The father takes his 14 -year -old son to take a motorcycle, accelerates, the machine forces them until the police. He stops the march, the boy gets off and the father escapes. That loneliness of the child will be the preamble of premature adulthood that is imposed as a whip. “Adult”the film starring Juan MinujínAlfonso González Lesca, Camila Peralta and Sofía Gala Castiglione paints a world in that scene. Behind the camera is Mariano González, director of two relentless films that preceded “adult”, “the balloons” and “the care of others.” Alfonso González Lesca is his son and in that imperceptible line that separates the fiction from reality, a story that won awards at festivals as dissimilar as that of Shanghai, Montreal and Mar del Plata. There are no borders when the cinema points to the truth.
So far this year, Juan Minujín was a photographer who leaves slowly dragged by ambition in “Menem”he returned as a tan and evil pastor in the prison of “In the mud”he gave himself to coffee leather abysses in “Palermo Division” And he embodied a winding Brown Marcos de “Trapped”. He also finished filming the second season of “Coppola, the representative”, in addition to brand new “adult.” Between works he writes with his brother Facundo a film that dreams of directing after his remembered opera premium “Cowboy”. How many hours do Juan Minujín have? It is a mystery like all the good things in life.
News: The film is called “Adult” and his character is a father who is hard to take care, do we live in an increasingly infantilized society?
Juan Minujín: At one point yes, I think that to all some extent is difficult for us to take care of the other, in the film appears that, the father is much more focused on him and his things than what happens with his son. Then also a series of circumstances for which this boy will be launched to an adult world and is very interesting how it is worked. From the Nouvelle Vague to here the end of childhood is a theme that is revised and that I liked how it was portrayed, I was surprised a lot when I saw the film finished because I was not when the scenes were shot where the boys are alone, I enjoyed watching everything they do and what is generated from that. It seems to me that the director, Mariano González, has an incredible capacity and fineness to portray that world and let the audience complete the story because adolescence is not romantized or judged.
News: This has been a year where the theme exploded with the series “Adolescence”, does that gap between parents and children seem greater than before?
Minujín: The series was a phenomenon, it is true. The conversation about teenage is very much in vogue, what we do, how we do, what we know and what things of the kids have no idea. It is something that has happened in all generations, my parents happened with me already surely with their parents, but now the theme goes through something you said before, adults are at a very large level of self -encentrism, how do you record the other if you can’t get out of yourself?
News: The audiovisual smelled something that was brewing at a social level, a kind of carelessness or insensitivity to the needs of others. Is cinema a place to discover what we sometimes refuse to recognize?
Minujín: I do not believe that the cinema has a mission, but it seems to me that it has the ability to be the reflection where one looks narrated, you like to tell you stories because you can see yourself in them, the same thing happens with the theater. If what is being told reflects a particular and personal point of view, away from the formulas that are repeated without stopping, it seems very valid, there are films like this that open a question rather than close with a sentence. And I do not speak only of independent cinema, I always think that even the entertainment films leave you some image that can be bouncing in your head, a little in the manner of poetry, that you may not understand it at the time, but it is going around and you can continue to associate it over time. That dialogue between the work and what is happening to you is what I like the most.
News: Then I propose a dialogue with something that is part of his life, “the Perham brothers” …
Minujín: (He laughs) Uy, you bring one of the most beautiful beginnings I have, what a barbarian! “The Perham brothers”, the duo we had with Marcelo Subiotto, gave us to live a long time. We acted not only in theaters, also in secondary schools, in several unusual places, there was a lot of adventure there. For me Marcelo is an idol, one of those people who allow you to say: “Do you know what? We can do it, we write a work.” He already had a little more experience than me at that time and he boosted me a lot, so I’m so glad that his work is expanding so much and that he is doing so well, he is a spectacular actor.
News: When you look back, do you think how strong it is to have shared so many years of career and life?
Minujín: Yes, it happens a lot with Subiotto because it was very at the beginning of the profession. At that time cinema and television were very distant, unthinkable things, so now every time I see Marcelo so full and huge in “Puan”, “The Eternal” or “In the mud” I am glad and fantasized with the idea of gathering again. The same thing happens to me with the director and playwright Mariano Pensotti who is like my brother. It is gratifying to see that growth of the colleagues you started.
News: There is something at the intersection of the past and the present, 20 years of “one year without love” were completed, the cult film directed by Anahí Berneri that you starred. Was the sadomasochistic subtram of “Palermo Division” a deserved tribute?
Minujín: (Laughs) Did you see? The “Palermo Division” was totally casual, I think Santi Korovsky did not know, but it was very funny because it was like revisiting the same scenes of “one year without love” in a comedy tone 20 years later. It is a film that I obviously have a lot of love, it was my first protagonist, before I had made a small participation in “The Hug Party”, with the same producers, Daniel Burman and Diego Dubcovsky. Anahí had seen me there and in “The Discove” so he called me. It was his prima opera, we started working, we rehearsed a lot, it was a conjunction of first times and there was something that related us forever. Recently when the exact anniversary was fulfilled, we made a kind of event, we got together with the team and we saw the movie again. He aged well, after 20 years it is still very interesting.
News: A month ago he finished shooting the second season of “Coppola, the representative.” You did not resort to prosthesis to play Guillote, between using a false nose like Nicole Kidman in “Las Hours” or washed as Bowie when he made “The Elephant Man” in Theater, he chose the second option?
Minujín: (Laughs) UF, it was a process! With Loli Giménez who was the chief of makeup we started trying a nose, a chub, cheekbones … it did not work until we went with the wig and there we felt that the thing changed. We stay with something very synthetic, the iconic of your hair. Then I concentrated on behavior, energy, their way of thinking, we didn’t want to make imitation. Eye, I respect the imitators a lot, it seems to me that it is an incredible trade, but if only the support is in the gestures, you fall short for the emotional route that you should have in a series of six chapters. At one point it is also more fun to get out of that corset of imitation and appropriate the character, look what Leo Sbaraglia armed with Menem, it is extraordinary! He did his own, gave him another life.
News: In “Menem” her character was in a couple with that of Jorgelina Auzzi and in the new season of “Coppola”, she plays Corina, current woman from Guillote, can we say that Jorgelina is her official fictitious wife?
Minujín: (He laughs) And we were also a couple in the work “The truth”! Jorgelina is an actress of another category, directly from another planet. It is impressive, rarely I saw someone with such a capacity for play, it has a unique sensitivity combined with a mental speed that you will not find to anyone else. She is a spectacular companion, a very good person, it is always a plan to work with her.
News: What is the best of being an actor?
Minujín: (Think) I think connecting, with boludar, with being pave. Keep in touch with that playful part is what I like the most.
