Before a packed press room, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem defended their new work together this Tuesday in Venice, Bunker, by the French director Florian Zeller. The film revolves around the dilemma of a successful Spanish architect based in London (Bardem), who is commissioned to build a luxury bunker for a tech oligarch and how the possibility of that commission erodes the relationship with his partner (Cruz), an editor who never quite fits into the English ecosystem. The conflict with a neighbor over a window in the party wall of their luxurious London home closes the circle of a script that talks about the paranoia of the rich and social disconnection, “the invisible bunker we are getting into,” added Zeller at the meeting.
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The two Spanish actors spoke at the Lido alongside their co-stars: Stephen Graham, who plays that neighbor victim of gentrification; Paul Dano, as the tech oligarch; and Patrick Schwarzenegger, as a writer from Cruz’s character’s catalog. At the center of the conference were Bardem and Cruz who, as they explained, agreed to make a new film as a fictional couple because of all the current issues that Zeller touches on in the script of Bunker. “We were convinced by the quality of the material,” said Bardem. “Florian is a great playwright and filmmaker and the story he tells affects couples, siblings, and children. And he also does it by conveying hope.”
Florian Zeller explained why he wrote the script thinking of the couple and what he wanted from them in a film that shows the frictions of a marriage that revolves more around his work than hers. “I thought of them because they are two of the greats and, to be honest, because having them together on screen playing a couple gives the film a unique value for all the layers of reality and fiction they bring. I was interested in reaching that raw authenticity that only actors like them, ambitious and fearless, possess.”
On how working together affects their intimacy and what they put of their own lives on screen, Bardem said: “We are good at creating reality and creating fiction, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to survive in this profession.” For her part, Penélope Cruz added that for her it is a very natural process, especially when they trust the director’s mediation. “We love our profession and have a good balance with the personal. When we met Florian, at the first meeting with him, we felt he was going to protect us. It was important to feel that he was not going to enter our intimacy, although at the same time all our life experience is in those characters. Having him in the middle was very relevant to feeling safe, especially in the most emotional sequences, which can take you to a misleading place. Without ever invading us, Florian was very close and that was very beautiful to experience.”
In Bunker Cruz and Bardem speak English with their neighbors, colleagues, and friends and Spanish between themselves. “That was unthinkable a few years ago,” said the Spanish actress. “Ten or fifteen years ago no one would have financed multicultural projects like this. We had to play Colombians in English, and fortunately that happens less and less and today films speak many languages.”
In that sense, and in response to a question about the international career of The Black Ball, in which Cruz has an important supporting role, and The Beloved, starring Bardem, the actor celebrated the good moment of the industry. “Spanish cinema has always had a lot of quality and this year is another example,” he said. “Although it is wonderful and we must celebrate the victory that Spanish cinema travels and travels so well, that it is received with so much pleasure and respect.”
On the central theme of the film, fear and paranoia as a weapon of human disconnection, the two actors agreed on their need to raise their voices. Cruz pointed out: “For me it was important to speak through my character about the manipulation we live in, the risk of losing human connection. They treat us like puppets and, despite it being obvious, we do not react. And it makes me sad and angry. I am an optimistic person; however, I see all this as something very dark and worrying. The only thing that saves me is observing young people. I see them react, they talk more about politics than before and I see that they are beginning to realize the lack of empathy we live in.”
They treat us like puppets and, despite it being obvious, we do not react. And it makes me sad and angry”Penélope Cruz
For Florian Zeller, the idea of building the luxury bunker works in the film as a metaphor for an isolation that affects everyone. “The starting point of this film was fear. I read the story of a very famous tech billionaire who was building a secret bunker in Hawaii. It seemed to me a paradox that a man who boasted of having gotten rich connecting people at the same time built a bunker to isolate himself from everyone. I think we have embraced a lifestyle that is an illusion created by others, an illusion that no one questions. No one wants to explore the rest of the world anymore and that leads us to that other invisible bunker that the film also talks about.”
When asked if artists have a commitment to society, Bardem replied: “As artists we have the responsibility to make the directors’ stories happen, but as individuals we have another responsibility, which is the same as a taxi driver or a plumber. And that is to be true to our truth. I am lucky to have a megaphone and I take advantage of it.”
