"Versailles", Interview With Andrés Clariond

“Versailles”, Interview With Andrés Clariond

Eva Peydró

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In the official section of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), the Mexican film Versailles stood out, directed by Andrés Clariond, a filmmaker with a sharp scalpel who knows the inner workings of his country’s politics and society. The director finds a way to satirize and elevate his subjects of study, freezing our laughter and turning localism into a universal archetype.

In Versailles, the fall of a politician becomes the starting point for a drift as absurd as it is unsettling. After seeing his aspirations to the Mexican presidency thwarted, Chema and his Spanish wife Carmina withdraw to a rural hacienda where defeat soon turns into fantasy: they decide to proclaim themselves monarchs of an imaginary kingdom, turn the household staff into courtiers, and unfold an increasingly extravagant ceremonial. What begins as escapism takes on delusional overtones, with capricious rituals, arbitrary punishments, and a grotesque reconstruction of power filled with symbolism.

What happens when power ceases to be an institutional practice and becomes a boundless fantasy?

The film engages with political satire and dark humor, reinterpreting the excesses of the French aristocracy through the lens of contemporary politics. Its strength lies both in its irony and visual stylization, as well as in the performances of Cuauhtli Jiménez (Finlandia, 2021) and Maggie Civantos, who embody a relationship marked by ambition, manipulation, and a progressive rupture from reality. From within this distorted universe, Versailles poses a central question: what happens when power ceases to be an institutional practice and becomes a boundless fantasy?

Versalles Versailles

World Premiere

We met Andrés Clariond in Tallinn, where he arrived for the interview with a broad smile, fresh from his film’s sold-out screening at the festival and an audience reception inversely proportional to the Estonian cold. The screening of Versaillesmarked its world premiere, and the director confessed his unease beforehand about presenting it to a Baltic audience: “I was nervous because there was a lot of expectation, since it’s a film that touches on universal themes but also has very Mexican elements, and coming to such a distant country, with such an unfamiliar culture… who knows how they would react. And on top of that, we screened it in the main hall, completely full, sold out. But the reactions were very good. It’s a comedy that provokes uncomfortable laughter. It’s not a laugh-out-loud film, but there was a lot of uncomfortable laughter, a lot of interest; people stayed for a long time for the Q&A. According to the moderator, he had never seen the audience react so much — that’s an excellent sign.”

Politics and Society

Clariond has written all his films, although in Versailles he worked for the first time with a co-writer (Alo Valenzuela). In his previous works, the director had already allowed some of the themes explored here to surface. For example, in the award-winning Hilda (2014), he offered a study of the relationship between maids and their employers, and he confirms it himself: “Growing up in Mexico, the subject of social classes always caught my attention, especially coming from a privileged life and seeing that from childhood. I grew up in a very conservative society, I went to a Catholic school. This very right-wing worldview always shocked me and left me with a strong desire to be transgressive and to mock all of it. In a Catholic school there are many things you cannot say, and they were extremely right-wing, even worse. So I always had this urge to break limits, and that translates into my filmmaking.”

The world of politics is not unfamiliar to the Mexican director, as he is also an editorial columnist for Reforma. “I’ve spent many years analyzing politicians, writing about politics, and I was interested in talking about that period when they are no longer in power, which I find very compelling. Because if I put myself in their shoes and imagine that for so many years they receive an almost royal treatment — surrounded by flatterers, everything solved for them, living like a king — then returning to a normal life must be incredibly hard. And I wanted to explore that; it was my curiosity.”

Versalles Versailles

The excesses to which the protagonist ultimately surrenders suggest that a lack of empathy, ambition, and a capacity for hypocrisy must be embedded in the DNA of a professional politician. “Without generalizing, since I know people who genuinely try to do good in politics, I would say that yes, it’s an environment prone to that kind of vice. I think power distorts people, and that human need for applause and recognition never disappears. We have all of that here, which is why I believe anyone can identify with the film — even if it deals with political themes, it speaks about very universal issues.”

Satire and Dark Humor

Clariond employs satire with surreal undertones, but also draws heavily on symbolism — the most obvious being the crown, which reminds us that we all want the same thing, and that we only need the opportunity to behave in ways we believe we never would. “It was entirely deliberate — the temptation of power,” he confirms. “Here it’s taken to an extreme. But yes, I do think we don’t really know how we would react in that situation.” In the scene where Chema shows off his new royal accessory, we witness two contrasting reactions: the visiting mayor feels the urge to crown himself, while the politician’s assistant hesitates at the door but, without being asked, bows. It couldn’t be more illustrative: you are either aspirational or servile. In a republican country like Mexico, the scene is even more telling: “And mind you, we don’t have the display of power or direct experience with royalty. But there is this aura surrounding public figures and politicians. On one hand they are hated, and on the other they are admired for being powerful, and in many cases wealthy. Right now, in my state we have a very young couple in government, obsessed with social media, and he posts shirtless workout videos every day. And they’re very popular — but not because of their policies, rather because they’re attractive, wealthy, and famous.”

That veneration usually lasts only until the inevitable fall from grace: “Yes, exactly. There are many people who secretly wish to be in that position; they would behave just like the politician they criticize. Once they got there, they would do the same.” But the ending of Versailles is far more realistic than a march to the guillotine: “In Mexico, every day there are scandals — corruption, millions stolen — and the next day everything moves on, no one says anything, nothing happens.”

