Critics Survey: The Best Of Almodóvar
What's the Spanish auteur's best film? Six writers weigh in.
Deep reds, musical crescendos, despondent divas and hunky homosexuals: you know it’s a Pedro Almodóvar film when you see it. The Spanish auteur has been making movies since 1980 and is considered among the world’s greatest arthouse directors, with two Oscars, nine Goyas and 21 feature-length titles under his belt. His queer lens and gaudy style have made him a trailblazer, and helped pave the way for narratives often considered taboo.
In light of The Human Voice—his recent short starring Tilda Swinton—I decided to do a complete rundown of his filmography, including rewatches. Because it’s difficult to pick just one favorite, I got five friends and fellow Almodóvar fans to write about which film affected them the most.
The following are six different takes on six of his best works.
Broken Embraces (2009)
By Ursula Muñoz-Schaefer
There’s a lot to admire about Almodóvar’s knack for juggling poignancy with self-awareness. His art has a tendency to wink at audiences without ever seeming wry, which may be why his melodramas often leave the biggest impact on me (as enjoyable as his comedies can get). Broken Embraces and his consecutive film, The Skin I Live In, remain my favorites from the singular auteur, but the former may be the most heartfelt and optimistic in his canon.
Several factors make Broken Embraces so effective to me. His stylistic trademarks are on full display, of course—not only through a rich color scheme and some gorgeous scenic shots of Europe, but also through visual references to iconic pieces of art. He blatantly parodies René Magritte’s The Lovers and his own Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown for instance, and frames Penélope Cruz gorgeously in sequences reminiscent of classic Hollywood glamour.
Many will call Broken Embraces a film for longtime Almodóvar fans, but it’s his focus on freedom and catharsis that made this masterful tale of forbidden love my favorite, way before I even came across the likes of High Heels and Bad Education. Love letters to the medium don’t get more touching than this.
Ursula Muñoz-Schaefer is a reporter from Puerto Rico, and the creator of Reading From Top To Bottom. You can follow her on Twitter @UrsulaMunozS13.
Bad Education (2004)
By Zachary Morgason
As you dive through Pedro Almodóvar's decadent and sensual filmography, there are a great many themes which recur. His work is defined by homoeroticism, melodrama, femininity, perversity and perhaps above all, a deep-seated passion for film and cinematic storytelling. All of these and more run through Bad Education, among Almodóvar's most twisted stories in more senses than one—as well as my personal favorite of his films.
Bad Education is densely plotted. The narrative is woven through an aspiring actor, his sister's tragic backstory, a Catholic church sex scandal, a digetic film that unspools the central mystery and the askew psychology of everyone involved. It feels at once like Almodóvar's most ambitious and affecting works, as well as his best visual celebration of the masculine form.
Almodóvar navigates this labyrinth of theme and plot by following the golden thread of nostalgia, and many of its scenes are imbued with romantic ephemera. Whether it's leering at star Gael García Bernal stripping and diving into the pool, or young Ignacio singing a falsetto hymn, moments are alive emotion as the result of a fusion between desires of the flesh and the yearning for the hazy days of youth.
Almodóvar's combination of feelings strikes a resonant chord few can dream about, because basically no one has his skill for balancing tone and imbuing shocking content with an equal measure of empathy. These complementary skills allow him to skate perilously close to the edge of taste, drawing out strong reactions and pulling the audience effectively into each successive turn of the screw.
Zachary Morgason is a writer from Dallas, TX whose work can be found on Medium. You can follow him on Twitter @zmorgasboard.
The Skin I Live In (2011)
By Alejandra Gonzalez
In his epic poem Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid tells several stories of transformation. One story focuses on Pygmalion, a mythological figure who carves a perfect woman out of ivory and falls in love with his own creation, living happily, forever, with his ivory woman.
Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In also tells the story of a man supplying life to his creation, but for reasons that have very little to do with love and much more to do with power. The film tells one of the strangest, most unnerving stories in Almodóvar’s lexicon of work, and for that very reason is one of his hardest to contextualize. What can be said for sure is that it is a masterclass in nuance and the transformative force of grief.
After a tragic accident that leaves his wife burned and ultimately leads to her death, Dr. Robert Ledgard dedicates his life to developing an artificial skin that is trauma resistant—the “perfect” skin—which he then tests on Vera, a prisoner he has been holding captive in his Toledo mansion. Through the course of the film, several dark truths are revealed about Robert, his past and who Vera actually is. That’s really all that can be said without revealing the films most disquietting moments, which are worth experiencing as a completely uninfluenced first-time viewer.
