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| Leonardo Cervantes, Farid Escalante Correa and Mateo Ortega Casillas in Párvulos Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
A dark, gritty tale but one bound together by love, Párvulos is the story of three brothers living deep in the woods with no adult supervision, with desperately few resources and something nasty in the cellar. One of the harder-hitting contributions to this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, it’s a project that took Mexican filmmaker Isaac Ezban many years to bring to fruition, with a lot of challenges along the way. When we connected at the festival, we discussed the fact that although cinema is stuffed to the gills with post-apocalyptic tales these days, we very rarely see anybody explore what happens to children. It’s as if people are afraid to imagine it.
“We see zombie movies everywhere every week,” he agrees. “I always like to subvert genres or story tropes or clichés. I also embrace many of the dystopian clichés, like the sect and the rituals and all that, but I like to subvert them when possible. So that's one of the things that got me writing this movie. The other thing is, I feel like there are a lot of zombie movies out there, but they never focus on what, for me, is the most interesting part of a zombie story, which is what would happen if a loved one gets infected.
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| Párvulos Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
“Sometimes we see bits and pieces of that in, you know, Walking Dead, or even comedies like Shaun Of The Dead, which make fun of that. But I wanted to make a full movie about that dilemma, which in any other zombie movie lasts three minutes. You know, what would happen if your loved one gets infected? And doing that from the perspective of kids. That was very much my intention with this movie. So that's what got me wanting to write in the beginning, and also other stuff. I remember watching Goodnight Mommy and saying ‘Oh, wow, I want to make a movie with kids where we don't know where the parents are.’ I really like stories that put kids in dilemmas that would be hard even for an adult, like having to go kill someone.
“It's also a movie that transformed throughout the years because it took many years to get made. So in the beginning, I thought it was personal, being this coming of age story, because we all relate to coming of age. Then I became a father myself, and I said ‘No, this is actually not a movie about coming of age. It's a movie about family, about parenting – about the universal truth, where kids become the parents. And then I made Evil Eye, my previous film. I consider it the sister movie to this. So I said, ‘Oh, this is why I'm making this movie. Because Evil Eye was the female version. It's the male version of this.’
“Now in my present time, I see it as more a story about a family, and a story about trying to save a family, something I can relate to. I feel movies that grow as you keep growing affect you differently and become something different. So those were some of the reasons that led me to write the story.”
It’s particularly difficult to put a film together across several years when there are kids involved, I note, because they keep growing and changing.
“That actually happened to us twice,” he says. “It wasted a lot of time. Originally we were going to shoot this movie in 2018. We were almost sure we were getting a government grant, which we didn't get, but we actually started the casting process and we saw some kids. Then were going to make this movie 2020, and of course, everyone had their plans for what it was going to look like. That didn't happen. So twice we opened up the casting process, and like you said, it's not like a movie where you can say, ‘Oh, it's happening in two years. I'm calling the kids again.’ They grow up. The only actor who stayed in the movie was Noé Hernández, who plays Enoc, the villain. We wanted him from the start, and he was attached to the movie the whole time.
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| Párvulos Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
As far as the kids were concerned, we had to open up the casting process three times. The third time was in 2022, knowing we were shooting in 2023. That time we actually pulled through and we found all these incredible actors. I was very lucky to find all these children that I think did marvellous work. I think the hardest one was the role of Salvador, the older brother, because I wanted somebody younger, like 13 or 14 years old, just slightly older than the other two. The scene with Valeria would be totally different with somebody that is younger, but he has to be authoritarian and have this almost like military general personality. It just looked fake with the kids that were 13 or 14, so the casting directors went a bit older.
“We picked up a kid that was 18, I think. Then I guess the scene with Valerie becomes less interesting, but the rest of the movie, it really works. So as a director, I had to make a choice, to sacrifice what I wanted out of that scene with a younger kid, but have a better character throughout the rest of the movie.”
What did the young actors make of the scenario themselves?
“They are young, but they still all read script and they were professionals,” he says. “Their parents were really part of the process. They took them to all the rehearsals, and then for the kids, it's just a playground. You know, sometimes a tiring playground. Sometimes they were super tired. Sometimes they got a little sick. I tried to take good care of them, making sure they got the right hours of sleep, but I guess it was still a bit tiring for them to do everything. But they really enjoyed it. They were happy with it.”