The symbols used by the screenwriters transport us to the realm of the subconscious, to the fusion of religion and state, to the ancestral need to venerate relics, but they also represent the impossibility of communication — the maddening solitude at the top. “The rabbit Chema adopts takes us back to still life painting, to the era of castles and royalty, but above all it was a device that allowed him to open up to someone, so we could get to know him a bit more. Because he is such a hermetic character, and since he doesn’t communicate within his relationship, we needed something like that. And we came up with the idea that it was like a baby. And when he tells her, ‘well, he’s like your child,’ she replies, ‘no, the rabbit is not going to be my child.’”

Delusion and Realism

Clariond portrays the frustrated politician’s fantasies without restraint — but did he impose any limits on himself? “Well, I go all in. I enjoy it a lot, and I also enjoy being politically incorrect, because you know nowadays you have to be very careful with that. And I just let myself go. What I do like, however, is to set up realistic scenarios that gradually fall apart and drift into the absurd. Because what I really don’t want is for someone to watch the film and say it’s pure fantasy; rather, I want them to watch it and think, this could happen — it’s insane, but it could happen.”

Andrés Clariond. Photo: Mia Tohver (29 PÖFF).

In the film, the main couple cannot have children, but they take the foreman’s daughter and change her name — and this is not entirely fantastical: “Well, this couple I mentioned from my state take orphaned babies out of the institution for social media, to photograph themselves with them. Yes, the situation is so crazy that anything is possible.” Chema’s wife is Spanish, and through this choice Clariond was also able to express something more: “That was important too, because it was a way of addressing the wound Mexicans still carry regarding the conquest. And this character who, despite having suffered racism, has chosen a woman with Western beauty, reveals a very strong contradiction. He grew up in a culture that values that, and he sees himself as a winner for having his blonde, green-eyed Western princess. She is like a trophy.”

The excess of golds, moldings and baroque decoration reminds us that Chema is not entirely a fictional character, and that his attitude feels uncomfortably familiar — we cannot help but think of the redesign of the Oval Office recently unveiled by Trump: “I think all politicians dream of that grandeur, of palaces. Deep down in their fantasies, they imagine themselves as kings. I don’t think they can help it.”

Europe and America

Versailles portrays a gradual process of loss that begins when the governor is pushed out of the presidential race, and the director depicts it through unforgettable scenes, such as the baptism of the foreman’s baby. “It’s a descent into madness,” he confirms, “in a very perverse way. But yes, I think all this pretending to be kings is their way of satisfying a need they can no longer fulfill. And above all, it’s her way of reminding him how much he likes power, to get him back on track.”

The romanticization of poverty is also present, turning the household staff into *tableaux vivants* for Carmina’s camera: “That was also a very important point, because this is something very common among Europeans toward Latin America — they sometimes see us almost like exotic little animals. When I made my first film, which was about an upper-class family and so on, people in Europe would ask me, ‘But where is Mexico here?’ They wanted the rawness. ‘And where is the pain and the killings and the drug traffickers?’…”

Something similar happened in reverse with Emilia Pérez in Mexico, didn’t it? “Yes, it was very, very, very controversial. Whenever a foreigner comes and holds up a mirror to you… well, the same thing happened with Buñuel and Los olvidados (1950). You know they hated it in Mexico, they wanted to censor it, and then it won Best Director in Cannes and they backed off.”

The staging in Versailles is highly expressive; the framing is never arbitrary. “Yes, I worked closely with the cinematographer. We made a shot list, and we also chose this format that isn’t very common — instead of being wider, it’s taller — so that everything would appear enormous: beautiful, grand, the hacienda big, everything big. And we gave it this color palette reminiscent of a period film, very contrasted, very intense.”

The Actors of Versailles

Regarding the casting process, Clariond explains what led him to choose his protagonists: “Well, for the character of Chema I watched actors who fit the type I was looking for. First on video — I probably saw about ten — and then I brought two of them in for a callback so I could see them in person and direct them. I chose Cuauhtli Jiménez because he delivered an interpretation with vulnerability. Often, when you tell someone ‘play a politician’, they go straight to the cliché of the powerful, loud figure. But he went in a more vulnerable direction, and I really liked that.”

As for Maggie Civantos: “I considered a few options, not through casting but through interviews. And one day, while I was on the treadmill, an ad for the series *Express* popped up, and Maggie was in it. I thought, ‘Oh, this actress could work.’ So I went on to watch all her work and I really liked it, and I spoke with her and she got excited. And for all the other characters we also held casting sessions. It’s interesting because the supporting actors — the people who work on the estate, the domestic staff — are actors from my city, that northern city I mentioned to you. They are theatre actors, and this is their first film, so I feel very proud.”

We say goodbye to the Mexican director talking about his next project, which is not yet decided. He admits he is weighing several possibilities: “I don’t have anything concrete, I want to follow more of a tone. I love dark humor, I’m fascinated by it, it’s what I enjoy the most. Maybe I’ll go for something lighter, not so much torment — I’ve had enough tormented characters already.” As for the reaction to his film when it premieres in Mexico, he doesn’t expect moderation: “Oh, well, it’s going to be intense, because we are very politicized and very polarized there. It’s a subject people care deeply about; I have high expectations for the reaction back home.”