Issa Lopez spent years writing for soap operas in her native Mexico before she came to prominence with 2017’s “Tigers Are Not Afraid.” The film focused on the impact of Mexico’s ongoing drug war on children, but also weaved in elements of supernatural horror and magical realism, debuting at Fantastic Fest 2017 to widespread praise. Suddenly, Lopez was a sought-after commodity, which led HBO to contact her about “True Detective.” As it turned out this, was a bit of a masterstroke on HBO’s part.
Speaking on the Post Mortem podcast, Lopez explained why she’s drawn to magical realism and how it pervades “Tigers Are Not Afraid.” But it’s her recollection of her upbringing that really provides an insight into how she’s able to blend realism and the supernatural so well, and why she was such a good choice to take on “True Detective” season 4.
The writer/director revealed that she grew up with a Catholic mother and a “communist, atheist” father — a conflict which has informed much of her writing. She continued:
“Those two conflicting personalities, the very rational pragmatist communist that worried and worked in the real world, and the more spiritual side of my mother, that believed both in the mysteries of Catholicism but also in curses and ghosts and a little bit of witchcraft and a different universe, the conflict between those forces is what I think is at the center of every story I tell.”
Lopez used that mix of the supernatural and the worldly to great effect in “Tigers Are Not Afraid,” but it works arguably even better in “True Detective,” which in 2014 started by using elements of horror and weird fiction to establish a vaguely supernatural tone beneath its grounded and realistic crime narratives.