Pain and Glory reviews

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Sabin
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Re: Pain and Glory reviews

Post by Sabin »

Pain and Glory keeps showing new layers as it goes along, ultimately revealing itself to be a structured series of vignettes, each of which inform the other. I was moved by what it said about the relationship between art and memory. We think that we’re settling into a journey of hazy heroin-fueled remembrances by Salvador that presumably he’ll come to peace with and then move on. And that’s… not entirely what happens. It’s a nifty trick. The whole film is very deeply felt. My biggest reservation is that it just felt so conflict-averse. There's loads of conflicts that just sort of mellow out: Salvador and his old collaborator, Salvador and an old lover, Salvador and his mother, Salvador and a first attachment, Salvador and heroin… This is one of the least self-critical portraits of an artist I’ve seen in a long time. There’s no acknowledgment that he was ever a shit, and I don’t buy that Pedro Almodovar wasn’t a shit in his day. Where I differ from the film is that closure breeds rebirth. Sometimes a lack of closure breeds it as well.

I guess what I’m trying to get around saying was it felt a bit too old to me but there's still more than enough to heartily recommend. I enjoyed it more than Parallel Mothers. Antonio Banderas is very good, but his scenes with his old lover are standout. And as always, it's just such a feast for the eyes, but his attention to detail is wonderful as well, such as a moment where Salvador drops a pill on the floor and has to drop a pillow down to assist his knees when he crouches down. Gorgeous filmmaking.

Quick aside: at one or two points, somebody describes something in the film as happening “by coincidence” as an explanation. The only other time I’ve heard someone call something like that out is in a Woody Allen movie. I’ve never encountered anyone in real life say that something happened by coincidence. I hereby propose that whenever someone discusses something that happens by coincidence in real life or film, they just shrug and say “Fate?” Or, y’know, write a better reason.
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Okri
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Re: Pain and Glory reviews

Post by Okri »

1. It opened here!!!!

2. My audience was sparse, but it was actually a little younger than Tee's (and mostly Spanish speaking, intriguingly. They laughed a lot more than I did and I don't know if the song the ladies sing by the river/doing laundry is a real song, but I swore the group of women in the front of the theatre were singing along).

3. Anyway, I really liked the movie. The ending, in particular, is a gem.
Mister Tee
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Pain and Glory reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

It's a shame there hasn't been a thread set up for this film before now. I'm starting one even if I'm the only one ever posts in it.

When my showing was over yesterday afternoon, I looked at my fellow audience members and thought, Wow, this is the geriatric unit -- everyone here is old. (Sadly, anyone who looked at me might have thought the same.) But in a sense that's appropriate, for this is very much the work of a mature, aging artist -- not just in terms of subject matter (notably, the decay of the body as age encroaches -- something I warn you younger folk is an inevitability), but as regards attitude. This is a less confrontational, more contemplative Almodovar...one inclined to listen to the people who've wandered through his life with a desire to understand rather than fight them. This may disappoint fans who love Pedro most as provocateur -- I do note that most of the (few) negative reviews are in this vein. But I loved it as a rich, life-summing sort of work.

It's very much a self-referential film, with a broad canvas. It's Pedro's 8 1/2 and Amarcord in one setting, with a dash of Wild Strawberries on the side. Antonio Banderas is quite clearly his alter ego, and the film is about his coming to terms with lost comrades from the past (both professional and personal), as well as dealing with the intersection of his art with his life. (The film's final moment executes a thrilling flip that suggests the two can be interchangeable, or that at least it can be hard to tell the one from the other.) The film gathers narrative strength as it goes, beginning with a raggedy reunion with an actor he once quarreled with, then really reaching full-power in the second half, with scenes involving a former lover; a long-ago object of desire; and, perhaps most movingly, his mother -- all of which scenes, beyond being emotionally wrenching, give us varying takes on the role of art as catalyst, impediment, or cause of reconciliation with the elements of one's life. Antonio Banderas really shines in these scenes, his tiniest reactions letting us see the pain he experiences from slights (at his mother's hand) or the sense of having missed out on something (with his former lover).

I think this is one of Pedro's finest works; it's certainly stuck with me more than 24 hours later. And it's hard to argue it's not got its due, given its Cannes prize and the likelihood of some Oscar attention. But it does feel like its timing was poor, as it sits in the shadow of Parasite, which is on its way to becoming the biggest foreign-language hit since Pan's Labyrinth. This will probably Iimit the film's shot at real...well, glory -- Bong will get all the FLF attention in directing and probably writing, with only Banderas' performance with a shot to mark this film as something beyond the International ghetto. But this shouldn't blind us to the film's great virtues. It's one of the best films of what's turned into a surprisingly impressive year.
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