I have watched "Pain and Glory" for several days. I tried to write something, but I couldn't write it by erasing it. When I think of it, it feels like being shot in the chest, and the nerves that involve the heart make me cry. Whenever I remember, I feel that I am also getting old with Almodovar, letting time pass between the fingers of the old man like quicksand.
My love for Almodovar, I don't know where it came from, but I am deeply attached to it. Maybe it started with "Law of Desire". I was deeply attracted by the strong colors in Almodovar's film screens. What a rich and mellow background it was, like Picasso's prints, which showed Spain's unrestrainedness and freedom. On the background of this freedom, what is even more shocking is the content of the movie. The masculine and wild love of the two men in "Law of Desire" was unreservedly presented by Almodovar. The obsession with the young and hot body seemed to wash away my young heart. After all, this movie and I have the same year of birth. It was 1987, and Banderas said to his lover, "I wonder if you can still find such a love, a pure love like me to you." Since then, Almodovar has become my favorite comrade. The director, he involved in the creation of same-sex themes, more than ten years earlier than Ou Rong. He is the modern Rainer Werner Fassbender and Drake Jarman, and has even surpassed their achievements.
Telling one's own story, it is inevitable to be hypocritical, and the surrender of showing one's own weakness is a kind of determination to open up the privacy of oneself, a kind of courage for moths to fight the fire. As if the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, Ren Wanjian pierced through the heart, but like a sacred light. The same is true of "Pain and Glory". This is Almodovar’s 21st feature film. It is similar in structure and autobiographical to Fellini’s "8 1/2". Perhaps this film can also be called Almodovar’s "20 1/2". ". "Pain and Glory" echoes Almodovar's many works, linking "Law of Desire" and "Bad Education". It is hailed as the final chapter of Almodovar's autobiography trilogy. It speaks of his twilight. Life.
The opening of "Pain and Glory" uses animation to show the various diseases of the body. The pains of the body are listed one by one. It is like a knife that plunges into the body of Almodovar who is nearly seventy years old. He said: " If the pain cuts your back open, you will never be able to change back to the original shape." This was his difficult old age. Migraine, tinnitus, gastric ulcer: Like the movie hero Salvador, he likes to sit quietly at the bottom of the swimming pool in summer, and relieve his pain through such meditations, in order to seek physical tranquility. Almodovar said that not only was he sick and painful like Salvador, but he also had surgical scars on his back like him. He had to stand up and sit down carefully and stiffly like Salvador. However, he didn't want to complain about himself, so he explained everything in just one minute of the opening, and instead began to tell the three stories of El Salvador.
The three stories of El Salvador are like three memories of Almodovar. In each story, we can see the shadow of his previous works.
At fault, but not missed
In Almodovar's first story, Salvador, in order to track down his former lover Federico, hesitate to hand over his script "Addiction" to be starred by others. This plot is strikingly similar to "Bad Education": the male protagonist is also a director and an actor, who also disputes the script of Dove occupying the magpie's nest. In "Law of Desire", the actor is also a director, and he also tried to make the story of his transgender "sister" into a movie.
Almodovar said frankly that many of his experiences are similar to those of El Salvador, but when he falls into this story, he blurs the boundary between reality and creation. He also said that the reason why he chose Banderas to be the actor is not only because he experienced the important events that Almodovar experienced in the 1980s in the film, but he also has a deep understanding of pain: Banderas was in two years. Qian also lay under the scalpel three times because of myocardial problems, and he could empathize with the sense of crisis that his life might be taken away by pain at any time. The paintings hung in Salvador’s Madrid apartment are actually Almodóvar’s own. The reason why he likes these bright colors is because his childhood was gloomy, until he came to Madrid after he was 20 years old. After the end of the Franco regime, the Madrid New Wave Cultural Movement brought freedom to Almodovar and gave him a new life. Those bright paintings are his memory of the color explosion era of "Pop".
"Addiction" is a drama. There are endless dramas in Almodovar's films, whether it is the drama "Shrinking Lover" in "Speaking to Her" or the drama "A Streetcar Named Desire" in "All About My Mother". Almodovar likes to use the play-in-play method to deconstruct the story. The "Addiction" in "Pain and Glory" is actually Almodovar's interpretation of performance: "It's not a good actor to cry only, and he knows how to restrain tears. He is a good actor ".
In the movie, Salvador once loved Federico deeply, and still cherished that affection many years later, even if Federico hurt him deeply. The two parted ways because of drugs, and in his later years in El Salvador, he tried his own risk when the pain was unbearable, but it is unclear whether it was for pain relief or to experience Federico's feelings. However, the pain of losing body and memory is presented to the extreme in this drama: the tears of Alberto and Federico are both from El Salvador and Almodovar.
Almodovar said that when he was in unbearable pain, he had indeed thought of consuming Hexin to relieve the pain. In the 1980s, he also witnessed the death of many dear friends due to smoking Hex. On the journey of life, on the journey of love, who has never made a mistake, but fortunately some people are still alive and still remember those deep feelings. So when Federico returned to Madrid, he gave El Salvador a deep kiss, as passionate as the heart-burning fire of "Burning Coins in Flames", and it also burned the viewers' tears that could not be suppressed due to the passage of time, that was moved by the years. Ruthless, I was even more touched by them this time, and I didn't miss it.
