Since I finished watching "Pain and Glory" in the second half of 2019, I have never forgotten it. I just think it's too good-looking, it's perfect, and it doesn't leave any entrance to comment. Recently, I have been concerned about it. I watched it three times again, and after reading some bean comments, I finally found a small entry point. Share with friends.
This should be the gentlest and frankest Almodovar I have ever seen, a master who is good at designing labyrinths, who suddenly gave up complexity and turned to show the most minimalist love, lover, family, growth, partner, old age, body pain. Condensed and pure like that flat, gorgeous red sweater.
The story is simple, a single hero movie. Saldovar, an old director who had undergone spinal surgery, suddenly decided to attend the re-screening of the old film with the actor who broke up with him 32 years ago. This led to a reunion with his old love of the same sex and a self-portrait made for himself by a mason when he was a teenager. The story is interspersed with the clues of mother, religion, and growth, and calmly and wisely recalls emotions, memories, inspiration, and lovers.
El Salvador: Physical pain develops new vitality
El Salvador, an old body with closed eyes and scars from spinal surgery on his back. He immersed himself in the deepest depths of the pool, like a baby wrapped in its mother's amniotic fluid. Salvador recalls his childhood, a small river where his mother and beautiful neighbors were washing. Pain and Glory begins in a captivating memory of sunshine, grass, Spanish women's ballads, white sheets, and soap fish.
In the opening monologue, El Salvador patiently described the various pains he was in. Low back pain, back pain, tendonitis, knee and shoulder pain, tinnitus, depression, etc., they are distributed in every corner of the body, with different colors. This painful introduction is so meticulous, it's like the actor's appearance carefully arranged by the director. And all the painful colors happen to be the main colors of the movie, and are worn by Saldovar as the plot progresses.
The water is loaded with a memory of Salvador, when he withdraws from the pool, his eyes are a certain kind of firmness, which is verified by the words of the actress who met by chance. When Salvador and the actress mentioned that he wanted to participate in the re-screening of "Taste" with Al Cupto, who had not seen him for 32 years, the actress was surprised, and had a line that read through Salva's heart, "It's your perspective on things that has changed, The movie (people) is still that movie (people).”
Alberto: El Salvador is Almodóvar's second identity
To avoid the emotional catharsis, restrain your emotions, don't cry, your actors shed tears at every turn, the best actors are not those who shed tears casually, but those who try hard to restrain their tears.
The director's restraint, avoiding overly provocative stage warnings, is also a fusion expression, just like the scale of Salvador facing himself, his mother, his lover, and his life.
The reunion with Alberto comes 32 years after breaking ties with the premiere of "Taste".
The physical pain makes Salvador re-examine drugs and Alberto, which is different from the fusion life of the director played by Banderas. When a confession script like "Addiction" wants to hide even the director's dual identity, Alberto is again Became the third in addition to his double identities in the film. He read the emotions in "Addiction" and was moved. Wearing a green shirt and purple trousers, he perfectly performed the director's work with a man's monologue on the empty stage set. And leads to Salvador's reunion with an old love.
Marcelo: In times of despair, love cannot save the pain
"I met Marcelo in a crowded toilet, it wasn't the first time I saw him, but that night, after a chance encounter, I found out that I liked the boy. We After a whole weekend in bed, when I was trying to figure out how it was, a year had passed, we couldn't live without each other, it was 1981, and Madrid was ours.
One day, I noticed that Marcelo was paler than usual. He had lost a lot of weight recently, and he had heavy eye circles. I asked him if he was feeling sick. He confessed to me that he had been sucking white powder. I was surprised. , because I've never touched this stuff, I drink, smoke cocaine, like everyone else, but I'll never touch white powder, and my gut tells me it's not a good thing, and I don't like it.
I was living an intense life back then, writing evening reports, doing music shows, being the lead singer in a spoof punk band, preparing, shooting, and premiering my first movie. The film was a success, and I wrote a second one and shot it, and I was doing countless things without sleeping. Meanwhile, Marcelo was sinking on the couch at home, or locked in the bathroom, or just outside, somewhere I didn't know, and I was going back and forth between the bed and the window all night, Pay attention to the sound of the door.
This paragraph of confession is really like the breeze and the moon, gentle, pure and natural.
In this confession, there is a life of passion, freedom and desire in Madrid in the 1981s, like Alberto's slow, intoxicated solo in front of a white curtain, full of moist, ambiguous hormones.
Marcelo sat in the audience, watching the story of himself and his former love, with tears in his eyes.
