Underground under Underground Film

David Castro, Ariadna Ferrer and Marina Gatell in "Maximum Shame"

There is not satisfactory definition of underground film. It is a concept with history and as Nietzsche said, we can't define a thing with history. Underground film is like pornography in the sense judge Potter Stewart defined pornography in 1964: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material to be embraced but I know it when I see it." Yes, I also know underground film when I see it. And when I make it. All my films are low budget, that's because I am a perfect useless to find out funding. Somebody says my films are experimental. I know they're are weird, but I don't make them experimental deliberately. So my films are low budget and maybe experimental, but they're not always underground. Some of my films are underground -"Maximum Shame", "Scream Queen"...- and other films are not. At least that is my feeling. For me, to make an underground movie is a voluntary decision. Am I concerned about to define exactly what it is and how it works? No, my films are what they are, period. But in the case of "Maximum Shame" I have realized today that maybe I have made a hyperunderground movie, an underground squared movie. Why?... Well, sure all of you know "Maximum Shame" is riddled with subliminal messages -visual and auditory-. I have lost count, but they are 13 or 14 inserts throughout the movie. Of course I'll not reveal them, you must find them out by yourself. If subliminal messages are a parallel narration under the main plot, then we are talking about a kind of palimpsest. An undermovie under the movie. Underground under underground. "Maximum Shame" has -according to this reasoning and to Fractal Geometry- a dimension greater than 2 but smaller than 3, like puff pastry. Think on it when you'll watch the movie.




More info about Carlos Atanes films at
www.carlosatanes.com