PAIN AND GLORY/ DOLOR Y GLORIA

Spain, 2019, 113 minutes, Colour.
Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, Cesar Vicente, Asier Flores, Penelope Cruz, Cecilia Roth.
Directed by Pedro Almodovar.

2019, celebrated Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar, turned 70. He has taken the opportunity to look back over his life and draw on different aspects for this narrative of an ageing director, his physical difficulties, the Pain of the title, and the memories of his successful career, the Glory of the title.

In fact, Almodovar came from an impoverished rural area of Spain, arriving in Madrid in the late 1960s, experimenting with friends and short films throughout the 70s, his first feature film in 1980 – which makes a career of almost 40 years of films, initially celebrated in Spain, then around the world, his being seen as the most significant of Spanish directors.

He has chosen his frequent collaborator, Antonio Banderas, to play his alter ego, the director, Salvador. And, with a pleasing touch, he has chosen another frequent collaborator, Penelope Cruz, to have the cameo role as the director’s mother.

At the opening of the film, Salvador’s voice-over explains how ill he is (the touch of the hypochondriac?), Even with elaborate animated visuals to illustrate in some detail what is wrong with him. With this explanation, he draws our attention and something of our sympathy. And, he has not been making films but is offered an opportunity to reflect on his past success, his glory. There has been a restoration of his 1980s breakthrough film, Sabor, and his being invited to participate in a Q&A after a screening. And, the star of the film, Alberto, is invited to join him. The difficulty is that he clashed with Alberto during the making of the film and has not been in contact for 32 years.

On the positive side, Salvador has looked at the film again, found it better than he first thought, has changed his opinion of Alberto’s performance. He makes contact, something of a reconciliation – although Alberto persuades him to try heroin. In addition to his many tablets and pills for his ailments and condition.

The rest of the narrative does not go quite in the direction that the audience might be thinking and is all the more arresting for that. There are a number of flashbacks to Salvador’s childhood, his relationship with his mother, his singing talent and being chosen for a school choir (with some clerical reminders of Almodovar’s Mal Educacion), his being a reader, the presence of a worker in the house who is taught to read and write by Salvador. There are also flashbacks to his conversations with his elderly mother and her preparation for death, for which he still grieves.

The Q&A does not quite go as expected. And Alberto has read a manuscript on Salvador’s computer and suggests that he perform it, Addiction, as a theatrical monologue. It is a great success – but leads Salvador even further back into the past, to a relationship with a friend, Federico, who had a drug addiction. Salvador’s love was not enough to break the addiction and, once again, a friend has receded into the long past.

We are shown a sequence where the worker, Eduardo, paints a picture of Salvador as a boy, sitting reading. Eduardo later washes himself, Salvador seeing him naked – and the memory stirring him to creative writing about himself, sexual desire, a new film, First Desire.

Of course, we can speculate about how much of Pain and Glory is part of Almodovar’s life and how much of it is creative fiction. Whatever our conclusions, this is a very distinctive, imaginatively created, finely performed, often Almodovar, real or imagined (or both).

1. The career of Pedro Almodovar? His international success? This screenplay drawing on his life, career, present and past?

2. The title, the emphasis on the painting, the opening with Salvador in the water, his explanation of his physical condition, the diagrams and extensive explanation, the different ailments, medication, interviews with doctors and treatment, scans? The effect?

3. The title, the past glory, remembering the past and celebrating it? Salvador in the present – reluctant to work? Only past glory?

4. The Madrid settings, the atmosphere, Salvador’s apartment, the streets, the buildings, the theatre? Hospitals, the doctor, the scans?

5. Memories of the past, the countryside, the women at the river and their washing, singing and dancing? The house? Having to move, the landscapes, the houses as caves, the decorating? The flashbacks to Jacinta, her living with her son? The musical score? The songs?

6. Antonio Banderas and his work with Almodovar? In the past, more recently? His winning the Best Actor award at Cannes? Other members of the cast, the presence of Penelope Cruz?

7. The narrative of his life and career, the 1980s, making the film Sabor, its success, his falling out with Alberto, the decision to restore the film, screenings, Q&A with Alberto? His chance meeting with the actress, learning Alberto’s address, making the contact, the visits, the past history, the tension, the passing of 32 years? The issue of cocaine and heroin? Alberto and heroin, inviting Salvador to use the heroin? The decision about the screening? Alberto’s visit, Salvador not wanting to go to the Q&A? The phone call, doing the Q&A by phone, Salvador and his denunciation of Alberto, the clash?

8. Alberto, in Salvador’s home, reading the text of Addiction? His making the proposal? The performance and the dramatic impact in the middle of the film? Federico present at the performance, his talking with Alberto, Federico phoning Salvador?

9. The narrative of Addiction? The early 1980s, Salvador and his love for Marcello, the gay love, the addiction by Marcello, Salvador trying to break the addiction? The break – no contact for 30 years? The memories? Federico affected, coming to the house, talking, Salvador remembering? Federico’s subsequent life, marriage and sons, divorce, the truth to his son’s, the possibility of staying the night, Salvador refusing? The promised to visit Argentina?

10. Almodovar and the screenplay, drawing on his past? The portrait of his mother, at the river, the washing, strong minded woman, at home, care for her son, her absent husband, going to the cave, her reaction, realising that Salvador liked it? The period in school, his singing well, the priest singling him out, his years of the choir but not having to attend classes in geography and other subjects, Salvador at home, his extensive reading? Eduardo and his girlfriend, asking for him to write their letter? Jacinta and her organising renovations in the house? Salvador reading, in the chair, Eduardo sketching his portrait, the boy’s collapse? Eduardo, his washing, Salvador seeing him naked? The finding of the picture later, the letter on the back, his mother receiving it but not sending it on? The possibility for finding Eduardo? Going to the Gallery, buying the picture? Its significance for him – First Desire?

11. The flashbacks to his elderly mother, the room, the rosaries, the mantilla, not wanting shoes at the funeral, to tread lightly in the next world? Talking to his mother, walking? Grief at her death, the continued effect?

12. Salvador, his age, his health, the touch of a hypochondriac, the range of medications, the taking of the heroin, the decision against it, after Federico’s visit? His experience of choking? The help of Maya, his housekeeper? The friendship with Mercedes, able to contact her at any time? Is Agreeing to go to the doctor with her, the scan, the calcifying, the surgery to remedy it?

13. His becoming creative again, stirred by the picture, the memories of Eduardo, making the film of First Desire?