During the three years of their relationship, Marcelo was in the pain of heroin withdrawal, Saldoba took care of his lover, and while fleeing Madrid, he felt a strong sense of writing, film inspiration and creation at the same time. The wonderful thing is that in the lives of two same-sex lovers, just like the dual attributes of the movie, when Marcelo experienced the pain of withdrawal, Salvador reaps the glory of his creative life in a confrontational love.
The reunion design of the two is even more exquisite and beautiful.
It was heartbreaking to watch El Salvador switch from an orange T-shirt to a pale blue top.
Seeing the person he once loved, Alvador was nervous, shy, careful, and forcibly restrained the tears that were not shed. He listened to his old love talking about his life after getting married, having children, getting divorced, and changing a new partner. The love that had moved mountains and oceans became more and more sad.
In the content of the confession, both Marcelo and Alvador saw clearly their roles in each other's lives, which is a period of their love for each other and the pain and struggle of being tempted by other content (heroin, creative inspiration) at the same time life. So this conversation about an unexpected reunion nearly 30 years later seems so peaceful, tender, and healing between two old men. (derived from when Marcelo met Alberto)
Two 60-year-old men hug, look at each other, entangle their gray beards, kiss goodbye, and feel each other's love. Alvador took the initiative to withdraw to say goodbye. Turning back into the room, he put the pillow under his knees, took out the heroin, and discarded it almost immediately, carefully crushing the tablet into powder and sprinkled it in the yogurt.
After reuniting with his old love and saying goodbye, Alvador's mental pain can finally be resolved, and the physical pain at this time only needs to be solved with medicine. He is still restrained, maintains a high degree of vigilance against dependence (love, drugs), and refuses any cathartic director.
Mother: Companionship and Loss, the Ultimate Life Dialogue
Alvador's relationship with his mother enabled him to clearly observe his own upbringing.
From being selected as a soloist in the choir, to defecting to his father with his mother, entering a seminary against his will, refusing to live with his mother when he became an adult, and confessing his sexuality to his mother. Only when he faced his mother did he show undisguised anxiety, loss, and depression. Anxiety about the mother's frequent talk of death, loss that she did not become her ideal son, and frustrated understanding that she was disappointed by insisting on being herself.
In the three conversations with his mother, the mother untied the beads with both hands, leaving her the old string of beads, the wooden round egg for him to sew clothes, and expressing her dissatisfaction with his movies. The mother-son relationship is so transparent, with a faint remorse, and as enlightening as that same-sex love affair.
The Painter: Peace and Innocence, a Refuge of Growth
The cinema of my childhood always smelled of urine, jasmine, and summer breeze.
When El Salvador lived in a gray hole, the whole space looked like a white curtain for a movie. His youth here was pure and peaceful. The painter's eyes are like the clear river in his childhood memory, and his body is like Monroe's full of wartime hope and strength.
The painter washes his body with water under the patio, which is also the third time the film appears in the image of water after the swimming pool and the river where the mother washes clothes. At this time, little Salvador was dizzy because of his rising body temperature. The mother, probably based on her father's understanding, sensitively captured the secrets of El Salvador, and hid the portrait sent by the painter with the breath of summer breeze.
The interesting thing about the movie is that when the young Salvador falls, he is interspersed with the episode of him and his assistant in the doctor's office as an adult. Then, when they accidentally saw old paintings at the assistant and went to the gallery to look for portraits, the two first appeared in gray dresses. No longer bright and dazzling, back to reality in general.
This accidental gift 50 years later has become a refuge for his mother, Marcelo, and pain after they have left, giving him the power to live again.
Finally, echoing the title, El Salvador appeared on the operating table half-naked for the second time, telling the doctor that he had started writing. When he wakes up again, the director is wearing a flowered shirt of desire, and the camera falls in the dream of sleeping with his mother at the station.
The movie saved him again.
In Pain and Glory, the director used different strategies to introduce flashbacks. One was the piano in the bar and the piano played by the children's choir teacher, the other was the Prime Minister's box with the Catholic rosary on the mother of Salvador, and the other was Salvador's bed at home. Eyes closed, three times unconscious under the influence of drugs, caught in periodic medium and close-ups of childhood memories.
Contrary to the strong title of the film, "Pain and Glory" is as calm and graceful as water, showing the balance of experienced pain and inner warmth.
"It is not used to address past problems or to forget, but as a soothing reminiscence. And to allow a series of dramatic scenes to re-encounter life with a restrained and ultimately moving stoicism." (this paragraph is a reference)
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