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| Delicious character snapshots from the film are ordered together on this poster for Pedro Almodóvar's Pain and Glory |
Aging Spanish filmmaker Salvador Mallo has health problems that restrict him from his craft, which in turn makes him depressed. He reacquaints himself with an old actor friend, thinks of his upbringing and acquires a new dangerous habit.
Pain and Glory is the 22th feature from Spanish master filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (High Heels/Tacones Lejanos (1991)). It is unique in his body of work in that it is admittedly at least partly auto-biographical, (notice on the deep red poster under the review that the shadow of lead actor Antonio Banderas (Desperado (1995)) has been altered to that of Almodóvar himself.)
It brings to mind the autobiographical film of life as a free-spirited filmmaker, 8½ (1963) from Italian master filmmaker Federico Fellini. - Almodóvar's film is understandably very different, not least because Fellini was in his early 40s, when he made his introspective classic; Almodóvar is turning 70 in a couple of weeks. Judging from the filmmaker we meet in Pain and Glory, Salvador Mallo, this may be Almodóvar's last film.
Pain and Glory is a very quiet film; it has an elegant, subdued score and comes from a noticeably older Almodóvar than we are used to: SPOILER Mallo has quit fancies of a love life; his craft is beyond him due to ailments, which take up much of his energy, - and a considerable amount of the screen-time, - and he smokes heroin as a new hobby instead. Though this aging, melancholic, ailment-complaining filmmaker is well-acted by Banderas, - who would prefer this compared to Almodóvar's past, vivid masterpieces? (This, of course, is also the painful, melancholy reality that growing old confronts the old person with itself.)
I think it is the other part of Pain and Glory that is especially worth the price of admission: The flashbacks to Mallo's childhood, living in poverty with his graceful mother: Penélope Cruz (Ma Ma (2015)) is gorgeous and natural in the part of Mallo's mother, and debuting Asier Flores is terrific as the precocious, wilful chap, who has his first experiences of lust in the perfected shape of workman César Vicente (A Different View/La Otra Mirada (2019, TV-series)), whom the boy teaches reading and writing.
There is warmth and life breathing through these scenes; more so than in the ones about present-day Mallo/Almodóvar, although perhaps honest, the aging creative is too dramatically unopposed here. Nevertheless the result for a longtime cinephile (and therefore obviously a fan of Almodóvar) is like a moving interaction with an old friend.
Related posts:
Pedro Almodóvar: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess
The Skin I Live In/La Piel que Habito (2011) or, Almodóvar's Extreme Make-Over
Broken Embraces/Los Abrazos Rotos (2009) or, Mysteries in Love and Life
Live Flesh/Carne Trémula (1997) or, A Spanish Fix
Labyrinth of Passion/Laberinto de Pasiones (1982) - Sexual mix-ups in screwball Madrileña style
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: 26.5 mil. $ and counting
= Unknown - but likely a box office success
[Pain and Glory premiered 13 March (Madrid, Spain) and runs 113 minutes. Shooting took place in Spain, including Madrid, for 44 days from July - September 2018. The film has become the highest-grossing Spanish film in Spain of the year so far with a 6.5 mil. $ gross there (24.5 % of the gross to date), its biggest market yet. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets have been France with 5.8 mil. $ (21.9 %) and Italy with 3.5 mil. $ (13.2 %). The film has yet to open in North America: It is scheduled to open in 8 more markets in September and October: Netherlands, Hong Kong, Sweden, Norway, USA, Indonesia, Singapore and Canada. The film may well end up the filmmaker's highest-grossing since his last major hit Volver (2006), which made 85.5 mil. $. If made on a realistic 10 mil. $ budget, it would already rank as a box office success. It was screened in competition in Cannes, where it won Banderas the Best Actor prize, losing the Palme d'Or to Bong Joon-ho's Parasite. The film has also been chosen as Spain's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar this year. Almodóvar does not have an announced next project. Banderas returned in El Hormiguero: Vacaciones en el Titanic (2019, short) and in Netflix's The Laundromat (2019); Cruz also in El Hormiguero: Vacaciones en el Titanic and theatrically in Wasp Network (2019). Pain and Glory is certified fresh at 95 % with an 8.27/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Pain and Glory?
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