Almodóvar is a famous Spanish director. In the sequence of his works, there are often elements such as sexual disorder, voyeurism, homosexuality and so on. He was so obsessed with portraying women as "High Heels" and "Everything About Me and My Mother" that he was called a "female director." His films are markedly iconoclastic and anti-mainstream, in addition, bright colors are the hallmark of his films. This time, I will briefly analyze Almodovar's Pain and Glory.
1. Life thinking under multiple themes
(1) Pain and loneliness in life
The protagonist, Salvador, is a man suffering both physically and mentally. After a choir's recollection, the film began to use voice-over and medical science animation to tell us about various diseases in El Salvador, such as migraine, insomnia, depression, indigestion and so on. Later films showed the plot of El Salvador taking medicine many times: he put all kinds of pills on a chopping board, covered them with plastic wrap, and then crushed them with tools. . Even taking medicine is a difficult and cumbersome thing for El Salvador, which highlights the torment of the disease on him.
On the other hand, El Salvador's heart has long been riddled with holes. The lack of his father's love, the death of his mother, the departure of his lover, etc., all made him extremely painful. In the film, there are many childhood memories with his mother: washing the sheets by the river with his mother, helping his mother with housework, moving the family to the cave... These beautiful memories all represent El Salvador's longing for his mother. After Salvador returned from Alberto's house, lying in John's room, an inner monologue made people feel distressed: I am the loneliest person Death has ever seen. When his ex-lover Federico came to El Salvador to tell about his family, El Salvador fought back his tears and said, "You didn't actually interrupt my life plan." When Federic left, he fell into More intense loneliness and pain. The film uses Salvador's life to show us the pain and loneliness of life.
(2) The beauty and pain of love
The film shows us two love experiences in Salvador, which became precious emotional experiences in his life and inspired him to create. The first relationship occurred in Salvador's childhood, and it was also his young first love. Painter Eduardo paints walls for free, while El Salvador teaches Eduardo to read and write. When Salvador held Eduardo's hand with his immature hand to write, perhaps at this time Salvador had already developed special feelings for Eduardo, but he didn't realize it. And when Salvador was lying on the bed in the room peeping at Eduardo who was taking a bath in the courtyard, with sweat on his flushed face, that was the germination of Salvador's sexual consciousness, and even fainted when he helped Eduardo to get a towel. All the memories of Eduardo are sweet and ignorant. Of course, there is no lack of regret in this experience, that is, Salvador only received Eduardo's paintings after many years.
Salvador wrote his second love, his experience with Federico, into a one-act play. Salvador fell in love with Federic in Madrid in 1981, but Federic was addicted to drugs at the time. They got along for a few years and later Federico saved himself from drug addiction and left Salvador, while Salvador stayed in Madrid, and the movie saved him. Having lost his beloved El Salvador and survived by relying on his favorite movies, he must have lost his spiritual support after he had not made a movie for a long time. Through the performance of the one-act play, we can know that El Salvador still misses Federico, but Federico, who came to El Salvador, talked about his family eloquently and even proudly. The second love will be deeper and hotter than the first, but it will bring endless pain to El Salvador.
(3) The exhaustion of creative inspiration
Using El Salvador's directorship, the film attempts to explore the relationship between reality and art, arguing that real life is the source of art. Salvador often incorporates his own life experiences into his creations. The most typical representative is the one-act play "Drug Addiction", which is based on himself and Federico as the prototype. The film also shows a problem that resonates with artists—the exhaustion of creative inspiration. At the beginning of the film, when El Salvador talked with the actor Sulema, Sulema mentioned that the Film Archive wanted to re-screen El Salvador's film "Taste" 32 years ago, hoped that El Salvador would continue to create, and wanted to participate in El Salvador's films, etc. It can be seen that El Salvador has not seen it for many years. creation, and there was a period of glory and glory. So why is El Salvador blocked? The video shows us step by step why. First, he suffers from many diseases, and his physical strength is gradually exhausted, and the director is also physically active. Second, the departure of his lover and the death of his mother gave him a heavy blow. His soul fell into infinite emptiness and confusion, and he lacked inspiration for creation.
