Financial News

Andrés Arochi, author of ‘Luto’

15 November 2024

Cooked is the debut feature of Andrés Arochi, a Mexican cinematographer who worked in Longlegsthe horror film starring Nicolas Cage that recently premiered in Mexican theaters. Cooked It is a completely different proposal: a docufiction about the grieving process throughout Mexico.

For Andrés, both productions complement each other in the sense that each one fills gaps in his personality that the other left blank. “It is being able to make a larger repertoire that can express more parts of me and my personality,” he said in an interview with Forbes–. It has been an incredible year to release these two films, it is the beginning of a new chapter where I have been trying to make films for 15 years and now I can officially call myself a film director.”

Cooked It was cooked over low heat. In October 2021, Andrés began filming the story that follows Damián (Rodrigo Azuela) throughout Mexico in his attempt to understand the tremendous pain that the suicide of his young wife (Daniella Valdez) has caused him. On his way, in a story that combines past, present and dreams, he finds solace through conversations with strangers, which is where the documentary aspect of the film comes in, showing the Copper Canyon, the Quintana Roo cenotes, a Wixarika ceremony and a view of Calakmul, among other landscapes and Mexican mortuary rituals.

“By creating a fictional story within the real Mexico, not only as a backdrop, but as a co-star, we were able to explore the true pains and doors that one must go through to achieve that state,” reads a note from Andrés shared by Piano Films–. What emerged from this eight-week trip was a fusion of documentary and fiction, represented on three distinct levels. The first level includes dream sequences that reveal premonitions and expose Damian’s subconscious. The second level encompasses flashbacks that provide context about Damian’s current state. Finally, the third level is made up of documentary sequences in which Damián travels through Mexico in search of solace.”

Andrés Arochi

A trip through Mexico

Real de Catorce, Culiacán, Mexico City, Valle de Guadalupe, Guerrero Negro, Sierra de Órganos, Biosfera del Pinacate, Juchitán, Tulum, Oaxaca and San Cristóbal de las Casas are some of the places that Damián passes through. The members of the production were in charge of proposing some of these places to which they had already traveled for previous work. “I have traveled to many places in Mexico as a photographer and we were discussing certain interesting places and putting them on maps, tracing different routes and finding the most interesting way to contrast the landscapes with the characters along with Damián’s narrative,” Arochi explained. .

Many of the shots were taken on mountain peaks, but there were no ascents. “I think the summit is what gets you there and it is these viewpoints, where the horizon is very far away and where it is easier to contemplate a sunrise or sunset, that allow a moment where you have to go inward. That connects with Damián’s search to fill this void that he has,” Arochi said.

Although getting there involved a great effort for the production: hours of traveling along the road and hours of walking in the early morning to capture the sunrise. “This same emotion made us feel what we were experiencing.”

Also read: Interview with Andrés Arochi, cinematographer of ‘Longlegs’, psychological thriller starring Nicolás Cage

No tricks or lies

A group of mothers of missing people open their hearts in front of the camera, as does a young man who works for drug traffickers in Culiacán and talks with Damián, while some Wixarikas offer their healing ceremony.

How was the work with the people of the places to be able to make these scenes in which they participate, in which they explain their own experiences, their own experiences? Andrés Arochi is asked.

“I think that based mainly on the honesty of us as a team and what we were looking for and what we did,” said the director who also served as photographer, producer and screenwriter of Cooked–. There are people who have thought that perhaps we tricked the people who appeared in the interviews into thinking that our character Damián was real, but we were always super respectful to tell them: we are making this film, we have a fictional character and we want you to tell us. Tell your story and be able to go deeper into the process of how we approach it.”

He added: “We felt like a family where we were always laughing and supporting each other. When someone cried, we all created a space for that to happen and by meeting new people we made them very curious, especially in the small towns, where we arrived with this strange project for them. And a group of strange characters that made them laugh and there were many tacos, many beers, many walks through nature to connect with these people. And the truth is that the most beautiful thing about the entire trip is that people always opened the doors of their hearts, their homes, their stories to us and it always seemed to flow in a very organic way.”

The actors

Rodrigo Azuela said that the acting work in Cooked It has two elements: the trip and the work that he and Daniella Valdez did to build the fictional story that gives rise to the film story. “It is a fiction that is solidly constructed and is what you rely on. Daniella and I started working a long time before we started recording to build and imagine a relationship and imagine situations and tools to get to know each other. On the other hand, it was the production dynamic: we were eight people in two trucks, traveling 14,000 kilometers looking for the characters. And although many of the interviews we had were planned, we also had the openness and intelligence to grab the people who crossed paths with us.”

In short, said the actor, “on the one hand you have a very structured relationship where you have to work in an organized way and, on the other hand, you have the chaos of reality, which is what we mentioned in the journey part.”

Daniella had a couple of emotional and difficult final scenes: on the one hand, she is in a cave where bats come out (actually taken when Damian sees them from outside and added digitally when she is inside) while she is sitting and one, long, in the one that enters the water in a deep cenote. “For the water fall we worked with Camila Jaber (freediver, activist, underwater stunt, reads in her Instagram description), who supported us to do that scene that you mention, I tried it a little to do the beginning, to do something strong , because it’s very scary. In the cenotes the water was frozen, I needed to go a lot in that scene and I asked Arochi for support to be very close, to feel safe, because I panicked a lot.”

Santiago Tron, producer, commented: “It is important to highlight Camila Jaber. She dove 60 meters on more than one occasion because in this final scene you can see her entering the sulfur clouds. Andrés, as a cinematographer and diver, was inside the cave filming it, and one after the other he dove 60 meters. It was very nice.”

Andrés added: “We were outside waiting for Camila to come down, I also have limited breath, so how can we communicate that way. And Dalia’s thing wasn’t planned. First we had her crying in the cave, what I found most interesting was the reverberation of the cave and the echo and we played with her crying and once we had the interview with the Mayan cook she told us the myth of the bats and we realized That was the end of the movie.”

*Javier Pérez He does reports, chronicles and interviews, as well as film criticism and coverage of cultural issues. Direct ForoFoco. Nobody wants to accompany him to the movies: he won’t stop eating popcorn or talking about something else.