They contributed a lot of their own ideas, he says.
“They might be young in age, but they are really mature actors. They always came with suggestions on what the characters needed, what they wanted the characters to do. Also, I worked with a great child acting coach who also did my previous movie, Evil Eye. Ana Carrillo, the acting coach, she was very close to them. Because, you know, as a director, you're focusing on all the aspects of the movie, and you're focusing on all the actors, all the cast. Ana is really good at focusing only on the children, on what their children need. She focused on taking them to the right emotion, but also taking them out of emotion when she needed to.”
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| Párvulos Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
He tells me that he thinks children have a natural ingenuity in difficult situations, and references the home-made armour they create out of household items. I tell him that I thought that looked wonderful.
“It's really cool,” he agrees. “It's like a Goonies kind of stuff. But it's not something that would really protect them against bites from zombies. For me, it was a metaphor on how their naivety is something that in one way hurts them, doesn't let them see the reality and the harsh things in life. But at the same time, that naivety is like a shield that protects them because they feel safe inside. The suits they wear are like a physical representation of that. So, yes, I really want to talk about how kids can adapt to whatever: a special family or a special condition or special home needs, you know?”
The suits also contribute a comedic element to the film, and they’re not the only thing to do so. That helps to give viewers a bit of breathing space amid scenes that can be hard to watch.
“Yeah. I always say I don't like that film should be just one specific genre. I feel like this is presented as a horror movie, but within the horror trope I like to offer my audience the full roller coaster. It's not just horror. It has drama. It has some sexual tension. It has a coming of age. It's an adventure. And it has also some funny elements. I don't mean I was intending to do a comedy, but I was intending to do a film where it touches upon what I call the bizarre elements. The bizarre can be over the top, and for some people it’s funny. It depends on the sensibility of each viewer. Yesterday [at the Fantasia screening], the crowd was laughing so much. That was meant to be like that.”
I love the detail in the set, I say, because it adds a huge amount of backstory. All the things they have in the kitchen, the drawings on the walls and so on.
He nods. “From the beginning, I spoke with my production designer, Adelle Achar. It's my third movie with her, so we really know each other. She knows that, for me, making a movie is creating a world, and I really like it. I really wanted to create a world that would feel almost like the lost children in Mad Max or the lost children in Peter Pan. A place that feels completely built by the children. She was really good at creating that, creating this multi-layered, textured world where it feels like they made it into their own. That’s my intention with that, and I feel she captured that essence very well. We made a lot of sketches. She put all this stuff in the house and actually brought the house to life. The house became a new character, you know? It was a pleasure creating this world with her.”
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| Párvulos Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
We go on to discuss the way that the colours are muted for much of the film but become bright in strategic places.
“I talked with my director of photography, Rodrigo Sandoval. This is my second film with him. He also did The Incident, my very first movie. And what we spoke about was creating a world with no hope, no joy. It's a world that’s not cheerful, and therefore the colours are muted. It's not black and white, per se, but it's more like a world where the colours are not very bright. But then there are two colours that we actually brighten. The green because of the wildlife and the nature of the woods, and the red because of all the blood and guts. Whenever those two colours are present, you see them clearly.
“And then everything that is like a window to the past or a window to other worlds, like the film, like the picture of the family, like the drawings they make, like the illustrations in the book. All that is full colour, because the hope lies in the past. The hope lies in the portals to other worlds. Even in the very end of the movie, when they leave the house, they see the photo that's in full colour, because that's already the past.”
He’s very happy with how the film was received at the festival.
“This is my second time at Fantasia. I came here, actually, six years ago with my third movie, Parallel, and it was the greatest also. And I love the audiences in this festival. The audiences in this festival are amazing. They really respond to all the right buttons in ways you expect and even better than what you would expect. And yeah, we just had the best screening ever and an amazing Q&A too. So, yeah, it was a wonderful experience.
“Next, there's actually a project that would complete my horror coming of age trilogy. It’s still an early step of development. I also have a horror movie I'm trying to do in the US. And I also have a science fiction movie that is more similar to my first movies, that deals with theme of time, that's already written. I like to have a new project in development. Many tickets in the lottery, to see what happens next.”
He hopes that we’ll be talking again soon, he says.
