A Conversation with Luis Ortega (KILL THE JOCKEY) (2024)

Argentinian director Luis Ortega (El Angel) just premiered his latest film,Kill the Jockey, atthe 2024 Toronto International Film Festival—aka TIFF—whereI reviewed it. The movie follows the titular horse rider, Remo (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart,BPM), as he navigates the treacherous terrain of relationships, addiction, gender nonconformity, and organized crime (not to mention racing). Starring alongside him are Úrsula Corberó (Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins) and Daniel Giménez Cacho (Zama). It’s a wild experience, Ortega combining the aesthetic of Finnish and Chilean auteursAki KaurismäkiandAlejandro Jodorowskyinto something uniquely his own. I had the chance to sit down with Ortega via Zoom during the festival, and here is that conversation, edited for length and clarity. Ortega’s English is flawless, so beyond the editing to shorten the interview, his words are his own.

Hammer to Nail:I want to start by asking you about your work with cinematographer Timo Salminen. In my review, I talk about how your film shares a certain aesthetic with Aki Kaurismäki, and Salminen has shot many of his films. How did you two meet and end up working together?

Luis Ortega: Well, I just called him up because I love how his films look, and I didn’t know anyone who could do that but him. His style is unique. He’s the master of putting a light where it gives some strange feeling, right? It doesn’t just look good, it feels strange. It feels like it’s set up. It feels like not exactly artificial, but it does feel like you can feel the light, you can see it. It doesn’t just look natural. And that’s what I wanted to come across is this feeling of “not naturalness.” I mean, there’s nothing stranger than something natural, but we’re used to it. So you have to kind of emphasize that.

HtN: That’s an interesting way to talk about his aesthetic. There’s a heightened reality that often comes from this sense of being staged that I find intriguing. Do you like Kaurismäki’s work, in general?

LO: Yeah, I love Kaurismäki’s work. He’s probably one of the few filmmakers alive that I really, really admire. There are no heroes left, not many, and he’s been very sincere all along. I think he’s a master. Of course, he comes from Chaplin and Bresson, and you can see all that. But I guess that’s how it works. The tradition.

HtN: I’ve been a fan of his ever sinceLeningrad Cowboys Go America. Not all of his films work for me, but I generally really appreciate what he’s trying to do. So, you have another collaborator whose work I want to give a shout out to, and that is your composer Sune Rose Wagner. Can you talk about working with him? The music is really wonderful.

LO:Well, honestly, there was also a lot of local Argentinian pop music. My father is a pop musician from the 1960s, so I used his songs. He doesn’t charge me that much so I can use them. (laughs) We used some really cool Argentinian pop music from the ‘60s and ‘70s. And then we hooked up with Sune in Denmark because we went there to do post-production and I met him and we were kind of editing in one room and then doing the music in the other room. It was really cool. He’s fantastic. He has this really nice energy and he got it right away. So what can I say? I love him.

HtN: Why were you so interested in using pop music from the ‘60s?

LO:Well, in North America you have all these wonderful bands from the ‘50s or ‘60s or ‘70s and it always sounds great. And you have these Tarantino collections and these Scorsese scores and you put on records and there’s music everywhere. And we have that, too. It’s just not so popular, even for us, because you know how it is, most people listen to American music. So I went back to the roots and I went back to my father’s music and his contemporaries from that era. And it sounds really cool. I mean, I love the Latin vibe, from boleros to rock-n-roll or pop music.

HtN: In your press notes, you talk about how you were inspired by Jack London’s 1915 storyThe Star Rover. Can you talk about how that inspired some of the ideas in this film?

LO:To be honest, I just had to write something in the press notes and I didn’t know what to write. And they’re like, “Just put some book you read that you liked.” And so that’s what I did. That book really drove me crazy because it’s actually one of his non-popular books. It’s like they really put him down for that book, like, “Oh, he can’t write anymore” or whatever. And if you compare any Jack London book from that time where he couldn’t write anymore, supposedly it’s much better than anything you can actually find right now. It’s so much more transcendent. And that book is incredible because this guy goes to jail and they want him to snitch on some other prisoners or something like that, and they just keep on torturing him to sell out his mates. And every time they torture him, he starts remembering. The pain is so great, he can remember his past lives. And there’s this thing called anamnesis, which is when you lose your forgetfulness, you lose the capacity to forget. So all your existence comes together in one moment. And I’d heard about losing your memory, but I’d never heard of that. You lose your capacity to forget.

