What is the point of the movie?
This is probably a question that every director has thought about. Director Steven Spielberg once said: Movies are dreams, we grow up with daydreams, and one day we will turn those illusions in our minds into movies. the truth. As a kid growing up watching his movies, this quote warmed my childhood.
When it comes to Pedro Almodóvar, the movie is an endless dream. "The movie is like a dream window. I am sure that the world I see from it is more interesting than the world I live in." Regarding his new work, Almodovar said, "Everything is getting old rapidly, but movies are not. They are still so young and so vibrant. This is my pain and glory."
Since 2016's "Julietta", he has been looking forward to his new work. After three years, Pedro Almodovar was shortlisted for Cannes with his Pain and Glory. In his previous films, the lens was aimed at the outside world, but in this film, he aimed at himself, and put all the things that existed, appeared, and passed in his life into this film. .
"Pain and Glory" is a biographical film that weakens its logic, and everything in the film is fragmentary. Director Almodovar did not design the plot of the film according to his previous habits. His mother was drying the sheets, participating in the chorus when he was a teenager, and the theater was full of friends after he became famous. The plot of these fragments constituted the film.
If we are patient enough to enjoy this movie, we will remember Antonio Banderas' tearful eyes when the movie ends. This film is narrated from the male perspective of Almodovar. In the film, we can see the life of an old director with supreme glory. Boyhood in 1960, youth in 1980, and old age now. Most of all, this is not a movie with a distinctive style, but the gorgeous colors in the movie will still show that this is the movie world of Almodovar.
In 1980, Almodovar stepped into the film industry with "The Legend of the Strong Woman". He likes to combine various elements. We can find family, love, suspense, comedy and many other types of movies in his films. shadow. I like to use bizarre colors and bizarre plots to tell the direction of personal destiny in the changing times.
Pedro Almodóvar rarely expresses sadness directly in his films, and his characters are mostly marginal characters, or unfortunate loners from their original families, or infatuated lovers who are emotionally tortured. Behind the seemingly absurd characters, there are many fiery and pure emotions hidden. These characters who are on the fringes of mainstream society are eager to be affirmed and to enter a normal life. The struggles and entanglements in them stem from his past experiences.
Pedro Almodóvar is a "premature" director. At the age of ten, Bergman's director "The Virgin Spring" brought him a great shock. Since then, the movie has become a dream in Almodovar's heart. This immortal long dream is like a dandelion seed, parasitic in the interior of Almodovar, quietly shaping his soul.
After graduating from high school, Almodovar was going to apply for the film school, but the Franco regime in power at the time closed the film school. After that, Almodóvar began to find solace in literature. Before becoming a director, Almodovar wrote many taboo stories. Although most of these stories were lost, their influence on Almodovar was huge.
In 1960, the underground art movement emerged. This movement has the dual nature of resistance and liberation, attracting young people like Almodovar to join it. In 1975, before the end of Franco's regime, Almodovar watched a lot of movies, crime movies, comedies, westerns, and romance movies. These movies gave him enough nutrients and allowed him to find a way to "dream". .
This "Pain and Glory" is very different from his previous films, but it is still an excellent film. A comment said : In Pain and Glory, Almodovar made it as clear as possible that although this is a fictional film, a lot of what we see in the film is based on his own life, including the film Furniture and wall paintings appear, many of which are Almodóvar's own.
The film tells about the old age of director Salvador in his later years. The director who is no longer young needs to face physical pain, lack of inspiration, and sadness after the death of his mother. Multiple pressures forced him to escape into memories. The film is gentle and bland, and in this warmth, Salvador finally reconciles with the years.
Perhaps, Almodovar wanted to show the brightest moments and darkest moments in his life through El Salvador through such a film.
After the glory is gone, he is just an ordinary person, and his family is his armor and his weakness.
El Salvador is a famous director, but after the glory fades, what awaits El Salvador is pain and loneliness. Dalvador suffered from mental and physical illnesses during his years of directing career. After his old age, he almost lost his ability to take care of himself. Unable to bend over, often choked, life-threatening. He loves the film business and spent most of his life making films, only to lose his creative ability in his later years.
He had no works for many years, and he had to step down from the altar. The honor he had in the past has now become the source of his pain. The lack of his own approval for his newly created works caused great trouble for Salvador's spirit, causing him to sink into self-doubt for a time. The unsatisfactory reality made him indulge in the memories and glory of the past.
El Salvador's feelings for his mother are very complicated. In El Salvador's memory, his father is just a symbolic existence. The movie did not give the father the role of a heavy pen and ink, but only understated it. For the mother, a lot of shots and details were used.
