Tilda Swinton (London, 1960) is not exactly an actress of this world. Her bare skin and eyelash-less eyes, her exquisite manners from another time, and her BBC diction seem to respond to a strange algorithm against all algorithms. The most diva of all anti-divas. The highest perfection among all that never aspired or wanted to be perfect. It was only a matter of time before Tilda Swinton, in her unsurpassable contradiction, met the most universal of Manchego directors, also a paradox of improbable explanation in his own way. How is it possible that such a peculiar, distant, and quixotically uncertain place like La Mancha is understood so well both in New York and Tokyo? It was just a matter of time, we said, that alongside Pedro Almodóvar, Swinton would declaim her particular version of Jean Cocteau's monologue The Human Voice, which obsesses the director so much, and that, over the years, they would end up filming a movie side by side about accompanied loneliness, about life facing death, and, as the film itself insists, about the agony of a woman in a world that is agonizing. Contradiction for contradiction, The Room Next Door.
Swinton explains, she does it in Venice where the film was awarded the Golden Lion, that Almodóvar's work leads her to that of Derek Jarman, with whom she filmed in the 90s Blue, or Edward II, or Wittgenstein. "Both are brave and honest artists who look life in the face, who refuse to turn their heads away," she says, takes a moment, and continues: "But above all, this film touches me deeply because it takes me back to Derek's death. He fell ill with AIDS in '89 and I was, throughout his agony, the person who was by his side, in the room next door. The only difference is that, unlike what happens in fiction, his was a brutal and very slow death. He went blind and, despite that, he refused to give up. He kept working. Precisely during the filming of Blue, he lost his sight." And having said that, she recalls that it was precisely with Jarman that she saw Almodóvar's first film. The circle closes.
Tilda Swinton has made her life a continuous exploration and laughs if her fondness for collecting directors is remembered. "There is a group of filmmakers with whom I feel much more than just an actress. I consider them part of my family, they are my brothers or sisters," she says, mentioning Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, Wes Anderson, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Bong Joon-ho, George Miller... Without geographical limits, from Korea to Italy passing through Thailand, Colombia, the United States, Australia, or now Spain, the world of contemporary fiction belongs to her. She says that what turned her into an actress was her grandmother. Her grandmother didn't just read stories, she recreated them, invented them, "recounted" them. "More than just reading, she made you feel the stories. She put curtains in the rooms that the author had left undecorated, changed the voices of the characters, and colored the air of the forests at her whim. Then you read alone the same book that she had just performed, and it was no longer the same. It was something else. The secret was the way of narrating, the narration itself." And we believe her. If only for the vehemence.
In The Room Next Door, she is the one who leaves, who decides to die. And that leads her to an almost obligatory reflection on the condition of the sick, of the cancer patient who knows they are at the edge of all abysses. "There is a widespread idea that practically makes the cancer patient, unintentionally, responsible for their illness. It is the notion that says that it is the fault of bad luck or lack of intelligence to fall ill. And that maintains that you have to be a fighter to win the battle. I find it a very harmful idea, as well as very disrespectful and cruel. Almost sadistic," she comments.
Tilda Swinton is convinced that there is nothing personal that is not also political. "I believe, with Raymond Williams, that we are all alone. Each of us is inevitably alone. And what can we do with that loneliness beyond trying to find connection and be witnesses to each other in our loneliness?" she wonders in a tongue-twister as desperate as that of her character in the film. "The only thing we can do is tell the person suffering next to us something as simple as 'I will be your friend'; 'I will be your witness'; 'I will support you when I can, but I will stay aside when you don't need me'," she states, takes a moment, and continues: "In reality, this is the situation we are all in right now in the world. We are in the room next door to each other, we are in the room next door to the people suffering in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Jerusalem, in Syria, or in Yemen. All we have to do is listen, look, hear, be witnesses, and not look away."
Swinton is convinced that only art saves us, that only the ability to tell each other stories relieves us of the irrevocable loneliness she often mentions. She learned this conviction as a child, from her grandmother, and with the advantage she openly acknowledges, that she had from birth. "I had the privilege of meeting Nigel Nicolson, the son of Vita Sackville-West, the novelist and lover of Virginia Woolf. He told me that when he was a child, the latter would ask him what he had done every time he came home. Nigel would tell her, as children do, more or less about the most everyday things. But Virginia Woolf made him be precise. Which side were you lying on when you got out of bed? What was the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes? What came to your mind? What was the first smell? She taught him to pay attention, to notice the details, to build his own life. And I think that is the meaning," she recalls with the same precision Woolf demanded.
Tilda Swinton says she enjoyed the Madrid neighborhood of Chueca during the filming of the movie. She confesses that something of the Movida madrileña was what she herself experienced in 90s London alongside her unforgettable Derek; that Derek is Pedro; and that both, along with Pasolini himself, share the will and desire to extract the stories of everyone from marginality. And there, contradictory and happy, earthly and transparent, she leaves it. Tilda Swinton is not exactly of this world.
"I imagine it is the capitalist system itself that, truth be told, has done a great job. Its success has been in convincing us that we are alone and that we must continue this way. The only remedy and solace it offers us is consumption. Capitalism wants us isolated from each other and only focused on consuming more and more. Accompanying the suffering of others is the only way to break this cycle."
Swinton is convinced that only art saves us, that only the ability to tell each other stories relieves us from the irrevocable loneliness she often mentions. This conviction came to her as a child, with her grandmother, and with her privileged position, which she does not hide, having lived in it since birth. "I had the privilege of meeting Nigel Nicolson, the son of Vita Sackville-West, the novelist and lover of Virginia Woolf. He told me that when he was a child, Woolf would ask him what he had done each time she came home. Nigel would tell her in the way children do, more or less about the most everyday things. But Virginia Woolf would make him be precise. Which side of the bed were you lying on when you woke up? What was the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes? What came to your mind? What was the first smell? She taught him to pay attention, to notice the details, to build his own life. And I think that is the essence," she recalls with the same precision Woolf demanded. Tilda Swinton says she enjoyed the Madrid neighborhood of Chueca during the filming of the movie. She confesses that she experienced something of the Madrid Movida that she herself lived in 90s London alongside her unforgettable Derek; that Derek is Pedro; and that both share with Pasolini himself the will and desire to rescue everyone's stories from marginality. And there, contradictory and happy, earthly and transparent, she leaves it. Tilda Swinton is not exactly from this world.