28/10/2024
«greater than the industrial Revolution»
María Ripoll (Barcelona, 1964) made her film debut 25 years ago with Rain in her Shoes (1999). Since then, she says, society has undergone “a revolution even greater than the Industrial Revolution.” Her new romantic comedy, Yo no soy esa («I’m Not That Woman»), pokes fun at those shifts and contrasts. The film stars Verónica Echegui as a 40-year-old woman who wakes up after being in a coma for more than 20 years. Her mind is still that of an 18-year-old, shaped by the mentality of the early 2000s. Would someone in that situation struggle to fit into today’s world? The cast also includes Silma López, Ángela Molina, Daniel Grao, and Adam Jezierski.
What’s clear, Ripoll says, is that romantic comedies were very different in 1999.
“During the genre’s heyday in the ’90s, the woman’s story was told from a male point of view. Being saved by Prince Charming is no longer enough. Even though I’m a huge fan of Richard Curtis (screenwriter of Notting Hill, director of Love Actually), the truth is, now you can see all the stitches. If Pretty Woman were made today, it would be totally canceled.”
Rain in her Shoes was, in fact, a romantic comedy shot in English. Ripoll recalls that back then, people would say that the only women directors were “Coixet and me,” and that women filmmakers were “relegated to small comedies and intimate stories.” She studied filmmaking at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and, like Coixet, her initial focus was international cinema.
“There was no industry here at the time, and I felt a responsibility to help create one. Only after that could I think about making auteur or alternative films,” she says.
In that sense, she celebrates the progress made since.
“Back then, we created CIMA, the association of women filmmakers, and we’ve succeeded in normalizing a lot of things. Right now, there are three films by women among the top box office hits: La Virgen Roja, which I loved, Los destellos, which I found really mature and beautiful, and La infiltrada, which I haven’t seen yet. It had never happened before that so many impeccably crafted films by women were leading the box office. We’re still behind when it comes to budgets—if I were given the budgets some men like Bayona get, I’d make incredible films.”
A Generational Comedy
Yo no soy esa laughs at the clash between the pre-smartphone and post-smartphone eras.
“In a few years, people will look back at us as the generation that gave smartphones to two-year-olds to keep them entertained. The world is moving too fast. The film is a critique of our slavery to social media,” she says.
At the same time, it’s also a kind of correction of the past.
“Some things are better now than they were in the ’90s: there’s more respect, more personal growth, people are more emotionally aware. In the ’90s, things were totally unfiltered—we’d all be canceled now. Today, there’s a good side to digital community, but there’s also a side of making eye contact, touching, being human and close to each other, which we’ve lost.”
Ripoll had previously worked with Verónica Echegui on Don’t Blame Karma for Being an Idiot (No culpes al karma de lo que te pasa por gilipollas, available on RTVE Play).
“Her character in this film is really complex: a 40-year-old with the mind of an 18-year-old, and her whole life still ahead of her. I told the producers I’d only dare to make the film if she was the one playing the role,” she recalls.
Finally, she defends romantic comedy as a kind of Trojan horse, and shares her desire to support future women filmmakers in the genre.
“Romantic comedies will never get a Goya nomination, but they can still deliver important messages and show what women are really like. After all these years making films, I want to offer a hand to new women with new stories to tell and new goals to reach.”