Regrets, but not forgotten
Almodovar likes to photograph women. Starting from "The Woman on the Verge of Breaking", Almodova embarked on the creative road focusing on photographing women, such as "Love High Heels", "Say to Her", "About My Mother" Everything, "Return", and "Hu Liyet" are all female subjects. Almodovar’s keen capture of women can be said to be unparalleled. The women in his films are exceptionally strong and brave, and they are still fair and friendly in the face of marginalized people. It is Almodovar's ideal and realistic image of a mother. Therefore, there are many mothers in his films: the mother who lost her son in "All About My Mother", the mother who suffered from family problems in two generations in "Return", and the mother who lost her husband and child in "Julieta".
In Almodovar's movies, the image of father has always been missing, and this "Pain and Glory" is no exception. The mother played by Penelope Cruz is very similar to the mother in "Return". El Salvador has always been creative under the encouragement of his mother, and he has been given the best education, even if he hates the time of his childhood church. The mother's rose rosary became a relic. El Salvador also blames himself for this. He failed to become the proud son of his mother, just because "what he presented is what he is" , but it is not what his mother wants.
So when his mother passed away, El Salvador, who had promised to take her mother back to his hometown but missed the opportunity, wept bitterly. In the movie, young Salvador writes letters of faith to his neighbors under his mother's education. However, in reality, Almodovar's mother was also a scribe who read and copied letters to the illiterate. She passed away in 1999.
There will always be regrets in life. El Salvador did not have time to take his mother back to his hometown, as if it was a pity that Almodovar failed to become the pride of his mother. Fortunately, Almodovar did not forget. "All About My Mother" sang the greatness of his mother; in "Return", the mother "resurrected from the dead"; and in "Pain and Glory", El Salvador finally stopped thinking about death. Restarting creation also symbolizes the eternal life of the mother's soul. Life and death are like an aria in Almodovar's movies, like the dove song in "Say to Her", simple and timeless.
Are late, but not absent
In "Law of Desire", the hero's "sister" once said: She has only two men in her life, one is the priest of the church and the other is her father. This alludes to the problem of sexual assault in the church. However, "Bad Education" more directly accuses, and even amplifies the harm caused by the priest's sexual assault through extreme methods such as murder and revenge. These experiences in the movie are more or less what Almodóvar has seen and heard. Almodóvar, who grew up in a traditional Spanish family, studied with the believers and sang in the choir as a child. So in "Pain and Glory", that little ignorant but intelligent little El Salvador, the first time in the choir, sounded like a natural note, it was doomed to his childhood, which will be dark and obscure.
In his gloomy and obscure childhood, the only bright touch of color may be the mason who brought him sex. On that hot summer day, little El Salvador was in bed like a spring tide, and his body felt like a heatstroke. The heat wave between illness and desire seemed to be a dream and a sexual awakening. Pandora's box was opened in the heart of little Salvador, and every love in the future is just like it.
Some people who crossed their lives just left in such a hurry. However, the past encounters, the sparks that briefly polished each other's lives, seem to have been burning faintly in the corner of my heart. I met by chance a few years later, only to discover that those things that hadn't had time to say, although they were late, they were never absent. That group of hearts regained the power of a prairie prairie fire, like the painting that symbolizes the budding of love, going round and round, but returning by different routes. Fifty years is just a matter of seconds.
Time, sometimes very ruthless. Almodovar is nearly 70 years old, has made 21 feature films, six times competed for Palme d’Or, but never won. In 1999 he lost to "Rosetta" by the Danes brothers, that year he filmed "Everything About My Mother"; in 2006, he lost to Ken Rocky's "Wind Blowing Wheat Wave", that year He filmed "Return"; in 2009 he lost to Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon", and that year he filmed "Broken Embrace". Today, the three directors he lost to have joined the Double Palme d’Or, but he has not given up, and is still performing with his enthusiasm, causing the audience to shed tears and laugh again and again.
This is like Banderas who accompanied Almodovar's film growth. In 1982, Banderas made his first appearance in Almodovar's film "The Labyrinth of Passion". Since then, he has starred in a total of 7 movies in the 21 feature films of Ah Dao, who can be said to be Almodovar. Raised Banderas in one hand. Banderas later became famous in Hollywood and became a symbol of Spanish sex appeal. Like Almodovar, he gradually entered his old age. 37 years later, he finally won the Cannes actor with "Pain and Glory". Although the award was late, he was not absent in the end.
The kiss of reunion thirty years later; the string of rose beads left by his mother; the portrait of me who has traveled through half a century to find myself; the handsome body of the man that summer; that scene stopped in the station The play in the play: They are far away and will never come back, but they live in your memory very clearly.
"I love you, it's so beautiful, time will know." After watching Almodovar's movie, I lamented that time is like an arrow and life is short. People spend their entire lives just to collect deep memories. I can't help but feel a little envious and jealous. How much luck is needed in life to look back like Almodovar in his twilight years:
There are faults but not missed; there are regrets but not forgotten; there are late but not absent.
After all, as long as you are, time will cherish.
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