When I originally contacted director Carlos Atanes about his collection of short films Codex Atanicus, he warned me about what I was getting myself into and of course I didn’t listen. After I watched everything on the DVD, including the intro by actress Arantxa Pena, and the trailers for his other films, I was left wondering how a guy who makes his living talking about titties 95% of the day was going to review something like this. So before I went out and made a fool out of myself once again, I thought “fuck it,” I’ll just ask Carlos to explain them himself.
Codex includes the three shorts Metaminds & Metabodies, Morfing, Welcome to Spain, and the trailers for PROXIMA and FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions, as well as the previously mentioned introduction.
I will give you the same warning that Carlos Atanes gave me: his films are not like the movies we normally cover on Horror Yearbook. While Welcome to Spain may scare you away from visiting Spain, and Morfing may show the horrors of trying to make an independent movie, I would really not classify his films as horror. They are, however, just strange and disturbing enough to make them worth a look.
Horror Yearbook: First can you tell us a little bit about yourself so people can know who you are?
Carlos Atanes” I am a handsome guy from Spain who has been writing and making movies since a lot of years ago. Independent and underground movies. Until 2000, we’ve made several shortfilms which brought me reputation of odd filmmaker. I have collected into the“CODEX ATANICUS” the three ones that I think are the most significant (from 1995 to 1999), “Metaminds & Metabodies”, “Morfing” and “Welcome to Spain”. It has been a necessary work because they were hardly watched at the time they were made. At time of incipient internet and before digital facilities, the circulation possibilities were very limited. For example, those short-films were never seen at USA until now.
HYB: Why does the actress drink milk at the end of the intro? Did she just win The Indy 500?
CA: Arantxa was who suggested it, paying a little homage to me. She also has had drunk another big glass of milk in “PROXIMA”, my latest sci-fi movie. And through several of my films we can see girls drinking milk from big glasses. It is a joke, a “trademark.” The connotations of swallowing milk are obvious for me, but I like to let people thinking what they wish. I am not trying to impose an exclusive meaning. Besides, the milk at the “CODEX” intro is specially appropriate, because it reappears at the end of the second chapter, “MORFING,” in a festive and dripping sequence that I can’t reveal now. That’s one of my favorite sequences I’ve ever filmed, which has been banned in YouTube repeatedly, when someone has uploaded the fragment. The three actresses who took part in it (Arantxa was one of them) were a little wary at the beginning, but after doing it they were delighted, they were like liberated from something mysterious. It was a sort of shock treatment against repression. I was the first one who filmed a sequence like that in Spain. And somebody said that it is the first sequence like that in a non-pornographic movie. I think it’s a truthful gossip.
HYB: Codex Atanicus is a collection of three short films that you describe as “odd, strange bizarre, unclassifiable stories.” Could you try and explain them to us a just little more?
CA: They are three different tales, but they shape a coherent product, because what they have in common: three points of view about descent to Hell. They are like three parts of a feature film. Three nightmares, which starts in reasonably plausible situations, and ends in madness. The main roles are trapped people who are trying to change their life state, but a lot of crazy obstacles pull down over them with violence, lust, and cruelty until known down them into a delirious orgy. The plots are in fact very simple but the baroque environment strain them.
HYB: For someone like me who spends most of their time watching films like Killer Workout, Oversexed Rugsuckers from Mars, and Ice Princess, can you tell me how I would approach watching something like your short films, or should people like me not even bother?
CA: Without prejudices! I enjoyed a lot making those films and I think people can enjoy seeing them. I know the “CODEX” can be so hateful as fascinating, it depends from your taste and expectations. I recommend to watch the “CODEX” like you were attending to a bullfight, or an unexpected party as a tourist in an strange country. Smoke a good cigar while you’re watching it and go with the flow.
HYB: None of the films are really horror films in the normal sense of the word, do you think horror fans would be interested in your films and why?
