While far from a Pedro Almodovar completist, his 80s ensemble melodramas were fairly essential viewing for those of us with an interest in the cinema. Personally, the manic heightened tone was always a mixed bag and I hadn't kept up with his later period stuff.
Pain and Glory is similarly uneven but in a low-key, reflective way. Presumably autobiographical in a way that his other films have not been, Antonio Banderas plays a Spanish film director whose various physical and mental ailments have left him creatively blocked and at a career standstill now approaching 60. between making amends with past collaborators and picking up a casual heroin habit to self-medicate, Salvador spends the weeks of this story reflecting back on his youth, his mother, and the conspiracy of those events that led him to his current state. Between this, QT's Once Upon a Time, and Scorsese's The Irishman, directors contemplating the arc of their lives and works at the later stages seems to be in the air this season.
Pain and Glory is similarly uneven but in a low-key, reflective way. Presumably autobiographical in a way that his other films have not been, Antonio Banderas plays a Spanish film director whose various physical and mental ailments have left him creatively blocked and at a career standstill now approaching 60. between making amends with past collaborators and picking up a casual heroin habit to self-medicate, Salvador spends the weeks of this story reflecting back on his youth, his mother, and the conspiracy of those events that led him to his current state. Between this, QT's Once Upon a Time, and Scorsese's The Irishman, directors contemplating the arc of their lives and works at the later stages seems to be in the air this season.
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