Prolific novelist and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga is at it again, but this time he also moves into the directors chair to create The Burning Plain - an intricate and moving tale of love, lust and deep-seated family issues. We managed to catch up with Guillermo to find out more.

MV: This is another film where you work with a non-traditional narrative. Rather than telling a story on a simple timeline you portray lives as shattered by particular events, and follow the emotional fallout. Is that part of a broader world view or a device you think is effective on the big screen?

GA: There is a theory that you can build a story for films in three acts. This, I think, is unnatural. We never tell stories like that in real life, we always go back and forth. So I always like to have an organic way to tell stories, I never have a premeditated way of telling them.

MV: Do you ever feel it's difficult to visualise these emotional issues? And do you ever feel like you just want a big, loud expression of emotion? Because your films are always so quiet...

GA: I'm happy that you mentioned the word 'quiet' because I sometimes feel films are too noisy. The actors are shouting and the camera is all over the place and there's extras and music, but I want a film where you put attention on what is going on with the characters: the emotion of the characters. What's going on with them is too intense to surround them with noise. I tried to make a film that's as contained as possible, and as realistic as possible. When the set decorator began putting this colours in a scene I asked him 'why are you putting this there?' and he says 'we can have a nice look!' and I asked 'where did the character buy this thing?', 'I don't know', 'when you realise where he bought it from you can bring it to the set.' I never want any piece just there for colour, I want to build organically.

MV: With this very clear approach, did you find it beneficial to have more control by directing as well as writing the film?

GA: It's not about control, it's about collaboration. What's really weird about directing is that you're the one who is directing it but there are many voices which confront you. You have a dialogue with people. You have to seduce and convince people of what you think is the right thing, and when you are not able to do so they have every right to confront and make the point. That's the beauty of it. You cannot go to someone like Charlize and say 'You have to sit here and do this and this and this" because she'll say 'Oh, sure. Why?' Really. She's not a woman you can just tell what to do. My DP Robert Elswit has a very strong personality, you cannot say 'Robert! You do this and this and this', he'll say 'Yes... Why?' So it's just not about control. It's about seducing, it's about collaborating, it's about listening. it's about making a point.

MV: As a writer do you sometimes find that difficult?

GA: No. On the contrary. Fortunately as a writer I know how to use words. There are some directors who only know how to put the camera in place, and they do not now how to say things. Because I'm a writer I can talk and talk and talk to convince people.

MV: A lot what you write has an abstract, philosophical quality. I was really wondering whether thinking like that makes you feel detached from human relationship?

GA: I don't think it's abstract. I think it's really basic. I don't think of my work as philosophical, I'm not that indulgent! It's more raw, it's more things that are really happening. For example when I was directing Charlize I was saying 'In this scene, think what happened to your breast when you left your baby and you have all this milk inside'. Those kind of images help and it's not philosophical - it's real. Brett Cullen who played Robert, Kim's husband, I said to him 'Does your character know how to swim?' and he says 'Yes of course!' Where the fuck did he learn? This is the desert. So that pushed him to understand who he was. Those kind of non-philosophical things, really practical, life experience things, help me to direct a film.

MV: How do you begin to come up with these characters though? Where does it all begin?

GA: It's a mystery where stories come from. I try to bring them from my own experiences in life. There are two places where people have a relation to there work: some come from libraries and films so they are like trying to make films like the things they have seen. I try and make the films like the things I have seen in life, like the things around me.

MV: If these stories come to you organically and infuse you from your own experiences does that mean you don't never struggle for your next idea?

GA: I have the sense that writers have only a gallon of ink, and sooner or later you run out. Right now I have stories, fortunately, but many of them have been in the deposit for years and I am scared to death that I will not  have stories to tell. I support the family only with my stories.

MV: I've seen that you're a very gifted director as well, if the stories did run out would you be tempted to director someone else's writing?

GA: Thank you. You know I have this feeling that with writers, it's like you're a fraud and sooner or later someone will discover that you're a fraud. Directors are the same. And there are directors that make masterpieces and then the next film is so bad. I won't mention names but they make two or three great films and then they run out, it's like they have nothing else to say. Getting to that point really can drive a creator crazy.

MV: What advice would you give to someone who wanted to become a creator?

GA: I think, first of all, you have to learn from your tradition. What sort of storytelling tradition do you have. Do you want to tell stories? Do you want to play with the language? What do you want to do with your work? Then try to feel who has done a work like yours before. As I said before, there are people who write books from other books, or like me who write books, or films, from life experience, and there are those who like to use language and play with language to tell the story. But my next piece of advice is not to worry about it. Your work belongs to your own species. It caused a lot of anxiety to me that I spent five or six years on a project and people say 'I don't like it, it's shit', and some people say 'I love it'. I'm not writing for the people who say it's shit, I'm writing for the other people who understand what I want and can judge my work on what I want not what they want.

MV: Are their any Mexican or Spanish directors that you think the Anglophone world is missing out on?

GA: There's a couple of Mexican directors that British audiences have to take a look at. One is Carlos Reygadas and the other is Fernando Eimbcke, they are young, they are making propositions and I think they are important directors both of them.

MV: Have you ever been tempted to creatively collaborate with young filmmakers who you see such potential in?

GA: I always try to help whoever asks for my help. I think this is a business where if we don't help each other we don't survive, especially in Mexico. I have a lot of friends that are writing and directing, writing books or writing screenplays and directing. I gladly help them.

MV: Do you ever miss writing novels?

GA: Yes, of course. But I think I'm writing novels for cinema. I think I'm writing literature, because people say 'when are you coming back to literature?' and I have to reply that I never left literature.

The Burning Plain is out in the UK on Friday 13th March and should reach the US in September.

Words by Michael Edwards