2. El Salvador - the loneliest person death has ever seen
El Salvador is a stern, sensitive, irritable, affectionate person. El Salvador, who is plagued by illness, rarely smiles, and taking medicine is his daily routine. As a director, he lacked the courage to face the audience, he refused all invitations to film seminars; he was also afraid of his life being scrutinized by the audience, so he was reluctant to use his name in "Drug Addiction". He is sensitive and irritable. When he was connected to the scene of the symposium, when he was asked by the audience what he thought of Alberto's acting skills in "Taste", he finally couldn't help criticizing Alberto, and the two finally fought each other. But Salvador is a man of love and righteousness. Every time he is half-awake, he will recall the past. His mother is so strong and optimistic in her childhood memories, and every bit of being with her is happy. But because he didn't fulfill his mother's wish to die in his hometown, he felt very guilty, and finally told Mercedes how much he missed his mother.
Salvador's mood in the film goes through several ups and downs. The quarrel between El Salvador and Alberto made El Salvador's emotions reach the first small climax. He almost vented all the disappointments in his creative career on Alberto, and he finally did not suppress his thoughts at this moment. The arrival of Federico brought El Salvador's mood to the lowest point. The person he has always missed and the person who hurt him already has his own family and lover. He finally understands the love that made him hard to remember. never return. And the accidental receipt of Eduardo's paintings brought Salvador's mood to a new climax. He recalled his first love in childhood, and his heart was warmed. The letter on the back of the painting made Salvador realize his worth, that is, he taught Eduardo to write. Perhaps he realized that he had more value, so he said to the doctor on the operating table: "I'm going to start writing!"
3. Wandering in reality and memories
The film adopts a two-line cross-narrative structure of reality and memory, and a flashback is inserted whenever the protagonist Salvador is in a semi-awake state. For example, when El Salvador smoked heroin for the first time at Alberto's house, he leaned back on a chair and his eyes were blurred. At this time, a memory was inserted: little El Salvador helped his mother with housework, his mother sewed a sock that broke a big hole for him, a family The three moved to the cave... In this memory, we can deepen our understanding of the protagonist Salvador, who was an optimistic, cheerful and filial child in his childhood. On the other hand, we can know that the father was absent when he was growing up in El Salvador, while the mother was strong and independent in his heart. After moving to the cave, although the mother would complain, she thought more about how to repair it. Cave and make it look like a home. The outlines of important people in El Salvador's life gradually became clear in the memories. It can be seen from this that the film adopts this dual-line cross-narrative structure of reality and memory, and its function in content is to make the characters in the film gradually reveal their characters, rather than the image of each character from the beginning. The depiction is complete, but the characters are pieced together according to the reality and memories of the protagonist Salvador. The function of form is: when dealing with works with such a long time span, if the film develops linearly in chronological order, the film will appear relatively flat, and this narrative structure can enhance the interest and rhythm of the film.
In addition to analyzing this film from the above perspective, we can also see that this film seems to have a clear director's personal style, and El Salvador has the shadow of Almodovar to a certain extent. Almodovar's films are anti-traditional and anti-mainstream, so his works are often controversial, but he still insists on his own creative style, which is implied in the film. Salvador was sitting at the table, Mercedes handed him a book that someone else had given him, Salvador put on his glasses, picked up the book and read the title: How to Destroy the Counterculture, and then put down the book a little angrily, which shows that Salvador and A Modova's films are all counterculture. In this film, Almodovar insisted on a consistent religious color. For example, not long after the film started, after introducing various diseases in El Salvador with voiceover and popular science animation, there was a sentence: The Greek gods said that everything has a price. Salvador believes that his achievements in the film side came at the expense of his physical health. In terms of image style, Almodovar still continued the colorful style in this film.
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