“Pain and Glory” is Almodóvar’s boldest, most exquisite, and most accomplished work in recent years. Antonio Banderas delivers his most elegant and insightful performance to date.
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| Pedro Almodóvar. Photo: José A. Hermosillo, Festival in LA ©2019 |
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| Antonio Banderas in Pain and Glory. Photo: courtesy of Sony Classics. |
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| Penélope Crúz in Pain and Glory. Photo courtesy of Sony Classics |
When Salvador was a child, he had a conflict with his beautiful mother (Penélope Cruz) over his future studies at a Catholic seminary. At the time, Spain offered no other options for higher education for a child with a prodigious mind.
Religion has been a recurring theme among many Spanish filmmakers. In the opening narration, Mallo recalls: “The days I feel many excruciating aches, I pray to God. The others, when I feel only one little twinge, I’m an atheist.” This echoes a famous Luis Buñuel line: “Thanks to God, I’m an Atheist.”
Culturally speaking, “Pain and Glory” is a Spanish movie, although Almodóvar goes global. His universal approach is evident in the film’s dialogue, music, and images.
Enhancing the cinematic experience, the movie references notable Hollywood stars, such as Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor. The characters listen to Chavela Vargas while drinking tequila, evoking a passage from his life in Mexico. Images from Lucrecia Martel’s “The Holy Girl/La niña santa” appear while getting high. Those images represent the lover who returned to Argentina and broke his heart into pieces. Finally, the infatuating song “Come Sinfonia” is courtesy of the extraordinary Italian singer Mina.
After a casual encounter with actress Zulema, played by Cecilia Roth (“All About My Mother,” “Talk to Her”), Mallo reconnects with his early years as a filmmaker. The National Cinematheque is holding the premiere of Mallo’s restored first feature.
The movie event is an excuse to settle an unsettled account with Alberto Crespo and Asier Etxeandia (“Velvet,” “Ma ma”). For both Mallo and Crespo, shooting that film was painful, and Crespo fell into drug addiction. Now, Crespo visualizes his comeback to the stage as a solo performance based on one of Mallo’s most personal writings.
Mallo’s health deteriorates due to heroin addiction. He portrays himself as a junkie with dignity. He remembers his conservative mother with love and admiration; she only wanted a better future for her gifted son. His only regret is that he could “come out” to her at the end of his mother’s life, not earlier.
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| Alberto Iglesias, music composer. Photo: José A. Hermosillo, Festival in LA ©2019 |
“Pain and Glory’s” extraordinary soundtrack is haunting, revealing, and inspiring. Longtime collaborator Alberto Iglesias (“The Skin I Live In,” “Volver,” “The Constant Gardener”) composed the music, emphasizing the dramatic moments without tipping into melodrama. The cellos, piano, and Spanish guitar made the transitions seamless and stimulating.
If you are young enough not to know all the work of this prolific director, you may miss important clues about the true meaning of Almodóvar’s passions and desires and how the director reached that level of creativity and glory. I suggest starting with “Law of Desire/La ley del deseo.”
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| Pedro Almodóvar. Photo José A. Hermosillo, Festival in LA ©2019 |
If you are old enough to know Almodóvar’s body of work, the nostalgia for the 1980s is right there. The evocation of lost love will leave you yearning for more time to amend the past.
In Almodóvar’s films, nothing is casual – one circumstance leads to the next, making the most of every element, symbolically speaking.
In “Pain and Glory,” Almodóvar pulls all the strings together to resolve, in a conciliatory tone, disagreements with his mother, religion, desires, homosexuality, drug addiction, sex, and the love of his life.
More than melancholia, “Pain and Glory” is a brilliant piece of life, nostalgia, and reconciliation - a catharsis for the tormented soul who will heal and shine again, poetically speaking.
“Pain and Glory” is an intimate masterpiece, written and executed with honesty and grandiosity that only a director of Pedro Almodóvar’s level can accomplish.
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| The President of the Jury, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, congratulates Antonio Banderas for his Best Actor win in Cannes: Photo: Cannes 2019 |
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