Death is a really hard topic for all of us to grasp. Often it’s understandably met with trepidation, repulsion, and obvious sorrow. However, cinematographer Nico Aguilar is an expert in finding and capturing the beauty in death. His film, The Monkey, written and directed by Longlegs auteur, Osgood Perkins, is one such film that tackles the difficult subject matter of death with some dark levity, and, oddly enough thanks to Aguilar, a surprising amount of beauty and depth.
The Monkey is an insane film, in all the right ways. The grotesque ways in which random victims are dispatched of are ridiculously over-the-top and gratuitously, gleefully sadistic. However beneath the buckets of blood lies a story that’s really about death, grief, family, and trauma. It’s apparent in every shot and and every bit of twisted imagery. This is thanks to Aguilar, whose photography manages to subtly capture the beauty and the horror in death and violence. And we were lucky enough to chat with him about his work in the film and through his career. Here’s what he had to say:
NOC: I love this bats**t crazy movie. And part of that is the amazing camera work. So congratulations.
AGUILAR: Aww thanks so much for saying that! That means a lot!
Absolutely! So I have to ask, 10 years ago you worked on a short film called “Mr. Bananas,” which coincidentally also dealt with a toy monkey and weird happenings around that. So working on The Monkey, did you ever think about the serendipity behind that?
AGUILAR: Wow! I have no idea how you dug this up! But you’re totally right! And we actually have a scene that’s almost exactly the same. In the short, the kid goes into a garage, and grabs tools to destroy the monkey. Do you remember that? And we have that in this movie too! The kid goes into the garage, puts it under the greenlight… it’s insane how that works! To be honest with you, no. There’s no relation between those projects whatsoever. Oz doesn’t even know that I shot “Mr. Bananas.” I didn’t even tell him I had experience with a toy monkey, which in retrospect, might have helped in getting this job. But yeah! That is just one of those things about life that is just so crazy! And to be honest with you, this has happened before. I’ve done projects where there are these crazy sort of connections between life and the projects, or other projects that have been done in this project, and they have nothing to do with each other, but they just happen. And everytime that happens to me, it feels like it’s a breadcrumb that life is putting down to lead me to the next project. It’s kind of crazy. And I’m glad you brought this up!
I love that! I’ll admit I didn’t see the short until after I’d seen The Monkey, but when I saw the short I thought the garage scene was evocative of what we saw in Oz’s movie. So that’s nuts!
It is crazy! I can’t believe it honestly. I’m glad you mentioned it and I’m impressed you dug it up!
Completely bananas! So one of the things I love about the movie is that, yeah it’s a great time, and a lot of fun, but it’s also got a lot of depth to it. And at it’s core it’s really about life and death. And interestingly enough the last film you also shot, Pedro Páramo, also played with those concepts of life and death, but in a completely different way. So going from one film to another, can you talk about the differences in how you capture death between two incredibly different movies that approach the subject matter in vastly different ways?
First off all, kudos to you because you’re extremely well researched and prepared for this interview. The second thing is they are very different but they both deal with the emotional component of death. Our relationship with death. And in one movie Pedro Páramo, it’s a very spiritual approach to death. While in this movie, it’s a much more lighthearted approach to death. So to me… I wasn’t so much thinking about the philosophy of death so much when I was shooting, It was more about making sure the story was being told in a way that facilitated that philosophy. And that always just comes down to making sure you’re communicating the story. What’s on the page. So that was my MO. I understood what each filmmaker wanted to say about death. But my responsibility was to make sure that on the day-to-day each page was being communicated appropriately so that the philosophy could come through behind it. And of course, I have my own relationship to that too. To me The Monkey was a metaphor for loss, death, anxiety, and all these things that, when I’m lighting and shooting scenes, I’m putting my emotional expressionism on to the image. And that will affect how the image feels, and in turn how the monkey and death will feel.
You managed to make a toy monkey look so, so intimidating. It’s so brilliantly done. But there’s also something beautiful about your work. It’s impossible to tell this story without bringing some of the lightheartedness and beauty into the idea of death. So, with a subject as tough, difficult, and ugly as death how do you manage to capture the beauty in it?
I think that there’s always beauty in death. And I remember back to the pre-Hispanic/Aztec relationship of death in Mexico, where I grew up. And that’s always something that’s celebrated in Mexican culture. So the idea of celebrating death wasn’t foreign to me. And I always wanted the imagery to be about the emotional journey about the characters. So when their mom’s alive, the images are much warmer. We’re using these 1970s spherical lenses. After she dies and they become adults, I go cooler with the image and change to anamorphic lenses. To show that the monkey has affected their world and their minds, and death and trauma have affected how they perceive the world. So that was one idea that Oz and I produced together to show how death has affected the world. And then when the movie ends, we change lenses one more time. It’s anamorphic, but it’s modern anamorphic lenses. To show that yes, the world has been affected by the monkey, but they’ve made peace with it. So we’re using the camera and lenses in a very purposeful way and expressionistic way to show the effect of the monkey, trauma, and death, while also making the images breathe and evolve in an interesting way for the audience. And lighting too. Lighting was always done in a way that made it feel engaging, not for the sake of being engaging, but for the sake of supporting the story. Every light in the film was chosen because of what the scene needed. And of course they have to accentuate the color palate, so that the film feels interesting all the time, and feels expressionistic, but always on the basis of what’s on the page.
Well you made me something see something beautiful in a movie filled with so much blood and gore. But I caught all of that and I know audiences will too! Nico, thank you so much for your time!
The Monkey is now playing in theaters!
