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Antonio Banderas excels as a version of the director in Almodóvar's Pain & Glory |
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Antonio Banderas (Salvador Mallo), Penélope
Cruz (Jacinta Mallo), Nora Nacas (Mercedes), Asier Etxeandia (Alberto Crespo),
Leonardo Sbaraglia (Federico), César Vicente (Eduardo), Cecilia Roth
(Zulema), Julieta
Serrano (Older Jacinta Mallo), Raúl Arévalo (Salvador’s father)
Every artist in time reflects on his roots, and many explore these
reflections in their medium of choice. The master of this in the world of
cinema was Fellini, and any film that riffs upon the biography of auteur
directors is destined to be described as Fellini-esque. That’s an appropriate
title for Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain & Glory, which explores Almodóvar’s childhood spiced with a
fictionalised version of himself in the present day, struggling with lack of
drive and against a series of crippling illnesses. It makes for a gently
structured, quietly moving picture shot with a classic simplicity but filled
with genuine emotional feeling.
Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) is our Almodóvar
substitute, his body falling apart from a range of illnesses and diseases that
have prevented him from directing a film for years. Asked to present a
screening of a classic film of his from almost thirty years ago, he contacts
the lead actor of the film Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia) who he has not
spoken to since making the film. The two quickly re-bond – helped by Mallo’s
curiosity about trying the heroin of which Crespo is a habitual user. Mallo
finds the drugs not only help to ease his pain, but also bring back a flood of
memories about growing up with his mother Jacinta (Penélope Cruz) as a poor peasant
boy, educated in a convent school and teaching a young labourer Eduardo (César
Vicente) to read and write.
Almodóvar is best known for a electric, dynamically assembled
films but he is also a patient and intelligent craftsman and sensitive director
with an eye for pace, and Pain &
Glory is a far more meditative piece, as befitting the sense that both
Almodóvar
and Mallo are reflecting on their entire lives. The general structure fits in
to a well-worn template of such films, with Mallo dealing with dissatisfaction
and frustration in the present day but, through memories, finding a sense of
peace and an ability to move on and reconnect with his life and work. But
familiar as it is, it is a template that works exceptionally well – and I felt
a real sadness and frustration that Mallo is drawn towards the superficial,
short-term, comfort that drugs bring him when he is unable to write and direct
films.
While I find some of the films attitudes towards drugs a
little unsettling (Crespo seems willing to kick them at will, which I find rather
hard to believe and even a bit irresponsible), it does show that this is a
false nirvana for Mallo and that the more time he spends (as he eventually
recognises) wallowing in this rather than finding avenues for artistic
creation, is time wasted. Crespo (very well played by Asier Etxeandia, despite
the character being a bit of a cliché) may well be a great actor – his
performance of a Mallo short story memoir carries real emotional weight – but
he is a lightweight human being, the very opposite of the far more deeper
feeling (and thinking) Mallo.
It’s that exploration of Mallo’s personality, art and how
the two relate to his memories of his past that really powers the movie. Mallo
is of course played by Almodóvar’s muse Antonio Banderas – and this
might well be the greatest performance of Banderas’ career. I’m sure he has
never been as sensitive, gentle, soft, tender and vulnerable as is here.
Looking thinner and more delicate than ever before, Banderas keeps emotion
carefully in check but playing constantly in the eyes. He’s fabulous, a
wonderfully humane and beautiful performance.
Matching this quality, the sequences that really kick into gear
in the modern storyline are those that carry real emotional meaning for
Mallo/Almodóvar.
The first is a meeting between Mallo and former lover Federico (Leonardo
Sbaraglia, quite excellent – tender, heartbreaking and real) , which is an
intensely personal, gently played, sad but also affectionate and hopeful
conversation about a relationship loved and lost, which belongs in the past but
which can bring a certain contentment in the future. It’s also a scene that
demonstrates how the past sometimes stays better in the past, and that quieter
reflections on lost relationships can be better and richer than restarting
them.
This also mixes in well with Mallo’s yearning to be free to
continue his creative output, unburdened by disease and illness, mixed with a
loving guilt for his mother who sacrificed so much to give him chances in life
and whom he feels he failed in her final years (despite spending them caring
for her in his home). The later sequences showing Mallo looking after his
mother (a wonderful performance by Julieta Serrano) hum with an intimacy and
emotional honesty that work all the better for the film’s careful interweaving
of past and present.
Extended flashbacks – driven perhaps by Mallo’s exploration
of his past fuelled by drugs – chronicle his childhood with his mother,
marvellously played by Penélope Cruz, Almodóvar’s other muse. Cruz’s maternal,
caring but strong-willed embodiment of Mallo’s mother is exquisite, from
singing while washing laundry at the lake to sadly encouraging her son to
believe convent school is his best chance of a full education. It’s clear that
Mallo’s mother believes she knows what is best for her son – and, as a late
sting shows, sometimes mean she takes drastic decisions without her son’s
knowledge. The flashbacks cover everything from Mallo’s education to his first
infatuation (and realisation of his sexuality) with a young married labourer
who he teaches to read and write.
Pain & Glory
explores all these memories with a touching intimacy but also a clear-eyed
reality, and Almodóvar’s honesty in these scenes and with his own feelings
about his past and how it has powered his art have a real emotional force to
them. With superb performances throughout the cast, the film is a testament to
the restraint and careful lack of flash, of a director willing to explore his
life without flash or bangs. At one point Mallo opines “a great actor is not
the one who cried, but the one who knows how to contain the tears”. It could be
a strapline for the whole movie.
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