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Pain and Glory


Recently, the latest film by Pedro Almodovar (the most famous contemporary Spanish director) appeared in cinemas.
I use to keep a distance to the media. I don't listen to the radio, even in the car, I don't have a TV, I don’t read newspapers neither. I know that the flow of information is always limited, biased, directed by someone unknown who just wants to earn a big money. That's why I read selected news on the Internet and I treat my meetings with culture consciously. Cinema, theater, opera, philharmonic- I'm sure that these spaces have created my sensibility somehow and I have had a special bond with them for a long time.

Aldomovar's films have always impressed me a lot. Provincial, rural life, strong and resourceful figures of women, importance of relationships, taboos, multi-faceted controversial issues, human dramas. This is a cinema that doesn't always end well, it doesn't always explain everything, sometimes it doesn't impress with graphics, but it gives a large dose of good material. I finish watching a film and I'm thinking about it over the next few days. Almodovar's creations leave a trace in me.
‘Pain and Glory’ is an autobiographical film which doesn't mean that it's devoid of artistic fiction. There are topics of poverty, fame, lies, regret, homosexuality, heroin, illness, pain, death, of course of the cinema and the figure of the mother (very strongly present in the Almodovar's cinema).


The movie is very human and quite overwhelming, the scenes show work environments, a poor ‘cave house’, a hospital, smoky rooms. Dialogues are imperfect, colloquial, sometimes vulgar. Life is presented without euphemisms. However, you can find the true depth inside ('-If you do not write or wheels, what will you do? -Live, I suppose') while the ending itself shows the director's great skills, professionalism, experience and sense of humor- the viewer gets involved in the game and gets distracted if the last scene is still a flashback to childhood or a late film set.


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