And while they’re torturing him, he realizes that he’s immortal, that he will never die, that they can hang him right there, but they will never get to his immortality. And he remembers that he was a princess and he remembers that he was a vagabond, and he remembers being a mother and giving birth. And I thought that was amazing. And it has so much to do with this film, this new film where a lot of characters come together in one, because I just think you never really get to know who you are and everything is possible and there’s so much karmic energy going on, plus some meta-reactions that you don’t know where they come from. And I think that’s very interesting. It’s more interesting than what we can see, right? Or what psychology could explain. So that book kind of sparked the idea of your whole existence coming together in the present moment.

HtN: That’s really fascinating. Now, you could have set this kind of story with those ideas anywhere. Why did you then choose to put this in the horse-racing world, centering on a jockey? I love your script. I’m not sure I understand a hundred percent of everything that’s happening all the time, but I found your film quite magical. Why did you set it in that world?

LO: Well, I don’t understand a hundred percent either, but I just thought I would go along with things I didn’t understand. (laughs) But what happened is I found this guy in the street and he was a drifter and he was half-dressed in drag, and then he had a purse and he also had a man’s shoe on one foot and then a high-heeled shoe on the other. He was walking into a drugstore and walking up to the scales. And when I approached him, he said, “I weigh zero. I don’t exist, but they’re following me.” And he ran away and I said, “This guy is so amazing.” And I kept on bumping into him in the city, and so I then approached him again.

I asked him if he wanted to act, and he said, “That’s a stupid job.” And he left. So then I thought I’d have to find an actor for that. And I think that day or the next day, I went to the racetrack with a friend and I saw this amazing world, and I just put that together and I thought, “OK, what happened to this guy that is obsessed with weighing himself? What happened to him is that he was a jockey and he fell from the horse.” And so I just created that past for him. And it’s so beautiful. These little guys that get on that horse. They risk their life every time they get on the horse and they look so good in their costumes. And I just put those two stories together and that’s how it happened.

HtN: I love how those random occurrences inspired you. So, you cast a really interesting actor to play that lead character—Nahuel Pérez Biscayart—and I also really likedÚrsula Corberó and Daniel Giménez Cacho. How did you cast these leads? They’re wonderful.

LO: Thanks. Well, Nahuel, I’ve known for a while. He used to be my neighbor when we were kids. And so I would see him walk around the neighborhood and he’s always been a great, great actor. He’s so good that he had to leave the country. I worked with him on another film,Lulu. And when this guy I met in the streets said he wasn’t going to act, I just thought that the only guy that could do this is Nahuel. So I just called him up and said, I’m going to write this especially for you. And I did.

And thenÚrsula,she’s the girlfriend of a friend of mine, and she kind of let me know that she wanted us to do something together. And I was really happy to hear that because she’s so powerful. And so I brought her in. She had never done anything like this, and she asked me many questions and I wasn’t sure I had the answers to any of them, but it was just kind of some faith we had in these characters in the story. And Giménez Cacho came along with my producers, who also producedZama. And I had seenMemoria, from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, where I didn’t even recognize him. The shots are from so far away, but still, I knew he was a great actor. And then there’s this actress from Chile, who is amazing. She’s one of the best: Mariana Di Girolamo. I don’t know, it just happened. Some are friends and some just came along once I got the machine going.

HtN: So, I have one other question. I haven’t seen any of your other work, I’m afraid.

LO: Keep it that way. (laughs)

HtN: (laughs) I’d like to see more. But how would you say that this film, this story, fits into the rest of your filmography? Is this a departure? Or are you building on some things? What would you recommend I see of yours after having watched this?

LO: Well, you could see my last film, it’s calledEl Angel. It kind of relates to this film, and I think that’s the one you’d probably like the most. And I don’t know, I’ve done a couple of films, but I feel I’m just starting out right now. I feel like a baby. It’s the beginning. That’s what I feel right now because it takes so much to put a film together.

HtN: Well, I hope you continue to do great work and I’m sure you will for many, many, many more years. And I look forward to watching it. Thanks for talking to me. Congratulations on the film.

LO: Thanks a lot. It was a pleasure.

– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)