Mr. Kaplan

THE ORIGIN

My grandfather was born in Poland, but in 1938 had to escape to South America leaving his family behind. While my first feature film was screening in Warsaw, I took the opportunity to travel to Sosnowiec, my grandfather’s native town. I was moved, but nothing I found there was essential to my personal identity or culture. For a man who has always been interested in exploring themes of how we create our identities as a way of survival, this was an unexpected sensation. I had never thought about it. The fact is that one day we will die, and after a few decades, there will be little of us left in the world no matter what we do. Who will remember us? What difference will we have made? Will our life be in anyway “special?”

ADOLF EICHMANN AND SS IN URUGUAY

I have always felt a special interest in the history of the Nazis that escaped to South America, especially the case of one of its most notorious leaders, Adolf Eichmann, who was discovered living in Argentina under a false identity.

In Montevideo, the Jewish community is completely integrated to all the activities of the country. Anti-Semitic sentiment is rare. For many Jews, the biggest menace they face is the existential danger of becoming assimilated into the local secular society, without preserving their own culture and traditions. In this way, I combined my memories of my grandfather with a series of fictional events, creating Jacob Kaplan: a patriarch without a patriarchy. A Quixote Schlemazle, who at 75 years old, finds a last chance of doing something exceptional and to plunge into an adventure that will take his life to unprecedented heights.

COMEDY AS A SERIOUS MATTER

One of the main challenges of Mr. Kaplan was its tone. I see life as a mix of comedy and drama, two sides of the same coin. Even in the saddest background and circumstances, the use of humor gives us the strength to persevere and become enlightened. Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt attracted toward characters that possess a quixotic mentality, whose longing for epic adventure strongly opposes the absurd circumstances of reality. Men who use their fertile imaginations as tools for survival from the boring quotidian existence, and in doing so, they find a way to take revenge on death and oblivion.

Mr. Kaplan is a film that examines the role of the elderly, the loss of one’s identity confronted with the continuity of tradition, the preservation of one’s dignity, and the chance to leave one’s mark forever and realizing one’s wildest dreams. Through characters that display their contradiction and frailty in the search for friendship and self-respect, my goal was to portray those small and big moments that make our journey through this world ridiculous, while often still fascinating.