Pain and Glory: movie review

Almodóvar's Still Got the Mojo

No one puts exuberance on the screen quite like Pedro Almodóvar. Since his earliest studio films in the 1980s, his signature style has involved saturated color, elaborate compositions, and vivacious performances. In his latest film, Pain and Glory, the Spanish director brings his familiar panache to a contemplative and melancholy story that feels like a very personal account of the terrors of getting older. Can we still be the innocent souls we once were?

Centered on a celebrated but aging director of candy-colored art films, Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) could be a dopplegänger of Almodóvar himself with his burst of grey hair and colorful clothes. Salvador is sad-eyed and whispery even in the midst of his artful surroundings and gorgeous leather coats, and he quickly makes clear why: his physical ailments are so overpowering that he's lost the connection to his creativity. His back aches, he can't sleep, and his throat is so constricted that taking a sip of water is enough to set off a coughing jag that will halt all conversation. With so much pain in his body, there seems to be no room for expression in his soul.

And yet, we know that soul must still brim with it. An early scene shows an idyllic glimpse of his childhood as he hung on his mother's back when she washed clothes by the river while singing flamenco melodies with the other village women. Scenes from Salvador's childhood give us glimpses of the days when he lived in a village of whitewashed caves with his mostly absent father and his doting but domineering mother (Penelope Cruz). These scenes feel like crystallized memories, centering on moments of insight, desire, and refuge for the bookish boy. Crosscut with the present-day Salvador, the childhood memories emphasize the gulf between the inspiration that once moved him and the emptiness of his current world.

Of course, we want Salvador to get his mojo back, but Almodóvar hasn't given us a simple redemption story. Various incidents get Salvador engaging with the world again, from reconnecting with an old actor friend to acquiring an amateur heroin habit that seems to both relieve his pain and provide a connection to evocative childhood memories. An encounter with a long-lost lover proves tender and edifying, but none of it seems to be a magic key to chasing away his funk. There's no secret door out of depression, the film seems to say, other than just getting through each day.

Asier Etxeandia, Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas

Antonio Banderas, in some of Almodóvar's earlier films, was a golden Adonis with matinée idol looks and the kind of sex appeal that rocketed him to Hollywood stardom in the '90s. Now in his late fifties, Banderas gives a restrained but focused performance that makes great use of his whisper-purr of a voice and soulful eyes to communicate Salvador's malaise. Despite his slow, stiff-backed walk and coughing spasms, Banderas's vitality suggests that Salvador's main problem may lie less in his body than in his mind. If he can just clear his head enough to fix his attention on the right idea, he might be able to make another film.

I hope Pedro Almodóvar makes many more films, and that his creative evolution continues to mine his inimitable style for more introspective films like this one. Yet a final, poignant scene offers what could be an apt coda for Almodóvar's entire career, transmuting the colors and emotions of youthful memories into cinema. The pain will always be there, he seems to be saying, but through art we can turn it into something like glory.