The Currents Director Milagros Mumenthaler on Sensory Filmmaking, Motherhood, and Capturing an Internal State

A slippery character study and staggering sensory experience, Milagros Mumenthaler’s The Currents was one of my favorite discoveries of last year’s New York Film Festival. It opens on an Argentinian designer named Lina (Isabel Aimé González Sola), who survives a leap off a bridge while visiting Switzerland, and her life is altered as the pressures of marriage, motherhood, and career weigh down on her psyche. Exploring all these topics with an elusive, subtle touch, Mumenthaler’s portrait of such a spiral rewards repeat viewings.

As Jourdain Searles said in her NYFF review, “Writer-director Milagros Mumenthaler paints an intimate portrait of a woman trying to reckon with her fractured identity, trying not to fall into the grip of madness. Mumenthaler understands that motherhood requires an element of performance that reminds the mother that her life is no longer hers alone.”

Ahead of The Currents‘ U.S. opening, I had a brief chat with the Argentinian director, who was raised in Switzerland, about crafting her TIFF and NYFF selection, being guided by emotion, what her scripts look like, the pressures of motherhood, the intricate sound design, and more.

The Film Stage: The Currents is guided by emotion more than narrative, placing the viewer in a very specific psychological headspace. Can you talk about this approach to storytelling?

Milagros Mumenthaler: Generally, I am set off by an image, a sensory image, an image charged with emotion. And so that image is the starting point, and then that image gives me the push to write. And yes: the story, the narrative, maybe comes into a second place. So in those emotional images, the story remains, the story is there, but there’s always this game, this play. There’s a play between the images and what’s being told, narrated. And then we work on linking these elements into a chain. But I would say that during the editing process, during the montage, I think these sensory images that I was telling you about, they prevail. One more thing that is also important: those emotional images, they come from a character. So that character carries those emotions, and I have that character very well thought out since the very beginning.

Milagros Mumenthaler. Photo by Sean DiSerio, courtesy of Film at Lincoln Center.

What does your script-writing process look like? Because so much of the movie is about these things you can’t put into words, per se, with striking imagery and use of close-ups. Does it look like a conventional script, or is it something that’s more expressive?

Well, like I was saying before, it’s a fusion between the narrative and the images. I would say the script is a solid, ironclad script—very conventional, very descriptive. For example, when you were talking about close-ups, yes, the size of the shot will be written out. And also, we write what sound, right? So, you know, [I write] “steps are being heard”––very, very descriptive, especially for the things that are outside the shot. So it is very important to have a very well-written script because a well-written script is what’s going to help you to get funding. It is very important to have an ironclad, very consistent, solid script. And whenever I talk to my DP or the art director or my actors, the script is the most solid tool they have to work with.

I saw the film at NYFF almost back-to-back with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and both vividly explore these pressures of motherhood and losing oneself in a certain psychological state. Have you seen that film? And were you influenced by any other work exploring these issues that often go overlooked in society?

Honestly, I did not see that movie, but yes: with The Currents, even though motherhood is not a plot line or a main [part of the film], it is there, it is present, maybe on a second [layer]. And because you have this character, and if this character were not a mother, then it would be a very different story. It is precisely the fact that she is a mother, that she has a daughter, that puts her in check. So I think the film talks about this relationship with her own mother. There is a story of abandonment from her own mother and she does not want to repeat the same with her own daughter. And there is not a single movie that I can say that it was like an inspiration; I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

But talking about motherhood for all of us who are moms, we have this lived experience that is very near and dear to us. And yes: motherhood is the greatest act of love, but at the same time it means that you are not the center anymore. You move away from the center and you take a different place. So I have seen this shift; I have noticed this difference between the people who are mothers and the people who aren’t. It’s just different. Your priorities change, and I think that this creates tension and conflict. And in the process of making this movie, it took many years—several years—and throughout that time I submerged myself; I soaked myself in literature, and especially books written by women about women. So I think there’s a huge baggage or identification—I feel identified with these stories of women and the point of view of the female writers.

The sound design is extremely important, especially in the opening, which is mostly wordless. What was your approach to the aural landscape and getting those details right to convey the character’s psychological headspace?

You know, at first I hadn’t realized that the first seven minutes of the movie go without dialogue. But since the very first shot, it’s told from Lina’s subjective point of view. The sounds are at the beginning; they’re very subtle. It’s almost like a fan going with this metallic dirt to it. Both the sound and the image are thought of like it’s her perception: what she is listening to, what she is hearing, where she chooses to pay attention both in her gaze and the way she wants to be seen. So from the very beginning, we were constantly trying to portray her subjectivity. We’re in this very old city and there are barely any sounds. And this is thought out in a way to convey her perception of this city, not the reality. If I have to imagine Lina’s internal state, I would think of an altered state. I would think there’s a storm inside of her, and it’s very noisy. So how do you portray those internal strong sensations? How do you translate that to sound?

 I’ll give you an example with the lighthouse. In the script it said, “the sound of the beam of light.” And well, how do you make that sound, because a lighthouse does not make a sound? So we worked a lot on that sound, the sound of the beam of light. How would it sound like? So I thought it should sound like a fairy tale, and that’s why we added little bells to it. And also, Lina is in this active drift state, and I think that also invites a certain play and enjoyment to it.

You were born in Argentina but raised in Switzerland, and you set the film in both places. What elements of the film may speak to viewers who know more about the history or societal constraints of those places? 

Well, you know, the Switzerland part is just a few minutes. But I think that the character going through a crisis—that’s a universal character that anyone can identify with. This character has a body, and this body speaks, and it puts her in danger. And also in Switzerland, this character lives through a very particular moment, a very extreme moment, and I think there was somewhat of a surprise [for viewers that know Switzerland] that this was shot in an old city. It was a way of portraying the old city—well, at least those were some of the comments that I got—and then in Argentina, it seems like it was more understood, or there was a bigger understanding of this huge city. I think some people identify with the oppression that Lina feels. She goes through this oppressed state. In a way it has to do with the city that she lives in—the city takes on a certain importance throughout the movie—and I think once the movie was done, I could see, especially some women, who were somewhat emotional because I think they felt seen.

The Currents opens in limited release on Friday, May 26.