SPAIN: Antonio Banderas shows wisdom directing first Spanish film El Camino de los Ingleses (The English Path)

Record ID: 561607

  • Title: SPAIN: Antonio Banderas shows wisdom directing first Spanish film El Camino de los Ingleses (The English Path)
  • Date: 30th November 2006
  • Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (NOVEMBER 28, 2006)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE)(Spanish) ANTONIO BANDERAS, DIRECTOR OF THE FILM EL CAMINO DE LOS INGLESES (THE ROAD OF THE ENGLISH), SAYING: "I don't have any reaction against Hollywood and I am not giving up on the seventeen years that I have spent working there, it's given me a lot in other levels of my life. This (film) is just something that I had to take out of throat -- I don't know how to explain this--It was in there in some way, and It was so difficult to articulate, it was so difficult that I had to make a movie dammit!."
  • Embargoed: 15th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • Country: Spain
  • Reuters ID: LVA2O3OIG9FFRZJZMHOMS7FN600G
  • Story Text: It is hard to spot Hollywood's favourite Latin heart throb as the man behind the film El Camino de los Ingleses (The English Path), which opens in Spain this week.
    Antonio Banderas' second turn as director, this time in a Spanish language feature, is a far cry from The Mask of Zorro, Spy Kids or Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, bigbox-office hits which made him a household name as an actor.
    "The direction world attracts me more than acting -- I have to recognise -- specifically more than film acting," Banderas told reporters during a news conference in Madrid on Tuesday (November 28).
    Banderas says El Camino de los Ingleses is an attempt to bring something more personal and risky to the big screen, but also to provide a springboard for a new generation of local actors in Malaga, his home city in southern Spain.
    The film tells the story of a group of teenage boys on the threshold of maturity, their love lives and their conflicts as they try to understand the transformation towards adulthood.
    The 46-year old director said he had tried to ignore the preconceptions that actors and directors impose on a film in the attempt to make a movie a box office and critical hit.
    "I don't have any reaction against Hollywood and I am not giving up on the seventeen years that I have spent working there, it's given me a lot in other levels of my life. This is just something that I had to take out of throat -- I don't know how to explain this-- it was in there in some way, and it was so difficult to articulate, it was so difficult that I had to make a movie," he said.
    Banderas' hugely successful acting career was launched primarily in the films of Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar in the 1980s. Since then he has been in a wealth of box office hits including a voiceover in Shrek
    His first big commercial success in English was Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning 1993 film Philadelphia, in which he starred with Tom Hanks.
    His expectations as a director in this feature, shot entirely in Andalusia, appear to be entirely different.
    Banderas said he did not expect anything from El Camino de los Ingleses besides the enjoyment he has already had from making it.
    Based on Antonio Soler's prize-winning Spanish novel of the same name, the film is not autobiographical but appears to be deeply personal.
    "The book is full of metaphors that we tried to include in the film in a realistic way if you see it from a particular angle, but if one starts putting together all the shots of the movie, they would end up forming an image and will try to give sense to the whole film," Banderas said.
    If the praise heaped on him by the actors taking part in the film and the reporters attending the news conference is anything to go by, the film looks set for success in Spain at least.
    The film is a much more personal film than 1999's Crazy in Alhabama, Banderas' first venture as director, filmed in English and starring his wife Melanie Griffith.
    He joins a host of actors who have used their success in film careers to finance a move behind the camera, with mixed results both commercially and critically.
    Banderas said it was not a criticism of Hollywood's ways.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register