INTERVIEW: ‘Wandering Soap Opera’ finally reaches movie theaters
Photo: Raúl Ruiz’s The Wandering Soap Opera was recently finished by his widow, Valeria Sarmiento. Photo courtesy of Cinema Guild / Provided by press site with permission.
The Wandering Soap Opera is a Chilean sendup of telenovelas that was to be completed by director Raúl Ruiz in the early 1990s. The project sat unfinished for a number of years, and Ruiz’s widow, Valeria Sarmiento, recently took it upon herself to complete the movie.
The film had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at New York City’s Film Society of Lincoln Center. Now it is receiving a limited distribution, opening May 17 at Anthology Film Archives in the Big Apple.
In the movie, Ruiz and Sarmiento patch together multiple narratives into one large soap-opera quilt. This being a telenovela, the style is highly dramatic, with sweeping music and many close-ups.
To add some character, The Wandering Soap Opera was shot on Super-16mm, and the overall narrative tries to uncover some of the economic and political truths of Chile after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Tom Sveen who works for Cinema Guild, the company that acquired The Wandering Soap Opera. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How did the acquisition process for The Wandering Soap Opera come to be?
We really enjoyed working on Raúl Ruiz’s Night Across the Street, and at the time we thought it would be the last opportunity to distribute one [of] the legendary director’s films (Ruiz passed away in 2011 before the film premiered). When we heard there was new work by Ruiz premiering at the 2017 Locarno Film Festival, we were very excited. We got in touch with the sales company and asked to see the film.
What do you and the company like about Ruiz’s work?
There’s an incredible blend of the personal and the political in Ruiz’s work. He’s highly intellectual, but there’s also a carnality that comes through in every film. It’s these paradoxical elements that make Ruiz an unforgettable filmmaker. In the case of The Wandering Soap Opera, he’s using the conventions of the telenovela to express something about the way Chileans were feeling in the wake of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
This was unfinished until recently. How much was added by Valeria Sarmiento?
All footage was shot by Ruiz in 1990, with exception of the behind-the-scenes footage of Ruiz that bookends the film. After it was rediscovered, Valeria Sarmiento, Ruiz’s widow, took charge of arranging the elements into the film we see today.
How do you think the movie speaks to 2019?
The film is very specific to the realities of Chile at that time. According to Ruiz, ‘The film revolves around the concept of soap opera. Its structure is based on the assumption that Chilean reality does not exist, but rather is an ensemble of soap operas. There are four audiovisual provinces, and the threat of war is felt among the factions. The political and economic problems are immersed in a fictional jelly divided into evening episodes. The entire Chilean reality is viewed from the point of view of the soap opera, which acts as a revealing filter of this same reality.’
But often, the more specifically an artist deals with a particular time and place, the more universal resonance the artwork will have.
What does the distribution plan look like for the film?
We will open the film at Anthology Film Archives in New York City on May 17 and expand from there to art house cinemas across the country. We also plan to release the film on home video and digital before the end of the year.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Wandering Soap Opera, directed by Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento, is currently playing Anthology Film Archives in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
