming in a place that evokes those period cinemas with their carpets and the smell of popcorn. And she cites Bambi as the first movie she can remember seeing in a movie theater. "My grandmother took me and I couldn't stop crying because it was so sad. That's why I was aware from an early age of the impact of a story. I have always loved cinema."
For Mendes there are two films that have impacted him as a young man: The Jungle Book - "I learned all the songs" - and on a visual and narrative level Encounters in the Third Kind. "Steven Spielberg at his best," he clinches. Although the film talks about the mental health problem that affected his mother in the 80s, this disease has not stopped growing globally after the Covid pandemic. "And it's still very difficult today to talk directly about it. I think there are many ways to view this film. If you've had experience with mental illness, whether it's yourself, a friend or someone in your family, you'll read the film very different from if you haven't lived with her".
And do you think that in some way, the movies help to deal with it as reflected in The Empire of Light? "Not only cinema, but art in general, are powerful tools for mental health. We saw it during the pandemic. We endured for our families and for the things that make life worth living, which are movies, music, theater and sports and that sort of thing. And I think you really notice when you've been deprived of it for so long."
The unknown Micheal Ward, 25, is in charge of giving life to Stephen, the young man who makes Hillary smile again after spending time in the hospital. "I saw him on the show Top Boy, who is brilliant. He came to cast and he was great. He's a wonderful spirit. A beautiful man on the outside and inside. He has great energy and I wanted someone who would be a natural presence. , positive and optimistic despite the trauma it entails".
Colman opines that "it's the most loving relationship Hilary has, and possibly will have. "There's something about what they see. They do not see age or skin color. They are just soul mates. Both are interested in knowledge and learning, beauty and poetry. She is truly special and has an internal battle with her mental health issues. He's gentle and loving, he has his battle every day outside the theater with racial issues, and…yet they meet."
