100 Days of Loneliness (2018) - full transcript

Without any previous experience José Díaz

has filmed all the images in this
documentary with a drone and five cameras.

Except the farewell and the reunion with his
family and those with Pepín and Enedina.

Filming maintained a deep and absolute
respect for animals and nature.

All the animals filmed live in freedom.

I'm losing my voice.

I've been here
for 93 days in seclusion.

I came to escape
from the frenzy of the city,

longing to pay tribute
to these mountains.

To be reunited in some way
with my brother Tino,

who left us years ago,



and who brought me here
for the first time.

If nothing too serious prevents me,

I shall complete
the challenge I took up:

to spend 100 days in absolute solitude,

far from the convulsed world
of civilisation.

ONE HUNDRED DAYS
OF SOLITUDE

I'll see you soon.

No crying.

-Don't cry, please.
-No.

Right...

See you in 100 days, guys.

I've just got to the cabin,

it's 10:22 p.m.

I've just said goodbye
to Mari José and the kids...



God, that was so hard.

I know I chose to do this, but...

now I think about it,

we'll see if I'm capable

of overcoming this challenge.

Saying goodbye was very emotional.
Very emotional.

I didn't expect it to be so emotional.

One hundred days without my wife and kids.

Bloody hell!

Perhaps...

one of the hardest parts

of this 100-day challenge is this part:

not having any help

to carry all this gear.

I've been told that in similar cases

there'd be one person to carry the tripod.

And here I am with the tripod,

a zoom lens,

a 500, the camera in my rucksack,

binoculars, two batteries,
which weigh as much as a car battery,

two pints of water, food, clothes...

God, I need a rest!

We're almost there now.

I'll speak more quietly from here onwards

just in case.

It's incredible,

the smell of musk.

It's a chemical that deer secrete

through glands that they have
near to their horns.

They mark their territory
and the smell is so overpowering.

A good sign.

There it is.

It saddens me to see
how there are fewer deer each year.

To realise
how the bellowing wanes each year.

The decline of this secret ritual

in which their majestic bellowing
takes over the forest.

I've been coming here
since I was a teenager,

never missing a single year.

Not even when my brother Tino died.

With him in my memories,
I traversed the Parque de Redes,

I learned to tame my impatience

and to love this forest land.

To take the time necessary

to appreciate how the seasons change.

How the bees understand
the chestnuts in flower,

how to follow the trail of the deer
between the bushes

or how the fog shrouds these valleys
on September afternoons.

As expected, it has gone dark.

Right...

The last few steps...

We're here!

We're here.

I made it.

Bloody hell!

Shit!

Christ!

My head hurts!

Atila!

Here, boy!

Come 'ere, beauty.

Atila,

look what I've brought.

Come here.

Look.

Here, have this.

Here, Atila.

Here, look.

Come here.
Come here, beauty.

Look, Atila, look.

Who's here, Atila?

Who has come to see you?
Atilina, who is here to see you?

You don't like the light, do you?

Don't you like the light?

You can see us in the dark.

Bloody hell!
Look at the treetops.

My greenhouse is going to get wrecked.

Let's see if the baby chick has been born.
Get up.

Look, look at its little head.

Look.

Get up.

Get up so I can show its head.

For goodness sake.

How can it get under there?

The cold, silence and solitude

are conditions that will be
more valuable than gold in the future.

In this wonderful spot in Asturias

in the Redes biosphere reserve,

I can experience them,

continue to feed my soul
and grow as a person.

Here lies one of the pillars
that sustains my happiness.

As said by the author of Walden,
my favourite book,

"I went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately,

to front
only the essential facts of life,

and see if I could not learn
what it had to teach,

and not, when I came to die,

discover that I had not lived."

I've always wanted to fly.

I've brought a small drone
to see from where the birds see me.

From up above, I see myself life-size...

insignificant.

That feeling helps me to rid myself
of what I've accumulated in the city.

To not miss anything almost.

If we observe from the sky,

everything that humans do in the cities,

running from one place to another,

will seem absurd
to anyone except ourselves.

