Related news

A Forqué, a Feroz, a Sant Jordi and a Goya. In 2021, Patricia López Arnáiz won practically every possible award in Spanish cinema with her impeccable performance in Anne, which confirmed her as one of the best current actresses. She confirms it in the movie The top of Ibon Cormenzanawhich premieres at the Málaga Festival in the official section and in which it shares absolute prominence with Javier Reytwo mountaineers who will make the public shudder.

The film narrates the story of Ione and Mateo, two mountaineers who meet in the mythical Annapurna, each of them with their own demons in tow. The mountain will make you confront them. In The top, Patricia López Arnáiz plays Ione, an elite athlete in the darkest moment of her life.

“Ione is a woman who has met all the challenges she set for herself, to the point that she has completed the fourteen eight-thousanders on the planet. And, of course, once she has reached that point, what other objectives do she have left? The film talks about how fulfilling your dreams does not necessarily mean that you are going to be happy.”explains the actress. Her character is inspired by the mythical Basque mountaineer Edurne Pasabanthe first woman in the world to crown the 14 eight-thousanders, and who, at the best moment of her career, He confessed that he had depression.

“To prepare the character, I read his biography, I saw many interviews that were done with him. She talked about mental health when no one else did.“, points out López Arnáiz, for whom “in the desire for success there is a lot of blindness, you think that they will love you more and that is not the case.”

Patricia López Arnáiz became popular with the series Plague and in The other look. Then he rang the bell Anne and was able to live barrage of awards for that film with some distancesince it was precisely rolling The top, by Ibon Cormenzana, renowned producer of titles such as Snow White of Pablo Berger either Mother of Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

“I broke down, I had been at a very high pace for a long time”

After the Goya hangover, the actress recognizes that “I broke down, I had been at a very high pace for a long time. Very powerful, but exhausting.” So he decided to slow down a little. “I received many offers, but I took it calmly“, account.

Despite the slowdown, it did not stop filming and, now, it is going to chain a series of premieres that begin with The top in it Malaga Festival and, starting March 25, in movie theaters. “I am very excited to be reunited with the team, to give birth to the baby and to discover this competition that I have not been to before,” says the actress.

When reading the synopsis of The top You might think “that’s it, these two gorgeous ones, in the mountains, love story, for sure.” But not…

That ambivalence was played a little, but I told Ibon all the time: “I didn’t come here to tell a love story, eh.” He made me very happy that that part was so clean.

Because man and woman do not necessarily have to live a romantic story, no matter how isolated they are…

Indeed, men and women can be friends. Furthermore, it seems to me that, above all, this film is a story of camaraderie, of friendship. That happens a lot in the mountains, people who don’t know each other at all, but who risk their lives to rescue themselves.

In Euskadi there is a great tradition of mountaineering. Did you have a hobby?

I love nature, going out into the mountains for walks, but I have only climbed small mountains, Gorbea or Aitzgorri, the maximum will be 2,000 meters. That said, I don’t fully understand the world of high mountains, the ‘Himalayans’ and that mountaineering universe.

I have documented myself, we have worked hand in hand with great professionals like Jordi Tosas. But I think that, in general, it is very difficult for people who do not practice it to understand extreme sports. There are mythical stories in mountaineering, when they have to decide whether to continue forward or not with a storm brewing that they know that, if they continue, there will be no turning back. They make life or death decisions, it’s brutal. We, in our daily lives, do not take risks like that.

This filming has been very physically hard. How have you prepared it?

Javier and I did training to learn the basics of climbing, on rock and ice, but in the powerful scenes, those who appear are mountaineers like Jordi Tosas. Anyway, the filming was brutal. We started riding at -17º. I wore three or four thermals under my pants, imagine. The locations are real, the shelter is in Benasque.

A real adventure

You had to walk up and take the machines up by helicopter. That caused a lot of problems, because sometimes due to the weather you couldn’t fly… We were shooting at 2,700 meters, in the snow, and suddenly a storm took away the combo with the air. As a cherry on top, one day we had a sand storm coming from the Sahara. When we went to shoot, the mountain was pink! It was during Filomena’s time, it was not as catastrophic as in Madrid, but it was noticeable. We were totally exposed to nature. A true adventure.

