Uncut UK – October 2019

REVIEWEDTHISMONTH

110 • UNCUT • OCTOBER 2019

PAIN AND GLORY The problem with Pedro

Almodóvar’s filmography is that even the

lesser works would shine with anyone else’s

name on. And after 2006’s outstanding Volver,

the auteur seemed to struggle, hitting a nadir

(for him) with I’m So Excited (2013), a silly,

shrill plane-set sex comedy that the director

tried to pass off as a camp satire of Spain’s

financial crisis. His latest, however, is not only

a return to form, it is also a meditation on the

lessons learned in those 13 years – a first-rate

director gently mulling over his mistakes.

To call it semi-autobiographical would

be an understatement. Playing – ahem –

legendary Spanish auteur Salvador Mallo,

Almodóvar regular Antonio Banderas sports

his director’s trademark mop of curly hair

and even wears his clothes. When we first

meet him, Mallo has been invited to give a

Q&A after a 30th-anniversary screening of

his film Sabor, an underground film whose

lurid unseen content is hinted at in a pop-art

poster that bears a pair of bright red lips.

For the Q&A, Mallo is reunited with the

star Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia), who

ruined the shoot with his drug problems.

Mallo forgives Crespo, and in return, Crespo

introduces Mallo to heroin, a panacea for all

his pains and existential crises.

Falling into addiction, Mallo reflects on

his previous life, and an unproduced script

from his past is turned into a one-man show

by Crespo. This too brings back some ghosts

from the past, including his mother – played

in a blinding piece of meta casting by regular

collaborators Penélope Cruz (young) and

Julietta Serrano (old) – while Almodóvar’s

genius shows in his flawless melding of these

flashbacks and other seemingly disparate

storylines. As entry-level Almodóvar, it

might seem slight, but for connoisseurs of

all the 20 movies before, Pain And Glory is a

revealing and insightful work that puts the

man and his movies into sharp perspective.

HAIL SATAN? “Satanic panic” is a phrase

that pops up midway through this funny

and thoughtful documentary, and readers

of a certain age will be transported back to

a period in the conservative mid-to-late ’80s

when the board game Dungeons & Dragons

was deemed to pose a moral threat and the

likes of Judas Priest were accused of hiding

occult backward messages in their music.

As Hail Satan? points out, history is cyclical,

and under Donald Trump’s stewardship, the

Christian right is once again trying to take us

back to those dark and ridiculous times.

O

NCE UPON A TIME...

IN HOLLYWOOD

One of the many

misconceptions about

Quentin Tarantino’s

ninth film is that it

would be cast in the

mould of his idol Sergio Leone’s epic revenge

western Once Upon A Time In The West (1968).

It definitely has that film’s sweep and the

scale, yet Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood

never attempts to reach the darkly dramatic,

operatic heights that Leone strove for. Instead,

it is something altogether more intimate, a

seductive and immersive hangout movie that

carries its pop-culture baggage in much more

discreet and polished packages than we’ve

perhaps seen from Tarantino before.

The first two-thirds of the movie is a Pulp

Fiction-style back-and-forth covering the

first weekend of February 1969. Fading

TV star Rick Dalton is preparing for his

latest gig, playing the heavy in an episode

of TV western Lancer, leaving his now

unemployed stuntman and gofer Cliff Booth

to run his errands for him. While driving

to and from Rick’s bachelor pad in upscale

Cielo Drive, Cliff sets his eyes on Pussycat

(Margaret Qualley), a pretty young girl

from a hippie commune based out at Spahn

Ranch. Meanwhile, Rick’s next-door

neighbour Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) is

enjoying the first flush of fame.

How these stories come together is left

to last in a daring feat of storytelling,

culminating in a far-out and riotously

funny climax that, as you might expect,

is not for the faint-hearted: broaching the

events of August 1969, the night of the

real Tate’s demise, Tarantino brilliantly

short-circuits our ghoulish expectations

with one of his funniest set-pieces to date.

Indeed, it’s a measure of what he’s achieved

here that a film set against the backdrop of

one of the most horrific crimes of the last

century is actually one of his lighter works, a

celebration of art and humanity with some of

the most poignant scenes he’s ever written.

Hooray for Tarantino’s

Hollywood, Almodóvar

turns the camera

inward, the Alien films

probed and more...

ANDREW COOPER/ © 2019 CTMG, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Buddy

doubles:

Brad Pitt and

Leonardo

DiCaprio in

Once Upon

A Time... In

Hollywood

ONCE UPON

A TIME IN

HOLLYWOOD

Directed by

Quentin

Tarantino

Starring

Leonardo

DiCaprio,

Brad Pitt

Opens Aug 14

Cert 18

9/10

PAI N &

GLORY

Directed by

Pedro

Almodóvar

Starring

Antonio

Banderas,

Penélope Cruz

Opens

Aug 23

Cert 15

8/10

H A I L SATA N?

Directed by

Penny Lane

Starring Lucien

Greaves, Jex

Blackmore

Opens

Aug 23

Cert 15

7/10

MEMORY:

THE ORIGINS

OF ALIEN

Directed by

Alexandre O

Philippe

Starring

Tom Skerritt,

Veronica

Cartwright

Opens Aug 30

Cert 15

7/10

THE

SOUVENIR

Directed by

Joanna Hogg

Starring Honor

Swinton Byrne,

To m B u rke

Opens

Aug 30

8/10