There
are still a few Oscar films from this season that I didn’t have a chance to get
to before the ceremony, and this is one of them. Glad I was able to see it –
lovely film, with a strong central performance.
Salvador
is a celebrated filmmaker who’s gone into retirement due to a number of health
troubles. As he grapples with pain and sickness, he struggles to know what to
do with himself if he can’t make movies. When a renewed interest in one of his
classics leads him to quasi-reconcile with an actor he used to work with, the
questions of both his future and his past come to a head.
I’ll
admit that I haven’t seen many of Pedro Almodóvar’s films, although the ones I
have seen have interested me in seeing more. As such, I can’t say how Pain and Glory stands up to his best
works, but I really liked it. It’s a slow-burning character piece about an
artist that falls more on the self-reflection than navel-gazing side of the
spectrum, and it does a nice job of creating a past celebrated career for
Salvador that feels genuine; the references to old films of his, to scripts and
honors and actors, feel lived-in, like they could really be. I really like
seeing Salvador’s present struggles and questions interspersed with scenes from
his childhood growing up in poverty.
I
also like the overarching theme of Salvador’s health issues and chronic pain.
The film keeps these everpresent in Salvador’s life in small ways, like how
gingerly he gets in and out of a car or how he always sets down a pillow when
he has to kneel. Pain management becomes an overriding focus for him, and it’s
clear that he wouldn’t have retired from filmmaking if he didn’t feel like his
health was barring him from it. It’s a good portrait of how chronic pain can
affect every part of someone’s life.
The
headline performance is of course Antonio Banderas as Salvador, who was nominated
for Best Leading Actor. I really like this performance – Banderas conveys a lot
through subtle things, and I appreciate that Salvador is allowed to be gay
without it being The Big Thing of the story. The film also features Penélope
Cruz as Salvador’s mother in flashbacks, and although I’m not familiar with
him, I like Asier Etxeandia, who plays the actor Salvador gets back in touch
with. Etxeandia does a great job as an actor who’s made a lot of bad personal
decisions that have hurt his career but who can still really pull it out when
it comes to his craft.
Warnings
No comments:
Post a Comment