32
The Observer Critics
25.08.19Film
Critics
Confessions
of an auteur
Antonio Banderas gives the performance
of his career as a fi ctional stand-in for
director Pedro Almodóvar in a drama
that blurs the line between art and life
Film of the week
In Pedro Almodóvar’s previous
fi lm Julieta , a middle-aged woman
returns to her old apartment block
in Madrid to write about – and
thereby confront – the ghosts of
her life. There’s a similar sense of
revisiting in Pain and Glory, in which
Antonio Banderas plays a becalmed
fi lm-maker, struggling to move
forward, borne back ceaselessly
into the past. Described as the third
part of an “unplanned trilogy”
which began with Law of Desire
(1987) and continued through Bad
Education (2004), it’s another deeply
personal work from Almodóvar
that mixes autobiography withfi ction to powerful effect. As the title
suggests, the result is a tragi comic
swirl of heartbreak and joy, slipping
dexterously between riotous
laughter and piercing sadness. At
its heart is Banderas giving the
performance of a lifetime in a role
that, following his Cannes triumph ,
surely demands Oscar recognition.
Like Marcello Mastroianni in
Fellini’s 8½ , Banderas’s Salvador
Mallo is an auto fi ctional director
in crisis. His mother, Jacinta, died
four years ago and he had a back
operation two years ago; he has
not recovered from either trauma.
R acked by pain, both physical and
metaphysical (neatly illustrated
by Juan Gatti ’s Saul Bass -infl ected
graphics), Salvador has given up on
work and retreated into a depressive
cycle, reliant on medication. For
more than three decades he’s
been estranged from actor Alberto
( Asier Etxeandia , excellent), the
lead in his 1980s fi lm Sabor, with
whom he had a famously fractious
relationship. Now a festival wants
them to reunite and introduce arestored revival of the picture.
Alberto is a habitual heroin user
who introduces Salvador to chasing
the dragon before chancing upon
his private manuscript, Addiction,
a reminiscence of a love affair torn
apart. “It’s a confessional text,”
says Salvador. “I don’t want to be
identifi ed”, echoing his mother’s
complaints that his fi lms had
turned their private lives into
public entertainment. But Alberto
insists on performing Addiction as
a monologue, setting in motion a
chain of events that will blur the line
between art and life.
As the present-day story creeps
woozily forward, so a mosaic of
vivid fl ashbacks transports Salvador
to an altogether more vibrant past:
the childhood that saw his parents
moving to a village in Valencia
where they lived in “a cave!”; the
thunderbolt-like dawn of desire,
experienced as a childhood fainting
fi t, understood only on refl ection,
from a distance; the thrill and
agony of unforgettable love, forged
in 80s Madrid, the city that wouldAsier Etxeandia, left, and Antonio Banderas
as the reunited friends of Pedro Almodóvar’s
‘richly satisfying’ Pain and Glory.Pain and Glory
(113 mins, 15) Directed by Pedro
Almodóvar; starring Antonio
Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Asier
Etxeandia, Julieta SerranoMark
Kermode