However, here in the mountains,

everything makes sense on its own.

At any distance,

without the need for anyone to see it.

That is why,
on seeing it from the skies,

I can lose myself within the forest
with no need for any explanation.

Each tree,

each rock or each stream
is self-explanatory,

they compose a symphony
to which I have nothing more to add.

Come on, come on, come on!

Come on, come on!

Come on, dammit.
You'll be flying about in no time.

God!

Poor bloody thing!

I need another stick.
Another stick.

Please, come out, dammit.

Please. Bloody hell.

It can't be, it can't be.
I need to get it out, dammit.

It's driving me mad.

The hens...

The hens are terrified.

They've been out all day,

and whilst I was doing
a bit of work on the wooden fence

a falcon flew over
and it was a miracle it didn't catch them.

They were cheeping, I couldn't find them,
they were hiding.

I had to fetch them one by one.
They're here now

but I can't put them in the henhouse
because their main predator is in there.

So I have to wait
for the Pine Marten to wake up,

to flutter about madly inside,
open up so she can fly out,

and get the hens in
without her catching any.

And now the hen gets on my tripod.

Where are you going?

Get off. Get down.

Hang on, champ.

Once I get the Pine Marten out,
I'll come and collect you, one by one.

Come on, man!

Come on, the gate is open.

Come on, dammit! Come on!

Get out!

Come on, man!

Come on, the gate is open.

Come on, get out!

Losing the hens at this point,

with 70 days still to go...

What sharp teeth you've got!

Well,

I'm going to a different valley today,
to the Felguerina Valley.

I'll go along the top part,
along the Bamba track,

and make my way down
and come back by Infiesta.

I should do it in seven or eight hours.

There's a really lovely forest I can film.

By the way,
I caught the Pine Marten with the trap.

And in the end,
I let her go, some distance from here.

So, I hope she won't come back.
I hope.

Right... I'm going to switch off.

I'm not really in the mood,
but I'll make the most of this windy day.

It's odd,
it hasn't stopped in four or five days.

And nights.

I'm going to dig up the potatoes.

Well, I'll give it three or four hours,
as much time as I can...

What a drag, having to dig up potatoes!

Digging up the first batch was great.

It was warm, I had a t-shirt on...

But now...

Look, here comes Atila.
Coming back from the vegetable garden.

Tili!

I'm going to dig up
the last of the potatoes.

And weighing eleven stone...

José Díaz, the guy from the forest.

This looks like a boxing ring.

Every time I come in here,
it's like I'm going into a boxing match.

The three ropes...

Look, all that has grown
is the cabbage and the cauliflower,

they're growing. The rest have died off.

Right, let's get going.

What? Do you want some more?

Here, have a big one.

There'll be none left for me, dammit.
I don't eat barley.

Right, we're here. We made it.

We've got company back there.

Beautiful horses, and the little hut.

Well done, Atila, you're a champion.

I'll take all that weight off him.
He hasn't stopped one minute.

Nature takes control of the camera

just as the weeds take over the tracks
which are no longer used.

Or the sadly abandoned huts.

I'd like to offer the camera
to the mountains and sky

for them to talk as they please.

And pick it up later
and find myself here

looking at myself in the pictures
I haven't taken.

Artur and Consuelo,

Pelayo, Osita, Juanín, Onorina,

Salvador and Celia,

Manolo,

Oliva, Bienvenido,

Humberto...

How these places yearn for you!

It's terribly cold.

I need the exterior world less and less.

I could feed my family
with the fruits of the forest.

On Mondays,
I walk down the valley to a hut

where I leave things for them
and friends in the village.

Then I climb a distant hill
to wait for my son to collect the honey,

the eggs, the potatoes,
or the camera memory cards.

When I hear the rumble of his car
fading in the distance

I walk down again,
hoping he may have left a letter.

I left instalment number six, I think,
about five or six hours ago.

The hard disk...

letters...

and...

A letter from my wife!

I can smell it.
It's incredible how smells carry you...

It's clear that day-by-day

relationships grow cold.