During his boyhood in El Salvador, his mother took him up and down and gave him self-confidence and courage, giving him an experience that was beyond his peers at a very young age. This experience accompanied El Salvador's growth, giving him the courage to overcome obstacles and the courage to confront the world. The mother is the armor of Salvador, from which he learned to grow savagely.
When Salvador threw himself into film, his father died and his mother asked to live with him, which he refused. His mother believed that this was Salvador's revenge for arranging him to study at the seminary. From El Salvador's point of view, career and family are bound to be one side of the equation.
Mother hopes to take better care of El Salvador, and El Salvador hopes to shoot more movies. The difference in values created a rift between the two. As El Salvador got older, he understood his mother's longing for family. When he gradually returned to the family, his mother died, and the guilt for his mother turned into physical and mental ailments.
Almodóvar said, “The scene in the movie where Salvador’s mother arranges the aftermath happened to me in real life. Whenever she said she wanted to travel light and asked me to take her shoes off, I was always there. Weeping on the side is totally against the traditional funeral rites in La Mancha."
Mother used to be his armor, but now he is his weakness. After glory, prosperity has come to an end, and there is loneliness to accompany the rest of life.
The other side of love is not hate, nor forgetting, but a return to the ordinary.
Salvador searches for the details of the past in the mundane life, hoping to draw inspiration. As a result, the contradictions of the past gradually emerged. The first contradiction is that between the director Salvador and the actor Alberto. Salvador and Alberto split over a play, and after the film was released, the two parted ways and haven't seen each other for decades.
Later, when the movie was to be re-screened, Salvador found Alberto for reconciliation. In an unusual experience, Salvador wrote the work "Addiction". And handed the script to Alberto as the male lead. Salvador and Alberto are two lonely beings, the former relies on memory, the latter relies on paralysis, and in the end, both are redeemed because of "Addiction".
The second contradiction is that between the director Salvador and his young male lover Federico. The break between the two was also because of a play, and although the relationship was strong at the time, El Salvador chose the movie. Salvador tried to help addict Federico lead a normal life, but Federico insisted on his own way, so the two parted ways.
After the release of "Addiction", Federico also came to watch the scene. He knew that "Addiction" was their story. With tears in his eyes, the two had reconciled before they met. Federico arrives at El Salvador's residence, and the two begin to reminisce about the past. El Salvador could not get out of the relationship, but Federico has become a father of two children, has a new lover, and is about to divorce.
In this relationship, love and hate are meaningless, because the other side of love is not hate, nor forgetting, but returning to the ordinary . Almodóvar said that "Pain and Glory" is full of death, but the real death is not the disappearance of life, but the death of El Salvador's desire. This means that he will no longer love and accept being loved.
In Salvador's childhood, he was amazed by the mason's body. Although he did not know the origin of this desire, this throbbing had entered his memory, and this experience became the original sin of Salvador's life. So, he can't go back to mediocrity like Federico.
No biography is absolutely true, it is merely a selective account of life.
"Pain and Glory" intertwines the present and the past, and realizes the free switching between different tenses through a variety of intentions. This stream-of-consciousness-like shooting method makes this autobiographical film more legendary. In different tenses, director Almodovar restores the childhood, youth and old age of director Salvador.
Fernando Pessoa said in "The Disturbance" that by carefully rewriting these incoherent impressions, I became an indifferent narrator of my own autobiography. This is an autobiography without events, without a history of life. These are my own offerings. If I have nothing to say here, it is because I have nothing to say.
Pain and Glory is one such movie. This is the narration of director Pedro Almodovar, but it is not just a personal narration, but a state of old age that all senior directors are likely to face.
When people's lives gradually come to an end, they all re-examine themselves. Salvador is just one of many senior directors. Aside from the honors he has and his past relationships, he is just an old man who has lost his glory and gradually entered death. But El Salvador is sensitive and affectionate, which is also doomed that "Pain and Glory" belongs to Almodovar alone.
He has the sensitivity of a literary and art worker. His mother died and his body was ill. He could not get rid of the sorrow and pain. Therefore, he began to recall his life of glory and pain, and to reconcile the contradictions in his life one by one.
No biography is absolutely true, especially Pain and Glory. This is also the charm of this film, between the real and the unreal, through selective narrative, let us see a person, not a god.
"I love filming my characters walking into a movie theater or theater and watching their past and future unfold in front of them."
In Almodovar's eyes, "Pain and Glory" is a movie about time and how the passage of time affects life. He's sixty-nine years old, his body is getting old, and the movie is a lot softer. When he was young, he never compromised, sweeping major film festivals with sharp topics and sensitive themes. And now, his films have become colorful memories and immortal colorful dreams in the hearts of fans.
The movie ends, Salvador and his mother wake up from the bench, and the movie ends.
But the movie seems to have just begun.
View more about Pain and Glory reviews
