The Sea Inside, the new film by Alejandro Amenábar

[rustinglass]

oh shit, you may be right, I was thinking of "mar adentro" as a portuguese expression.

what a dumbass I am

edit: actually, I'm not sure, I just put "mar adentro" in the google translator, spanish to english, and it came out "out to sea".
I guess this is one for our spanish speaking friends to sort out

[Pubrick]

mar adentro is an incomplete statement open to interpretation. "out to sea" though, should be "adentro del mar" inside the sea". or like out to the sea.

mar adentro as i believe it, has to be (el) mar adentro. which is 'the sea inside'. and that's as much as i want to talk about the sea in two pages thanks.  

[MacGuffin]

Oscar-Winning Director Amenabar 'Felt Like a Fish'

Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar may have won the ultimate prize for any filmmaker, an Oscar, but promoting his movie in Hollywood made him feel like a piece of plain fish being sold at the market.

"In Hollywood you always feel a bit like a hake," he told a news conference on Thursday upon returning to Madrid after winning an Oscar for best foreign language film for "The Sea Inside."

"The publicists march people up and down in front of you and they interview you ... You feel like the turbot and the sea-bream go by, and you're the hake," he added, referring to himself and other members of the "Sea Inside" team who were with him.

The experience was particularly intense, Amenabar said, because he was doing it with the star of the movie, Spanish actor Javier Bardem, whose good looks and previous Oscar nomination guaranteed the pair got a lot of attention.

"This world of supposed glamour, the red carpet and so on, it's not what I prefer," the dour Amenabar said, revealing that after the Oscars ceremony he had a couple of drinks and then went to bed -- restrained behavior by party-loving Spanish standards.

Still, he did recognize an Oscar was "the definitive prize for any filmmaker."

Bardem, who won a best actor nomination for his work in the 2000 film "Before Night Falls," was not up for an Oscar this year although his role in "Sea Inside" has earned him a raft of awards, including the best actor prize at the Venice film festival.

The film tells the true story of Ramon Sampedro, a Spanish man left paralyzed from the neck down by a diving accident, who fought for 30 years for the right to die. Bardem endured five-hour make-up sessions to gain wrinkles and lost most of his hair for the part.

The tricky decision facing Amenabar now -- apart from finding a new project that will live up to "Sea Inside" -- is where to put his golden statuette.

"Since I got back it's been wandering all around the house ... We have a problem with the shelves, most of them are too low because it (the Oscar) is bigger than I thought," he said, his trophy gleaming in front of him at the news conference.

"Of course the bathroom is an option. That way people can look at themselves in the mirror with it."

[MacGuffin]

'Sea' Shores Up May Video Date

"The Sea Inside," which won the foreign-language film Oscar last month, is slated to hit video retail and rental shelves May 17.

"Sea Inside," starring Javier Bardem and directed, edited and co-written by Alejandro Amenabar, is a true-life drama about Spanish poet Ramon Sampedro and his 30-year fight to end his life after a debilitating diving accident left him a quadriplegic.

"The Academy Awards brought a lot of attention to 'The Sea Inside,' and that usually translates to stronger-than-usual rental performance for a title like this," NLHE senior vp marketing Justine Brody said. "We expect strong DVD sales as well. Even mass merchants like Wal-Mart have expressed interest in the title for certain store locations, which speaks to the public-awareness level of the film."

The "Sea Inside" DVD's bonus features include a behind-the-scenes documentary and commentary from Amenabar.

[El Duderino]

beautiful movie. go see it if it's near.

[MacGuffin]

Alejandro Amenábar is the director of The Others and Open Your Eyes. His latest film is The Sea Inside starring Javier Bardem.

The Sea Inside is about Spaniard Ramón Sampedro who fought a 30-year campaign to win the right to end his life with dignity. It’s also about his relationships with two women. Julia is a lawyer who supports his cause and Rosa is a local woman who wants to convince him that life is worth living. Though he could not move himself and despite his wish to die, Ramón taught everyone he encountered the meaning, value and preciousness of life.

Daniel Robert Epstein: Were you conscious of the fact that The Sea Inside is very different from your previous films?

Alejandro Amenábar: I truly believe that this time I didn’t pick this story. I believe that the story picked me so I just thought of the proper approach which wasn’t thriller and wasn’t horror. This story had to do with these people that were dealing with their lives and life itself. Ramón has a great sense of humor so in a way I knew it was going to be different film from my previous films. But on the other hand I think that the way we are trying to communicate with the audience is as intense as the other ones.

DRE: How closely did you keep to the book Ramón wrote?

AA: The book actually is philosophy and poetry so you cannot find the story there. It was after I met one of his friends and they told me about the real Ramón Sampedro which wasn’t in the papers. It’s about his sense of humor, how all these women fell in love with him and how he gave meaning to the lives around him. Then I decided to tell the story.

DRE: Can you tell us about your choice to cast Javier?

AA: I really wanted to work with him so many years ago but I never thought that this would be a suitable character for him but also I think he is the best actor in Spain if not in the world. So my producer encouraged me to talk to him but I was really hesitant and it took him a few weeks to have a conversation with me. We started to talk about the character and we both wanted someone who could express himself in a very natural way just like Ramón did. But I still wasn’t sure a sure about the age thing and it really worried me. I didn’t want the audience to be thinking “Why did I cast this guy in his 30s pretending to be someone in his 50s?” So it had to be really natural and we needed very good makeup.

DRE: Your thrillers are obviously very personal and they are your original stories. How were you able to make this man’s story personal for you?

AA: I think the concept of the sea is very important. When I finished promoting The Others here I went to the beach in Spain and I didn’t know what my next movie was going to be about. But I knew it should start and finish with the sea. So I found a story where the sea was important. Maybe the biggest challenge for me was considering that I had all this material that would be ideal for a TV movie but I didn’t want it to be a TV movie. We had to enter Ramón’s inner war. The war of dreams, desire and actual exploring human behavior. If you see my four films I think that sometimes I use things to talk about people.

DRE: There are early indications that your film and Javier will be nominated for an Oscar. How important is that to you?

AA: An Oscar means a lot of things because it’s like the ultimate award for a filmmaker so it feels great. But I think you have to consider awards with some distance and not get obsessed with it. When you’re creating you shouldn’t think about it. In this case it would help to bring people in the theatres.

DRE: What were the biggest challenges you faced: writing the screenplay or making the film?

AA: The hardest part is composing the music. The first three or four days I give up and then I go on and end up doing it.

DRE: Other foreign directors that do a movie in America don’t usually go back to their country to do another foreign language film until they do something that isn’t successful here. The Others was very successful. I was wondering what made you decide to go back and do this film in Spain?

AA: I just felt this story was fascinating and it had to be done in Spain and in Spanish otherwise I would have felt it would have been a wrong journey for all of us. What’s really exciting for me is communicating to other people and not just going somewhere to make a movie. That’s Hollywood to me and it would mean nothing.

DRE: How much of a collaboration is this film for you?

AA: There are things that I feel I have to do alone and this time it was the editing. On the other hand once I finished the editing I showed it to someone for feedback but I wouldn’t say I’m a very controlling person. For instance, when I talk to the actors I don’t tell them exactly what I want because I want them to surprise me. I even encourage them to change some of the verses of the script if they need to.

DRE: Did you improvise any of the death scene?

AA: No. We knew how the agony had been and Javier really related what had happened. It took about 15 minutes to shoot and I was scared because it could break the tone of the film but afterwards I knew we had to show that he suffered.

DRE: Do you know what’s next?

AA: Nothing at all.

DRE: What films have you liked recently?

AA: I loved Sideways.