You live in a town and you have breakfast looking at the mountain, do you see it differently now?

No, because here it is small, friendly, but yes to the figures of the mountaineers. Now that I have gotten closer to their stories, I look at them with a lot of respect. I guess when you’re exposed to something that powerful, coming home can’t be easy. The mountain will always call you to come back.

When you finally make your character on the screen smile, the screen lights up. How have you worked on it?

How nice that is! Ione starts in a very deep hole, she is hostile, surly, but we see how she gets closer to Mateo and she opens up. She has been hooking herself on the mountains as a way to breathe, but something isn’t working for her. In the desire for success there is a lot of blindness, you think that they will love you more and that is not the case.

Jordi told us about the coven, a very cool look at the mountains. I don’t know how widespread this term is. It refers to reaching the limit of your nature so much that your ego disappears, and you with it. We imagined Ione as a mountaineer who has not experienced that coven. The meaning of her life has been the mountain, but she has never felt that connection with it. The beautiful thing is that, even without you wanting it, life knocks on your door, moves you to take care of another person and takes you out of the hole.

How do you handle this duality between the rational and the mystical?

I believe that both views occur in different places. What seems like a mistake to me is when you judge the other from one perspective, it seems ignorant to me. Reason helps us a lot to survive and understand, but I think there are things that we still do not understand with it and that, perhaps, we perceive differently. They are different languages ​​to explain reality that should not be in struggle, but rather recognize each other.

In the film, the two protagonists are touched, each in their own way. Do we need to talk more about mental health?

Yes. For example, with the pandemic I have been greatly impacted by learning about the reality of many adolescents with mental problems. heavies, medicated with anxiolytics, with eating disorders… This has been told to me by 16 and 17 year old colleagues with whom I have worked. That makes me think that we are accepting it as normality, instead of going to the origin.

Suicide is already the leading cause of death among Spanish youth…

It’s very strong. We can create a program to help the kids, but the problem is at the base, in the savage system in which we live. Mental illness is a symptom of how sick society is. The system is untouchable, but we see that this is increasing, getting worse. If we put mental health at the center, as the most important thing, we would all live better.

Seeing your character I thought that a few years ago, he would have been a man. Is it noticeable when a woman writes the script, as happens in La Cima, with Nerea Castro?

Of course. I think the rise of female characters has to do with female scriptwriters and directors. This is changing because the feminist movement is doing incredible work so that, basically, they don’t put obstacles in front of us.

Does a character like yours in The Top help change our perspective?

The outline of the story has always been the same: the princess who is saved by the prince. You go to mythology and it is the same. From there, the stories are told. They are very internalized and it is difficult to change it, but there we are.

What do you feel has been the biggest challenge you have overcome?

Wow! (sigh) It’s a difficult question… I think it was, when I was young, overcoming the absolute disappointment with the human race, trusting again.

Did you lose trust in people?

Yes, looking at it with perspective, I think it was like one of those initiation rites that lead you to a new phase, which usually have to do with very great pain and occur after a breakup. In my twenties, I lived in an illusion and experienced two very painful moments. That generated a distrust in me that was difficult for me to recover, but I managed it.

The loss of innocence…

Indeed. Suddenly, you suffer so much that you later become distrustful. That’s hard to get up later. But I got it. Although those things that I have been trying to work on for a long time, now, when I look back, I think they were stages of life. In the end, you need organic time to grow.

You are a convinced feminist. What have you done this 8-M?

“We must fight until gender no longer means having more or fewer rights”

I haven’t celebrated anything. I know that the streets have been filled and I have followed it from afar, but I have had to stay at home to prepare things and study. But, wow, until we reach equal rights, we will have to do whatever it takes. We must fight until gender no longer means having more or fewer rights.

And finally, in these times of war, do you think that art has a social responsibility?

I think it has its place as art. Then, what each person wants to do on a personal level, support a cause or mobilize, seems very legitimate to me, but they are personal decisions. The art per se It helps us look at the world. The works of art themselves mobilize and make you reflect, feel things, know yourself and, from there, it is easier to empathize with others.

Follow the topics that interest you