Pain and Glory

More subdued than what you generally get from Almodóvar. I like the way the narrative is framed around not just the importance of art but the power of creating it.

One of Pedro Almodovar's best movies and most certainly his most personal, Pain and Glory tells the story of Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas), a Spanish film director coming to a crossroads in both his life and his career, who begins using heroin to dull his considerable emotional and physical pain. Despite the typically bright colors Almodovar employs throughout the movie, it is a somber film about redemption, forgiveness and regret as the struggling artist looks back on his life. Banderas gives what is probably the best performance of his career as the vulnerable protagonist. As agonizing as Pain and Glory can be at times, it never fails to be entertaining and insightful.

This is very much a philosophical sort of a film, in that it features various older characters (not elderly but, lets say middle aged people) who have lived and regretted things, enjoyed things, have a lot to think about and look back on. As is typical of Almodovar's films (the director Pedro Almodovar), this film features numerous vibrant colours in the background of numerous scenes, whether they be within the houses of said characters, or in venues where films/film reels are shown and so on. This is a film that is definitely worth seeing specifically in high definition, preferably on a Blu-Ray disk, I'd say. I also liked the use of light in some scenes, giving an almost sort of faded spotlight sense visually. I felt the cast did well in showing their emotional vulnerabilities on screen - it felt a very real, perhaps even somewhat raw in terms of the humanity aspect of it, watch, although I can understand why some people may argue that reasonably well off people who have had some success and find themselves somewhat washed up in later life, perhaps don't make the most obvious people to entirely feel sorry for. Still, I did feel quite engrossed in the film and while I wouldn't actively encourage the slightly destructive things the characters do, in response to their sense of loss of identity or despair, I feel I can perhaps understand why they do what they do, to an extent. I also liked that it shows male companionship and how it can make a difference to people going through the situation depicted, as well as how the main characters mother helped him see things too. Its somewhat sombre and emotionally raw in a way, in tone at times. If your a fan of Almodovar's previous work, or Banderas work (although this is very much a slow drama film. rather than an action film) then I'd definitely recommend this. Otherwise, this is definitely worth a watch.

I finished watching it because I had invested my time. The movie was a drag. Focuses on one hedonistic, narcissistic movie writer/director. Not much fun.

I was glued to the screen and couldn't look away from this film by Pedro Almodóvar.

A beautiful and haunting movie with deep meanings.

"No es mejor actor el que llora, sino el que lucha por contener las lágrimas", primera autorreferencia que hablaremos de esta película, esto dicho por el personaje de Salvador Mallo dirigida justo para su interpretador Antonio Banderas, quien da una actuación magistral y seguramente la mejor de toda su carrera. Al referirme al termino autorreferencial, quiero decir que esta película es una referencia a la referencia de la vida real, casi de cierta manera, una película que trata de la creación de esa misma película. Pedro Almodóvar dirige y autorreferencia su vida con este largometraje hecho con bastante corazón e irreprochable que al mismo tiempo funciona como una catarsis bastante sublime, no solo dirigida hacia el mismo director, sino a la audiencia. El caso fue tan profundo que sentí que todo el momento estaba teniendo Déjà vus por la manera en cómo está escrita y dirigida. La cinematografía es excelente en todo momento, como si fuera un dibujo hecho a mano plasmando los momentos mas importantes de la vida de esta persona, inclusive la película hace una referencia a este aspecto.

8 1/2 is the film about filmmaking, or more accurately, the dream of filmmaking. It is a circus overflowing with life, beautiful people in beautiful costumes, and a buoyant score, where disaster means nothing when shot in luscious monochrome. A poster of Fellini's masterwork hangs in the background of Pain and Glory (2019), a quietly reflective film about a filmmaker in which life is overwhelming, once beautiful people disguise their aches and pains, and music conjures memories too painful to endure. Art and the artistic process can be so often fetishised. Artists suffering under the weight of physical and mental pain channel their burden by creating art to lighten the sprits of others. For some, like Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) a successful filmmaker in his later year, this pain is incapacitating. His time is spent doing very little except swimming, going to hospital appointments, and avoiding fans reaching out to him. Inevitably, this artistic vacuum becomes a space for reflection of all those that guided his life - his mother, a former lover, and an artistic partner. The memories writer / director Pedro Almodóvar chooses are seemingly innocuous like young Salvador excelling in his school choir or the consternation of his mother Jacinta (Penelope Cruz) as they move into a cave-like home. Conspicuously absent from this filmmaker's reflections are memories of filmmaking. There are no flashbacks to Salvador's first day on set, his first premier or receiving a prestigious award. The exorcising of movie memories enables Pain and Glory to remove the fetishising romance of filmmaking, while illuminating the necessity art plays in life. Almodóvar does this by making his men addicts to heroin, either past abusers of the substance like Salvador's former lover Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia), present users like Salvador's former artistic partner actor Alberto (Asier Etxeandia), or new users like Salvador who takes up the drug to numb his empty days. We are all addicts, according to Almodóvar, but it is about choosing your addiction. Federico leaves behind heroin when family fulfils his life, Alberto's return to the stage becomes his high, and Salvador's writing fills the lacuna in his life. The numbing oblivion of drug taking is the very opposite of productive art making. The drug leaves nothing but only takes, and does nothing but disconnects us from yesterday, today and tomorrow. Art is an energising source that allows us to look and move forward, but also a connective substance to our former loves, departed family, and our childhood self. And while this can be painful to re-experience, it is therapeutic and redemptive, able to show someone, like Federico the impact he made on a former lover, or give Alberto a new and constructive purpose. Almodóvar shows this beautifully in one moment when Salvador sits in a hospital waiting room, he looks up to see a ceiling picture of a blue sky with tree branches cut up into equal grids. The image is reminiscent of a storyboard, many individual images (and memories) that make up a whole. At the same time, it is the view Salvador would have had from his childhood cave home, looking at the sky through a grated ceiling. Pedro Almodóvar could have cut to a scene explicitly showing this moment stirred up in Salvador's head, instead we see him smile privately to himself. It is enough to see the pain and glory of remembering.

well worth watching, excellent

One of Almodovar's best! It's absolutely beautifully filmed, acted and directed... bitter sweet and a magnificent feat!