CA: Imagine for a moment that I am talking about a film that contains (among others) the following items: blood, violence, deformity, rust nails piercing throats, a ghost, a succubus moving through the mirrors, a pack of skin-heads spitting on a skinned singer, a flying rotten fetus, a man who wish to saw his girlfriend’s legs. Probably you’ll think I am talking about a horror film. But I am talking about the “CODEX ATANICUS.” The “CODEX” is not exactly a horror film, but contains a lot of typical horror elements, those that horror fans normally are looking for in a horror film. But it is more than this: the “CODEX” contains large doses of sarcasm, onirism, criticism, surrealism and eroticism. It is not classifiable, it goes beyond the horror genre borders. But all the horror-fans I know they are not limited just to these strict borders, their taste is more large. If you’re looking for a conventional horror film, even a conventional movie, the “CODEX” will disappoint you. Even it can displease and bore you. But if you like to break your routine as member of the audience, I think there are a lot of probabilities the “CODEX” will delight you.
HYB: Are your films ever compared to David Lynch?
CA: I have to say yes. The last time was the “Gore Hounds Unite!” review, which talking about the “CODEX” describes me as “the next David Lynch with a little bit of David Cronenberg thrown in for good measure.” This comparison make me blush, and very happy too. That’s an immense compliment that I accept with humility. Lynch and Cronenberg are two real masters and they are points of reference for me (together with Kubrick, Herzog and someone else). I have still a lot to learn for approach a little to these giants’ shadows, but I share many of their interests. It has also said a lot of amusing thinks about me and my films. Once, after seeing my short films, a filmmaker told me I was a mix of Jodorowsky and Abbott & Costello (…Lol)
HYB: Do you consider your films to be “art films,” or like you said, they are just not classifiable?
CA: Not at all. I don’t make art films, though they can seem sometimes. I don’t trust the “art.” I don’t make movies for an elite. I just try to make the films I like to see. OK, maybe my taste is not the mainstream taste. I love those films that surprise me, those that subvert some conventionalism. But, on the other hand, also keeping balance with certain classicism. Maybe I attach a little more importance to situations, atmospheres and feelings than to narrative, as spectator and as filmmaker too. I watch movies like a child, and I make movies like a child. I never feel “making art” when I am shooting a movie. I enjoy when I feel playing or (at best in rare moments) doing magic. My films are not classifiable because the classifications don’t concern me, just mislay them.
You have done a few feature length films can you tell us about your favorite one?
CA: I have not a favorite. After these short films I made two sci-fi movies: “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions,” a dystopian film about a totalitarian European, and “PROXIMA,” a film about space travels and about the love of science fiction, a genre which I adore. They are two films very different between themselves, and very different from my short films. They’re more calm, maybe mature films. “PROXIMA” is a very “narrative” one. I have also a work-in-progress, a film about Aleister Crowley. I shot 40 minutes in 2003, and I hope to take up again this project this year. Probably I’ll start it again, from the beginning. I am finishing now the screenplay. Of course it will be an “odd, strange bizarre, unclassifiable” feature film, after my good conduct through the latest years.
HYB: Are your films available in the United States? If not, how can someone see them?
CA: Oh, yes: “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions” DVD (NTSC) and downloading is available since August 2007 through Amazon.com, Netflix, Blockbuster on-line, etc. “PROXIMA” and the documentary “Made in PROXIMA” will be available soon, I think on April/May 2008. And you can now purchase “CODEX ATANICUS” DVD (NTSC and PAL) on Amazon.com, and surely through more sites soon. And, of course, you can at all times find punctual news and updates related to releases and availability of my films at http://www.carlosatanes.com.
HYB: Anything else you would like to add?
CA: I wish to thank you Wil, for opening Horror Yearbook to a film so borderline as “CODEX ATANICUS.” That proves that behind a great website always there is an open-minded brain.
Visit Carlos at http://www.myspace.com/codex_atanicus