I'm not saying you stop loving less,

I mean, they're with you. Not at all.

I love my children
and my wife more and more each day.

But...

To notice...
To realise how close you are to them,

you have to get away from time to time,
for sure.

That's what I drew most from these...
from this period of solitude.

Knowing what I have at home.

Who my children are...

And I must apologise but...

I'm going to read my wife's letter
in total privacy.

I might get emotional.

Lord, what a nice smell...

I'm approaching the tawny owl.

Look, it's trying to move away,
to see me better. Let's see.

This ship is sinking.

I'm pissed off.
I've been here an hour,

I'm more or less covered
but there's a drip from this twig

I put here to keep the umbrella open

and the options are: getting drenched

or collecting each drip on my finger
and flicking it off.

I've been at it an hour,
a thousand drips maybe.

The more it rains, the more it drips.

Look, it's... This is a disaster.

I don't want to move,
because if I move, I'll get soaked.

And I'm hoping it will stop soon
and some animal will come out.

I'm optimistic by nature.

God, how pretty nature is!

A heap of surprises!

How many afternoons
and twilights I would see!

And the one today...

You never see something surprisingly
pretty that isn't surmountable.

You don't know where the limit is.

You get to recognise to perfection

the animals' footsteps by their sound.

Whilst here, when I start to hear

some animal draw near,
how it walks, the noise it makes,

I can tell whether it's a wild boar,
a stag, a roe deer or a chamois.

The last two are hard to tell apart

but you can tell the difference
between the others.

Christ, it's so cold!

My feet are freezing, absolutely freezing.

I keep moving them but they're frozen.

We'll see if the wild boar come.
Dammit!

When the night falls,
my whole body aches.

I'm overcome with exhaustion.

The icy showers repair my worn muscles

and they bring me back to life.

This pleasurable sensation
helps me forget about what's truly hard,

the solitude and the isolation.

When nostalgia overwhelms me,

I read the letters from my loved ones,
over and again,

which give me energy
and courage to continue.

The day I collect them
from the exchange point,

I keep them until nightfall,

like the stories of a parent
when putting a child to bed.

I always think...

Well, I always think... I often think

about whether I'll be who I ought to be,

whether I'm a good person,

and in the end,

I don't know, I think the answer lies

in how life treats me,
in how I get on in life.

Life couldn't be better.

My own health and my family's health,

except for my brother Tino's death,
may he rest in peace,

that was the worst blow in life.

It was incredible how much we learnt.

Personally,

it took my life from me when it happened,

and it gave it back to me over time.

It's odd.

My God, listen to the sound of the wind.

I don't miss much
of what I left behind in the city.

I don't even remember my job.

It's as though I've never had to do
anything different

from what I do here these days.

Most people I know
have also disappeared from my thoughts.

Even my closest family is fading away.

But there are days
when I long desperately for Mari José.

So,

I go to a place
from where Caleao can be seen

and I dream of picking her out
with my binoculars.

Seeing her,

though from a distance,
just as I watch the chamois

or the birds.

What rotten luck!

Really, really, rotten.

It was 820 feet high.

This messes up all my plans.
Bloody hell.

No one would ever find me in that forest.

I assure you, where I walked today,

some stretches
have never been walked upon, ever.

A forest on a steep slope...
which leads to nowhere.

By the way, I saw three or four stag horns
but I didn't pick them up.

Odd, but I didn't feel like carrying
anything more.

Anyway...

My sadness was sweetened a little,
since today is Monday and...

I picked up the hard disk they left me,

and my son Pablo has sent me
the third song for the documentary.

There are... well, lots,
but the third is more or less finished.

It's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

There are several pieces, kind of.
I'll fit them in, of course.

Brilliant.

How nice...

Oh Lord!

I'm heading upwards towards Cerveriza

to look for the drone.

Let's see if I'm lucky.

I'm not walking fast, to conserve energy,
because up there...

It's up and down, a long tiring walk.

I can't...

I've just found it, dammit.

Well, hold on...

I can see where it is,
getting to it is a different matter.

