The Other One
Somewhere at the end of the world, where ocean and rocks play their endless games of hide and seek, lives a man. In his mysterious solitude he is not alone. One day remains of a white whale are washed by a storm on a beach. In this stranded portrait inspired by H. Melville's masterpiece Moby Dick the director questions our inner reality and our own gaze on it.
Close to the end of the world lives a man. He is sometimes visited by another man, different from him, yet identical. Outside their hut, there is only the vastness of an overwhelming nature. Days go by between reading and hunting, drinking and exploring. Conflicts erupt in the hut between the two men until an uncertain separation becomes necessary. In his remarquable first feature film, Francisco Bermejo asks the spectators a simple yet unsettling question: what am I watching? The question can be answered in many ways, probably, as in any good movie, as many as there are spectators. But what makes The Other One a precious work is that it goes beyond a reflection on its capacity of rendering madness, it meditates on our own perception of otherness. In an archaic landscape lost in time our protagonist survives despite, or thanks to, his lunacy and the film respectfully invites us to enter his universe in the impossible quest to understand human nature. Haunted by the spirit of Moby Dick, The Other One, casts a brave light in the abyss of human spirit.
This film is an observational documentary that revolves around a character who, more than forty years ago, chose to self-marginalize himself from society. Escaping from jail, the authorities, and his obligations, he established his life amid a wild nature and in very precarious living conditions, which exacerbate an admirable connection with nature, despite the enormous physical and psychological effort that survival implies in these conditions. He is a man who is completely resolved in his choice of loneliness and isolation since it gives him the space to live a happy life in total freedom. Without schedules, without obligations, without ties to any type of institution, this man seems to fulfill the dream of many, the spokesman of a universal myth: the idea of living only on what nature can provide us. More than two years have been necessary to forge a relationship and a close bond with this extraordinary human being, usually reluctant to have contact with people outside the world he has built, but paradoxically sensitive and welcoming. We have shared long days by the sea, in which he has subtly shown me his peculiar rhythm of life: a rhythm that is sometimes extremely difficult and expensive, where survival depends on his precarious and ingenious ways of solving the challenges of the day to day: those that are sometimes successful, others unusual and fun, and others truly catastrophic. In private we begin to see the effects of the decades he has lived in these conditions of isolation, loneliness, and lack of guidelines. Our kind character slowly begins to reveal himself, and we see how he has developed a deep fracture in his personality. His placid attitude suddenly disappears, and a conflicted character emerges, in deep shock not only with his surroundings but also with himself. This man dislocates and dissociates from himself, and two opposite personalities emerge. The interactions between the two of them, the "dialogues" between one personality and the other, some rabid, others humorous, constitute the axis of this documentary. We see a confrontation and strange coexistence between Oscar's two souls: one enjoys his freedom and solitude, his readings and lack of obligations, while the other is a prisoner of his miseries, memories, and self-recriminations. His asthma, alcohol dependence, and enormous precariousness in which he lives to some extent call into question the freedoms he has. The "freedom" that he so jealously cares for and protects is suddenly deeply questioned. This documentary allows us to get closer to a reality where we are presented with issues around loneliness, the direct relationship with nature, freedom, and how it can have illusory elements transforming itself into the disguise of implacable internal slavery. In this sense, without anticipating it, my initial motivation for taking a portrait and following up on the character has changed throughout the investigation. Óscar has been my mirror on more than one occasion: his profound and disturbing dissociation and duality seem to me to reflect, from my perspective, my inherent bipolarity, as well as the schizophrenia installed in some elements of today's society, which is not enough to integrate, a prisoner of its rules and restrictions.
The Other One is an observational documentary that revolves around a character who more than 40 years ago chose to marginalize himself from society. In private we begin to see the effects of the decades that he has been living in these conditions. Our character slowly begins to reveal himself and we see how he dislocates and dissociates himself from himself, emerging two opposite personalities. The interactions between them constitute the axis of this documentary, giving us the opportunity to get closer to a reality where we are presented with issues around loneliness, freedom, and how it can have elements of implacable internal slavery. In this sense, Óscar has been my own mirror on more than one occasion: his profound and disturbing duality seems to me to reflect my own inherent bipolarity, as well as the schizophrenia installed in some elements of today's society, which does not manage to integrate, a prisoner of its rules and restrictions.
