'The Consul of Sodom', immersive atmosphere in Super 16mm

With photography by José David Montero, Sigfrid Monleón's new film was shot in Super 16mm with Kodak Vision film. For filming in Spain, EPC supplied the Arriflex 416 Plus with ARRI/Zeiss Ultra 16 optics and a set of Ultra Primes, among other camera material such as the Angenieux Optimo 15-40 zoom or the ARRIflex 16 SR3.

The controversial The Consul of Sodoma, and one of the most anticipated first releases of the year, presents on screen in all naturalness and rawness the life of the poet Jaime Gil de Biedma (1929-1990), a key member of the Generation of '50. Under the direction of Sigfrid Monleón, José David Montero has been at the forefront of photography, counting for The EPC Sensor some details of his work in this film inspired by the biography that Miguel Dalmau wrote about the poet.

The Consul of Sodom It was filmed during February, March and April of last year, eight weeks in locations in Barcelona and Madrid and then continued two intensive weeks in the Philippines, in Manila. It was shot in Super 16mm with Kodak Vision film and EPC supplied the ARRIflex 416 Plus with ARRI/Zeiss Ultra 16 optics and a set of Ultra Prime for filming in Spain, among other camera material such as Angenieux Optimo 15-40 zoom or the ARRIflex 16 SR3.

“The Consul of Sodom It is inspired by a biography but it is also a classic melodrama," says director of photography José David Montero. "We had a film that takes place mainly in the 60s but the director wanted to distance it in time and have an aesthetic with a certain 'camp' air. That aestheticism of the 60s films, very 'kitsch', although not taken to the extreme. We also saw some Fassbinder films that had that feel. Classic Hollywood melodramas were the reference, even older ones like those of Josef von Sternberg, Douglas Sirk, Stahl... In fact, some of these films are named in The Consul of Sodom," he comments.

With these visual references, the logical option was filming on film and they chose Super 16mm format. “The director wanted to make the grain of the cinematographic emulsion evident and shoot with that texture that Super 16 gives you. In addition, we built special filters with women's tights to give an aged texture,” says José David Montero. “We filmed the old way,” he adds, and jokes, “even the director said 'let's put Montiel's stocking.'”

To finish creating that dreamlike atmosphere they were after, they chose very sharp lenses such as the Ultra Prime and the Arri/Zeiss Ultra 16, which compensated for the lack of definition caused by using the medium, says the director of photography. “This way we achieved a texture that looked very well defined and at the same time was old texture, which was what the director wanted.”

Surround camera

Regarding the use of the camera, the entire film is set on a small crane with minimal movements. "The film is quite classic in the sense that the camera movements accompany the characters without stridency. There are few emphatic movements, they are very soft," explains José David Montero to EPC's El Sensor, who also worked with a shallow depth of field to focus more on the characters than on the settings in which the story takes place.

The entire film was shot with the ARRIflex 416 Plus in Spain, except for one day when they also used the ARRIflex SR3 as support. "The 416 Plus is a very good camera. Since we had many locations and we were filming in natural spaces, we had to be very fast, and the Super 16 facilitates that agility when filming." The two weeks in Manila, which involved a bigger effort to make the most of the time, used the SR3. “In the Philippines they hardly shoot in S16, and in the end they got an SR3 that came from China, but we used the same optics,” says José David Montero.

José David Montero recognizes his predilection for the "final shot of the film but I don't want to spoil it. It defines quite well the theatrical aesthetic that Sigfrid Monleón wanted both for the staging and for the performance. It is a very long three-minute shot, in tracking shot, that ends with a close-up of Jordi Mollà. This last scene is a bit of a summary of the film and is very representative of the intention of the camera and the light. I'll stick with that image."