With His Career at a Standstill, a Filmmaker Reconnects with His Past

Antonio Banderas and Cecilia Roth in "Pain and Glory"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Writer-director Pedro Almodóvar has given international cinema an illustrious career that has spanned across four decades.  When making these films, he has gone through comedy and drama from different angles to offer audiences inventive stories that come from an individual who always seems to be in command of his cinematic voice.

He now takes us on a deep and personal journey with the semi-autobiographical “Pain and Glory,” a film where we see him examine his life through the main character’s relationships with family and friends and showing us the impact that filmmaking has had on Almodóvar.

Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) is a filmmaker who has suffered through years of physical and mental ailments.  As he struggles to renew his artistic passion, he will soon find himself coming face to face with people from his past and trying to fix those connections that have been lost.

Banderas, who has collaborated with Almodóvar several times, gives a performance that’s subdued, but towers with drama as his character seems to live a life of solidarity, but shows some hope for Salvador because of him never seeming to have lost his ability to open up to others.  When he meets with the people from his past, you see Banderas’ character as he removes Salvador’s emotional layers and unveils the person who has been mentally shut away for years.  Even when Banderas isn’t speaking during these interactions, you feel the weight of these encounters hitting Salvador as you see him trying to process what he’s being told.  In each scene, Banderas exhibits the full impact that his physical and mental issues have had on him over the years, while also diving into his regrets and desires.  There is so much to this character that needs to be extracted, and Banderas brings us inside Salvador’s mind as we try to get to the root of the issues that span for most of his life.

The amount of time that we spend with the supporting performances, no matter how much, gives us an idea of the way in which these individuals have left an everlasting impact on Salvador, and vice versa.  We have Penélope Cruz as Salvador’s hardworking mother, Jacinta, a parent who will ensure that her son has the best upbringing that’s possible; Julieta Serrano as an older Jacinta, who at that point in her character’s life is trying to understand her son and the choices that he has made; Asier Etxeandia as Alberto, a person who’s friendship with Salvador has been strained after a creative difference tore them apart decades ago; Leonardo Sbaraglia as Federico, a former love interest of Salvador; and Cecilia Roth as Zulema, his compassionate assistant who’s always there for him.

The screenplay by Almodóvar transitions between Salvador’s life in the present and his childhood in the ‘60s.  During the scenes in the present, we have a series of one-on-one conversations between Salvador and the people with whom he has built connections over the years.  Through these exchanges, we’re given many details as to what Salvador’s life was like when shared with these characters in the events before the film and how they have shaped him. Even if a couple of these characters only have a few minutes of screen time with Salvador, you still feel as though you know them in the end because of how they’re able to reveal their feelings towards Salvador and how he has effected their lives in return.

In the sequences that take place in Salvador’s past, Almodóvar provides us with just as much detail as he does for the sequences in the present.  Almodóvar explores Salvador’s academic gifts, highlighting the possibilities that his character has for his future, which makes it all of the more heartrending when we find out the troubles that threaten those gifts later in his life.

Although Almodóvar gives plenty of focus on both the past and present, Almodovar adds an extra angle to the former by showing that the past never stays in the past.  With this, Almodovar does well in emphasizing the merging of the past and present and showing how the people with whom you formed relationships over the years can come back into your life in unexpected ways.

Almodóvar’s direction is all about getting us to understand the complexities of Salvador, and seeing as Salvador represents Almodóvar, Almodóvar wants us to also understand who he himself is.  Almodóvar makes you experience every ounce of emotion in this film as he takes you on this quest as he and his movie counterpart deconstruct who they are and what their art means to them.  Through this, the collaboration between Almodóvar and Banderas elicits hard-hitting drama whose strength doesn’t do anything less than immerse you in Salvador’s complicated life.

Given the many films that Almodóvar has made over the years, you know his artistic trademarks.  But, with the personal nature of the story that’s told in “Pain and Glory,” you get to know him.

Grade: A