Acclaimed animated film director Alberto Vázquez continues to push boundaries with his latest film, Decorado. ComingSoon spoke with Vázquez about turning his short film into a feature, parodying Disney, and more. The film is currently in theaters from GKIDS.

“Something is wrong in the city of Anywhere. Arnold, an unemployed middle-aged mouse, confides to his wife Maria that he suspects his entire world is nothing more than a set, and his life a scripted performance. When his best friend Ramiro dies under mysterious circumstances, he traces the conspiracy to a monolithic corporation whose influence reaches every corner of their daily lives,” says the official synopsis.

Tyler Treese: Alberto, congrats on Decorado. The film feels very relatable just with the state of the world currently. I think a lot of people have been going, “Am I going crazy, or is the world going crazy?” What was the genesis behind Decorado that made you want to make this film?

Alberto Vázquez: So it actually started a long time ago because first it was a series of comics, and then it was a short film, and then it was actually in the works to be a longer series, and then it became a feature film. But I wanted to sort of create this anti-fable that’s about the meaning of life and about human freedom. I think that we all feel like we’re living in this world where we keep questioning what’s real, and there are so many crises, both financial and health crises. I wanted to talk about that world, but some from a sort of fantastical perspective

Having depression be a black and white fairy really cracked me up. Can you speak to embodying those feelings and mental illness in a more fairytale way?

Because it’s a metaphor. It’s the same thing that goes for all animation. It’s this way that we can sort of play with fantasy and approach things from a more free place which is why I use animation generally. And because that way I can talk freely or sort of look at something from a new perspective in a way that I wouldn’t necessarily be able to with real images. And I just like the idea of representing mental illness with this sort of gothic fairy who is like the dark side of Disney and a kind of parody of that style.

Your last film, Unicorn Wars, was very raunchy. This film still has elements of grittiness and violence within it, but it’s not as lewd. Was that a conscious choice to limit that, or do you tackle that project by project depending on what the film needs?

I mean, every project is different and Unicorn Wars was about a war, and war by its very nature is cruel. So the film reflected that. And even though [Decorado] is still very fantastical it is something that’s dealing with slightly more real topics. It’s closer to our real world problems, like superficial relationships and problems with health and control of society by the state and things like AI. And so the film was meant to reflect those sort of more real issues. Yeah, every project is different. And there, this obviously is a different project than Unicorn Wars, even though they do share some similarities.

You’re traditionally the art director of your films, but you brought in José Luis Ágreda as the art director here. How did having a collaborator with his own sense of visuals really help your process?

So yeah, I usually am the art director, but I just could not do it on this film because it was too much to be the director and the screenwriter and the art director because those are all different jobs. And so that’s why we decided to bring on José Luis Ágreda because he is already a well-known comics artist in Spain and has directed other projects, and we knew each other and had a good relationship. So it made it really simple because we’re both artists and we both sort of speak the same language and understand each other. And so I’d say it was a perfect collaboration.

The idea of being in a controlled environment and being watched has been around for a long time and is explored in classics like Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World. What were some of your inspirations for Decorado?

Alberto Vázquez: Well, the first influence is classic Disney films from the 1940s and fifties. So think things like Bambi, but then also dystopian works like the ones you mentioned. But there’s also The Prisoner, which is an English series that I really like. Then there are also some Spanish directors who sort of bring this dark sense of humor and this sense of a fragmented reality, like Luis Buñuel. There’s also more though, there’s a film by Ingmar Bergman that is about a sort of fractured marriage that we talk about in this film as well, this idea of a marital crisis. And I think if you put all of those things together, what comes out is Decorado. And it also comes from my own experiences and my sense of humor and my sort of slightly cynical view of society.

I love throughout your work that you use animals to stand in for the main characters. We see this gritty reality in these very human problems, but there’s also this fantasy element. What do you find most rewarding about working within that contrast between the fantasy and seeing these animals really suffer, do drugs, and have all of our human issues?

Well, I sort of think of this film as a kind of Trojan horse. Viewers might not go into it knowing exactly what they’re going to see because they think that, “oh, it’s a family film.” And so when they leave, they might be in a little bit of shock. But that sort of deception or trick between the appearance, which is very friendly and looks, you know, like it might be something for children and has this sort of fable idea to it, versus the themes that are a lot, you know, darker and more dense and related to current events is something that I think characterizes all of my work.

And I’m doing it because I want to provoke audiences and not just to provoke them for the sake of it, but to provoke emotions. And I like using animals because they feel very universal. They don’t have one time or place or culture that they belong to. And it is really a way to examine reality from a new perspective.

That makes total sense. I read that you were beginning to work in the world of video games. What interests you about being in a more interactive medium?

Yeah, so I have a small video game business, and we’re in fact developing a video game version of Unicorn Wars. And I like video games as another way of telling stories. They’re similar to movies, but there is that added element of interactivity, which makes it more interesting because the viewer can actually play, and they have that sense of freedom that they can make choices within the world. And I think that is why it’s a different way to tell stories. And I’m not someone who personally plays video games, but I really appreciate them for all of the narrative options that they provide.

Thanks to Alberto Vázquez for taking the time to talk about Decorado.