Douleur et gloire

The story about the artistic crisis and depression. Once the noise of the glory goes away, there's nothing but emptiness and pain inside. Almodóvar has created this autobiographical masterpiece during his darkest and the most lonely moments in his life. It's different from everything that the genius had shared with the world before. Feeling of loneliness and pain in every scene, that makes a glory so unimportant and empty, when you have no one to share it with. The director made the audience hold the breath while he was speaking and sharing his most intimate secrets, his memories and regrets about the past.

Endless respect for Almodóvar for making this autobiographical movie so personal and sincere.

A filmmaker (Antonio Banderas) deals with physical and mental ailments as he approaches old age, settling in to a sad kind of torpor as he reflects on life. People have come and gone and the real pain here seems to be quiet melancholy of regret, his body's (significant) issues notwithstanding. The film meanders a bit and suffers at times with pacing, but through his reflections and flashbacks, it tells a touching story about coming to peace with those we've known in life.

There's the filmmaker's mother (Penélope Cruz), who sent him to a seminary for most of his schooling because she had no money for a secular education, which led to him not learning much. In old age she dies alone in a hospital instead of in her home village, where he had promised to take her. (Oddly, the actor playing the elderly mother, Julieta Serrano, has blue eyes whereas Cruz's are brown, which was a little jarring to me). These are the things that swirl around in his mind as he still grieves over losing her.

There is also the actor from one of his popular films (Asier Etxeandia), who he had a falling out with decades ago, but who he reconnects with and is then introduced to heroin by. He casually tries it and then alarmingly we see him quickly hooked, which makes for what seemed like one of the longer subplots, which I wasn't all that interested in. There is an old lover who surfaces (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a man who disappeared out of his life and is now married with children, and the scene the two share is full of authenticity and warmth. He also recalls a time in childhood when he tutored a handyman for payment of services to his mother, and felt the first flush of desire when he saw him bathing.

I think Almodóvar was wise to draw a line at this last character not physically meeting him decades later, as it gave the film realism and a wistful bit of sentimentality. True to form, he also gives the viewer an explosion of primary colors, and there is certainly a lot of beauty on the screen. That kitchen, especially with its bold red cabinets, made me wonder if such a space would be too loud to live in, but later I read that it was modeled on Almodóvar's own home. I also loved the little touch of the Cruz's character and her friends breaking in to a light song while washing their clothes in the river. Nothing "big" happens here, but in its quiet way, it reflects the director, and his pain and glory in life.

It is a slow film, similar to life. I really enjoyed this movie, no one is clear what it is about until about and hour in. In simple terms is is film director who had lost his mojo because of the death of his mother and a back operations. He also begins to look back on his career and pivotal moments in his childhood. The flashback shots are perfectly and wonderfully capture the atmosphere of his young life while seamlessly interwoven with moments of present day.

Pain and glory is painful and glorious, as you'd except from a director who lives, suffers, enjoys and jogs his memory to find the small and grand moments of his human existence.

The acting of everyone was brilliant but limited so no Oscar here, Almodovar and Banderas are such a good match, the boy and the painter is such a delicate combination & the mother and the son in different moments of their lives, but mainly in the end, when they are both old. the dialogues are very meaningful, but movie as a whole had some profundity and was ravishingly shot as usual.

Less bombastic than some of his previous work (which I also love, by the way), this bittersweet film shows the maturity of a director that's been around and seen it all, someone who's experienced both pain and glory and is asking himself what's next in life. In this partly autobiographical narrative, his most personal so far, Almodovar expresses some frustration with aging and with loneliness, but also his appreciation for the path that he's had the privilege to make for himself and continues to work on, and the people who are important to him. He succeeds in exploring nostalgia without succumbing to sappiness. If anything, Almodovar's senses and craft are sharper than ever. He's able to be critical and loving at the same time. I like how has evolved through the decades and that he keeps experimenting with different styles of storytelling. Antonio Banderas' award-worthy performance as the director's alter ego is understated, yet bold. Almodovar said in an interview that the choice was obvious, as Banderas is to him what Marcello Mastroianni was to Federico Fellini. And indeed there are some similarities between this film and '8 1/2': both films deal with the creative process. But whereas Fellini approaches the topic as a gladiator confronting obstacles with whip in hand, Almodovar is more low key and seems to point to tenderness as his weapon of choice.

We are what we are, because of choices we made and people we met. Our past defines who we are today. Can we change if we think we go a direction that isn't a "good" one? Maybe we can - but that is not the major revelation or plot that you get served here.

Here you get a director, who seems to have lost his ... muse and sense and so many other things. Not his will to live of course ... no matter what he does or what he puts in his body, nothing implicates he has lost that will. Quite the opposite can be seen (subtly I'd say) in an interaction he has while buying drugs at a know place apparently.

He has regrets, he has sorrows and he still has a lot of things in him that want to get out (one way or another). Played fantastically by Antonio Banderas - you almost forget how he is in real life, so mellow, so convincing is his performance! Well done and another collaboration with Almodovar and him that shows they are a great pairing. Certain things may offend you no matter the rating - drug use, homosexuality and so forth. But those are part of life ... maybe not yours or mine ... but they are there - they exist. For this character more than for others.