The photography for “La flaqueza del bolchevique” aimed to recreate a world that represented the moral condition of the main character, ¨Pablo¨, and for this condition to be reflected in the places he inhabits. To this end we decided to give the image a yellowish tone throughout the film, in a higher or lower degree depending on the sequence. This effect, clearly in contrast with the dull, rainy and grayish days, gave us a dream-like perception of Madrid, as if we had managed to extend Pablo´s vision. This yellowish backdrop was applied differently to highlights, mid-tones and shadows. Why the choice of yellow? In the AKAI colour dictionary we find the following definition: ¨This color also conveys an underlying decadent and decrepit quality. This yellowish colour evokes summer (yellow fields) and the beginning of autumn (golden leaves). In this context, it manages to substitute black as the omen of death¨ and ¨yellow is also associated with the yellowish greys, the grayish greens and the ochres, evoking concepts such as spiritual weakness, or treason.¨ ¨As a result, the meaning of yellow has reached us as a strong feeling of immortality, power and freedom from the more enlightened point of view, and in other strong feelings such as cowardice, death, treason from a darker point of view. On another level, and for the sake of creating ¨Pablo´s¨ singular world, we overexposed the backgrounds, in the office for example, to the point where they hardly have any detail, to show that Pablo´s surrounding world is like a whitewashed wall that doesn´t allow him to see beyond.
The photographic quality for the girl’s scenes focused on capturing her beauty, capturing the truth in her expression. To achieve this we used a very soft lighting, almost always key lighting and using some filters, Scheneider’s classic soft and Tiffen promist combined in different degree with long lenses and appropriate camera heights.