Nine thick slices of life

Though European writer-directors from Francois Truffaut to Ingmar Bergman to Federico Fellini have created memorable female protagonists in their films, it is unusual for a writer-director in American cinema to explore the world of women.

One of the rare exceptions is Rodrigo Garcia. In his films, including “Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her,” “Ten Tiny Love Stories” and now “Nine Lives,” Garcia presents the lives of complex, three-dimensional women with a remarkably clear-eyed sensitivity.

But Garcia, the son of Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, doesn’t really know why people find it so extraordinary that he writes about women in America, and particularly Southern California. “You never ask anyone, ‘Why do you do movies about men?’ ” Garcia said. “It doesn’t seem to be a phenomenon [worth questioning] anywhere else.”

Actress Kathy Baker, who has now made four films with Garcia, including “Nine Lives,” which opens Friday in Los Angeles, said working with him was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to miss. “And I haven’t made a penny in the four movies. It’s all about the wonderful work we get to do.”

Baker added: “He sees women as people, which is pretty great. I have been in countless panels and interviews with him where people say, ‘How do you write women so well?’ And he says, ‘Why not? What’s the big deal?’ ”

“Nine Lives” marks the second collaboration between actress Amy Brenneman and the 46-year-old filmmaker, who grew up in Mexico but has lived in Los Angeles for two decades.

“You start out with really beautiful material and then have a lot of freedom to explore the material,” Brenneman said. “I think he has this extraordinary combination of intelligence and warmth. That’s a lot of yummy qualities in one person.”

Just as with his two previous films, Garcia employs vignettes to tell the stories of nine very different women.

Among the segments: A pregnant woman (Robin Wright Penn) encounters a former lover (Jason Isaacs) in the grocery store; a married woman (Baker) rails upon her husband (Joe Mantegna) as she awaits a mastectomy; a woman (Holly Hunter) is verbally abused by her lover at a party; a wife (Sissy Spacek) of an invalid (Ian McShane) decides to meet her lover (Aidan Quinn) at a hotel; and a woman (Glenn Close) visits a cemetery with her young daughter (Dakota Fanning).

“I am interested in problems that are daily and have no solution,” said Garcia, who is married and has two young daughters. “Like a problematic relationship with others, with a family member, a problematic relationship with yourself where you are your own worse enemy. Even people who live what we call ‘happy’ lives carry with them problems that are never solved in a lifetime.”

He prefers the vignette structure because “those types of problems are very hard to look at over two hours,” he said. “Most Hollywood movies are about a person in pursuit of a goal. There are problems along the way. Most of the time they achieve their goal or achieve it with caveats. There is an enlightenment, which I don’t see for a lot of these problems. I am interested in the fact that we live trapped by these problems.”

Garcia says he finds himself time and time again exploring the minutiae -- “the moment that illustrates that whole,” he said. “That is why it is very ambitiously called ‘Nine Lives.’ Obviously I can’t tell a life in 10 minutes, but you see a set of problems and hopefully you come away with a clear idea of how she lives, where she is and what her main daily obstacles are.”

He had a more practical reason as well for deciding to tell nine 10-minute stories: It would be “short and cheap.”

“I knew what I would be up against making it. I also wanted variety. I wanted different age groups [of women], different social strata. You want to mix it up a bit. You would think given the structure I don’t care about what the audience thinks, but I do. The structure is for myself because I like it, but I do think the audience will enjoy this.”

“NINE Lives” was shot in just 18 days on a budget of $500,000. Garcia says that perhaps the most difficult part was calling his actors and telling them to bring their own clothes. Still, he loves the independent world. “The pleasure of inventing something from nothing is superb,” he explained. “Every major decision was made by [myself and producer Julie Lynn]. I don’t think we can make a life out of no- budget movies, but just knowing it and owning the whole thing and taking chances with your vision ....”

Because each 10-minute story takes place in real time, Garcia decided to shoot the segments in one continuous take.

“First of all it came from the writing. I said, ‘I am going to look at a few minutes in their lives, why not look at them in real time?’ Having said that, most people who see it don’t know it’s one take. That’s the irony of it. You set yourself this task to do it in one take and then while you are shooting it you do the best to make the task invisible.”

He also thought, “If I do it in one take, then the actress can drive it. They know what their journey is. Finally, also, you are looking to challenge yourself and make something a little scarier than the last time.”

Baker and Brenneman embraced Garcia’s decision. “It was just heaven for actors,” Baker said. “We didn’t have to stop. We just got to do everything all at once.”

Brenneman likened it to doing a short stage play: “A lot of us in the movie come from theater. I knew that Rodrigo being Rodrigo, he’d let the acting lead. Once I got my head around it, it was so much fun. In the end this is the way you wish you could film everything.”