Gemma Blasco makes her feature debut with Spanish drama “Fury,” the tale of a young woman trying to cope with a traumatic experience and who finds a channel for her rage on the stage.
Having just premiered at South By Southwest in Austin, “Fury” unspools in competition at the Malaga Film Festival on Wednesday.
Written by Blasco and Eva Pauné, the film follows Alex, a young woman, played by Ángela Cervantes, trying to come to terms with a violent assault she suffers at a New Year’s Eve party. In the process she finds a much needed emotional outlet on the stage embodying the vengeful character of Medea in a production of Euripides’ Greek tragedy. She also seeks solace by confiding in her brother Adrián, played by Àlex Monner (“The Next Skin“), only to see him consumed by rage and a thirst for revenge.
Ángela Cervantes and Àlex Monner in “Fury”
Courtesy of Filmax/Malaga Film Festival
For Blasco, making “Fury” offered a similar process of processing the same kind of violent experience depicted in the film.
“‘Fury’ came from a desire to offer a different, darker and more visceral vision of the consequences of sexual violence. When I was 18, I was sexually assaulted and shortly after, I started studying film,” Blasco tells Variety.
“It didn’t take me long to realise that, one day, I would end up making this film, because I couldn’t find any references that I felt represented me and the way I was feeling inside. I wanted to see a representation that was dirtier and grittier, rather than one that was somehow romanticized and sugar-coated.
“I didn’t want it to be a story about overcoming adversity. I wanted to really delve into the depths of the traumatic process. The script was born from ‘beacon’ images I’d been accumulating over the years, like gutted boars, Greek tragedy, blood, the night. Slowly, I started putting the pieces together and getting closer to the characters. And just as the protagonist of the film uses theater to channel that fury, I wanted to use my role as director of the film in the same way.”
Blasco says the film “is more of an exploration of human nature, although I have used elements of toxic, masculine behavior to get there.”
“It has to do with both those things,” Blasco adds. “On the one hand, I wanted to see what would happen if I brought together two different ways of channeling that trauma: one in a woman, the victim herself, and the other in her brother, who feels he should have protected her, but isn’t the victim himself.
“In a way, the film also explores gender mandates, or how, culturally, we have been taught to manage our emotions. Men are more connected to, or validated more by, anger and fury. They have also been taught that they should protect us women, just as we have been taught to look for that protection, rather than looking for our own autonomy. We have also been taught more to mediate, to manage our emotions through words and through care.
“As a person, I am not interested in violence. In fact, I reject it and it paralyzes me. But as a director, it was interesting for me to explore it and to develop a female character who does decide to channel the fury she’s carrying inside. She validates herself and goes on a journey that is much more visceral and primitive. She even feels attracted by it.”
Indeed, on that journey Alex embraces the wrathful character Medea, whose acts of brutality knew no bounds. For the director, exploring the stage as a conduit to emotional release made sense.
“I used acting because it had so much to do with the body, with moving physically, which connected it directly to the aggression, and with the idea of being someone else and the concept of fiction. I also wanted the film to be very physical in many aspects. But just as I used acting, I think that any art form can serve to channel emotions if that’s what you want it to do. I suppose it was what felt closest to me and to Ángela.
“I don’t like the concept of using the film as a kind of therapy, in the sense that it could somehow repair the damage done, but I do feel comfortable thinking that I’ve used it to channel the emotions I wanted to channel and show. When I work with actors, I try to find common ground that we both feel comfortable working on. Of course it’s necessary for an actor to draw on their own experiences, but I don’t necessarily need them to delve so deeply into their own emotional spaces if they don’t want to. I don’t like to think that that’s the only way. If it comes from them, or if it’s something we find along the way, then great. A lot of actors do work that way and l love getting into that space, but starting out from there doesn’t feel healthy to me and I would never tell an actor that we have to go down that path no matter what. When I’m teaching acting, I tell my students they have to really protect themselves in that sense and that if they don’t feel comfortable with something, then they don’t need to delve so deep.”
In making her own modern-day tragedy, it’s no surprise Blasco turned to “Medea” and the themes that characterize Greek tragedies.
“I was interested in tragedy because it gave me the darkness I was looking for, as well as the feeling of an inevitably fatal outcome. It was the ideal canvas on which to tell this story, not from a perspective of overcoming difficulties but from an emotional perspective. I’m interested in pushing the characters to their limits and taking their emotional states to the extreme, as well as in the universality of tragedy.
“There’s something more metaphorical in connecting the issue of sexual violence against women with something that has existed for centuries and centuries. That’s why we express this idea that, unfortunately, there are some things that just carry on happening, with very few changes, even as society evolves. I was also intrigued by the idea of exploring fiction as a concept, the idea of rewriting reality through fiction, of looking at sin and violence from there, without crossing the boundaries of reality, of real life.”
In realizing her challenging and ambitious work, Blasco found the ideal actress in Cervantes.
“Ángela was just spectacular! I’m lucky enough to have been friends with her since I was 11 years old, so I remember watching her when she was doing amateur theater and seeing such great potential in her. She’s not in the film because she’s my friend but because she’s such an amazing actor.
“I’ve known how talented she is for many years now and I wrote the script knowing that I wanted her as my protagonist. Knowing each other so well was also advantageous in the sense that it meant there was already trust there and so we could go deeper.
“What I love about Ángela is her commitment, both physical and mental, to the characters she plays. She has all the generosity she needs to throw herself into the role and to jump in headfirst, even without knowing if there’s any water in the pool! She gives herself that permission. What fascinates me about her is how she’s able to move so comfortably between the visceral and the vulnerable. I think you can really see that in this film. She’s just wonderful.”
Produced by Barcelona-based Ringo Media and RM Pelicula AIE in Torrevelilla, “Fury” is sold internationally by Filmax, which also releases the film in Spanish theaters on March 28.
