Production designer Eugenio Caballero, who finally read the script
two weeks aer shooting started, was enormously helpful to the
location team. "I didn't know the film's story," he says, "but this
was part of a game we decided to play with Alfonso. He said, 'I
don't want to show you the script. I don't want to talk about sto-
ries. I want to talk about the subjects we're trying to show. It's
not about what happens with the actors and their characters. It's
about what are we trying to tell in a social and political context.
It's about the classes, about a family that breaks, about loneli-
ness, about the condition of women in Mexico City at the time.
There were a lot of things we tried to convey. I tried to pass all
the information to Horacio. 'This is what I know. We need a street,
and on this street we have to have a house and we'll talk about
these subjects.'
"I tried to translate that to a visual code. Although I had no
script, I had a lot of time to talk to my director. That was the way
we got the locations we wanted. It was a very interesting process.
It was problematic for all of us, but because I had a director and
crew I trusted, it was okay. From the very beginning, I trusted that
Horacio would deliver."
All
photos
courtesy
of
Netflix,
except
as
noted.