Bloody hell, look where it is.

Fucking great!

See that ravine?
The one with the yellow trees.

At the foot of the ravine,
where the yellow trees start.

It's amid the birch trees.

Let's see, let's see.

For goodness sake,
how the hell do I get there?

Let's check
there's nothing important missing.

It's Monday again.

My son José will pick up my things
from the exchange hut.

I'm reluctant to continue avoiding him.

I take the drone with me
to try to see him.

I wonder if my brother Tino
will be watching me from some place,

just as I'm watching
the vehicle my son is in

without him knowing.

I imagine the music
that Pablo is composing

playing over these images
I film in secret,

and I realise that through this film

I've discovered
a new way of talking to him.

My son José will be back
in Caleao in a few minutes.

I imagine him with Pepín and Enedina.

They are elderly
and I love them as much as my parents.

The day I left, Pepín said to me,

"Give me a hug,
I might not be here when you get back."

I laughed but I dread to think
he may be right.

Come on.

Come on.

He doesn't want to.
He doesn't want to.

Let's carry on,
come on, carry on.

Come on, let's go.
Come on.

Let's go. Let's go!

Come on, Atila, let's go.

Atila, come on.
We can't stay here.

Come on, move it.

Come on, let's go.

I hate doing it but...

we can't stop there.

Come on, let's go.

Move it, move it!

Do you want some water?

Look, look, whoa, look.

Look, water, Atila.

Look, look.

Look, water.

Look, boy.

Atila, look.
Water, water. Look, look.

That's it, boy.

Drink some water.

We're here.

We made it, Tili.

I'll get you unloaded quickly.

Right now I feel...

I feel a bit rough today, I don't know.

Getting here and this wind...

Several factors can magnify solitude,
but one of them is this.

This feeling. This icy wind.

It makes you feel even more alone.

It may sound silly

but you possibly associate
bad weather with less people.

It started yesterday,
I felt a bit of discomfort, some pain.

I hope it doesn't... Well, it hurts,
but I hope it doesn't keep me awake.

I slept really well.

Well, really well...

Really well for here.

I had a few blankets, and one I brought,
and a duvet and a pillow I brought...

It wasn't bad, with my coat and hood...

With my hat.

All that was missing were my gloves.
Otherwise...

it was fine.

I remain in silence almost all day.

I'm scared my throat will seize up.

I've started to talk to Tino aloud.

I hold conversations with him

as if he could hear me
from behind the trees.

I see Tino in the camera
and I talk to him as a kind of relief.

That way, I exercise my vocal chords
so as not to lose my voice.

Stopping talking to you in silence,
as up until now,

and listening to my voice
as I speak to you

makes you more present than ever.

It's hard not to read your replies

in the movement of the leaves
or in the murmuring waters.

Fresh tracks from this morning.

They're deep, they're very recent.

A wolf.

There must just be one.

Just one, running.

I'll turn the light off.

With the satisfaction
of having been able to prove

that you can live very simply
and considerately with nature,

I recall certain feelings
during these 100 days.

I was happy, very happy.

And besides, I knew it.

There were rough times,
although the good times eclipsed them.

I trod on leaves,

millions and millions of leaves.

I had time at my whim,

but I had no concessions.

I felt relentless solitude
and I learned from it.

I lived frugally,
although I had things in excess.

I saw the treetops
drawn in multi-coloured skies.

I replenished pints and pints of water

with absolutely pure water.

I saw how my shadow
grew taller day by day

until almost escaping from me.

After dozens of setbacks,
I kept my hopes up right to the end.

I made Nelson Mandela's words my own.

I was captain of my soul,

at the helm of my destiny.

I was very happy, although I cried,

I suffered, doubted, complained...

I was very happy.

Haven't we finished yet?

No, we're chatting,
I want to know what you feel towards José

-and what you think of the experience.
-And the whole village.

There's no silver penny
that fits into every pouch.

Do you know what a pouch is?

-What?
-What they carried in the olden days.

MY FAITHFUL FRIEND
ATILA