BEAUTY

There are those who seek power, others money, some fame, but there are also those who sustain their daily lives by beauty. There is a delicacy of spirit that has nothing to do with social condition, age or circumstance and that finds its motivation for life in beauty.

This film could have been a crude portrait of Mexican reality and the hard lives of those on the fringes of society. But I always felt that neither Homero nor Mei would see their own lives in that way. They certainly felt that they no longer belonged to the world as they had known it; and that they had been displaced and overrun by circumstances. But I was always sure that somewhere within them there survived a delicacy of spirit that would lead them to find their way because for souls like theirs, life does not pass them by nor lies somewhere else, but lies within them.

I firmly believe the world would be better if we all had a little more delicacy of soul and greater beauty of vision.


BLINDNESS

It was not easy to live for three years around blindness. As a child I often pretended that that I had lost my sight. I walked around my home with my eyes closed memorizing walls, steps, my clothes in the closet. I practiced pouring water without it overflowing the glass. I trained my fingers touch with grains of sugar. To this day I can’t see a text in Braille without running my fingers across it trying to understand what my sense of touch is trying to tell me. Curiously, I became a photographer and thereby privileged sight over my other senses.

In writing and preparing this story, I read many books by and about the blind. I realized how heavily the weight of sight lies on contemporary society. Our daily conversation is loaded with its metaphors: see you on the weekend; she looks great; let’s take a look at your problem; you always have to look ahead; he was blinded by rage; love is blind.
“How does the price look to you,” says Nazario to Homero. “ I can’t see, Nazario, but it seems to me like a lot of money, ” answers Homero.

An athlete with acquired blindness told me “My soul is more at peace since I lost my sight.” How many images are really worth seeing?, I ask myself. If I could choose only one image, what would I choose? What would you?


SHOOTING IN QUERÉTARO

I love the desert. Its solitude. Its silence. And I also love trains. I went to Tequisquiapan for the first time twenty years ago to see my friend of a lifetime. I fell in love with the Bernal train station and the Querétaro desert. In the afternoon we would take our sons to wait for the train to go by. We waved to the conductor as if he were old friend departing.
Looking at the railroad tracks, it occurred to me that trains are the only means of transportation whose destination is clearly defined: their route cannot be changed. One gets where one is supposed to be going and nowhere else. Is life like that? Do we really have options, or is it all clearly laid out for each one of us?