Though the film is notorious for the deep ache and uneasiness it instills in its audience, I still find it tells a story of extreme perseverance from Vera’s standpoint. As she continues to suffer forced physical transformations and torture at the hands of Robert, she is still able to maintain her mind’s strength and identity at the end. This would certainly be celebrated in most other films, but because Almodóvar is a master in nuance, there remains a sense of hesitation to wholeheartedly root for Vera through the course of the story. His work asks you to feel grief the way you would feel it in real life—inexplicably and sometimes not in alignment with the information that we know to be true.
The Skin I Live In is only one of the many films in Almodóvar’s oeuvre that explores the way we emote through the vessel of unsettling subjects. With technical perfection and a clear affection for his art, Almodóvar remains one of the greatest nuanced storytellers of our time.
Alejandra Gonzalez is a writer and podcaster based in Miami, FL. You can listen to her podcast, Seequels, on any major streaming platform and read more of her work on Talk Film Society and Dread Central. Follow her on twitter @sick__66.
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down! (1989)
By Ben Elzey
I have now seen at least one Almodóvar film from every decade, and each era has something unique about it to recommend. For me, the era that stands out the most is his run in the late 1980’s. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is his best film from that period, every frame exuding energy and sexuality.
I hear you rightfully saying, “every Almodóvar film does that,” and I agree. But not every Almodóvar film is quite so adept at tackling its sexuality head-on in such a quietly subversive structure.
Repeat viewings have made it obvious to me the extent to which Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is meant to serve as a parallel to rom-coms—and more importantly, to highlight the ways in which rom-coms often include deeply creepy or intrusive moments disguised as romanticism. Antonio Banderas’ character, Ricky, has fully bought into the ideas taught to him by rom-coms. He is doing this awful thing, but only because he “knows” deep down in his heart that he and Marina are meant to be together.
What Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! does brilliantly, is show the impact Ricky’s fantasy has on Marina. The final scene directly parallels The Graduate, but I’d argue it’s even more effective in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, because it highlights Marina’s own indecision about a terrible choice that she was forced to make.
This film is written, shot and acted brilliantly, and everything about it simply works. It’s a masterpiece, and not only my favorite Almódovar—but one of my favorite films, period.
Ben Elzey is a writer from Maryland whose work can be found on Medium. You can follow him on Twitter @filmsonthebayou.
All About My Mother (1999)
By Stefanie Schaefer
As summarized in the dedication letter shown at the end of the film, All About My Mother is an ode to women and womanhood that challenges what both concepts mean. It does this through a murderous row of fantastic performances—some of which are all-time favorites of mine.
Centered around a mother who suffers the loss of her teenage son and her journey to track down his father (a transgender woman unaware of the boy’s existence), the film navigates and revisits Almodóvar’s recurring themes of motherhood, sisterhood and family. Lush colors pop in every shot of Barcelona, setting the stage for a decadent visual experience.
Anchored by Cecilia Roth in the lead role, we witness the lives and struggles of characters who carry depth and gravitas that make them unforgettable. The film also cements what would become a collaboration for the ages in Almodóvar’s casting of Penélope Cruz. Her sensitive yet raw performance as a young nurse further established her as a force to be reckoned with in the future of Hollywood.
Unapologetically visceral and heartbreaking at times, All About My Mother was Almodóvar’s way of truly showcasing his essence as a filmmaker in 1999. Just as Agrado explains, “you get to be more authentic the more you become like what you have dreamt of yourself.”
Stefanie Schaefer is a graphic designer based in Berlin, who enjoys watching and writing about movies in her free time. You can find her work at Behance and follow her on Twitter @Stef_235.
Pain And Glory (2019)
By Maddie Purdon
Prior to last month, I’d never seen an Almodóvar film. It was only by fortuitous happenstance that a group of friends were singing his praises when a retrospective film festival rolled into my local cinema. As I dove into his filmography, I had every expectation that he’d be fantastic. Still, nothing could have prepared me for, in my opinion, his magnum opus: Pain and Glory.
It’s about here that I need to overshare. I suffer from chronic back pain, diagnosed with a condition that has a reasonable likelihood of eventually causing vertebrae fusion. Never in my life have I found a piece of media that so profoundly reflected my experience—through the lens of a sixty-year-old man, no less.
So often in film, pain is a motivator. A punishment to be avoided; an obstacle to overcome. To be sure, pain is a driving force in protagonist Salvador’s life, but it’s not a complication, nor is it something that can be miraculously cured. As in my life, and in so many others’, the “pain” in Pain and Glory is ever-present, with Almodóvar expertly avoiding the pitfalls of inspiration porn.
While it would be easy to précis this as a story about a sore guy, it achieves so much more across its sub-two hour runtime. Portrayed by Antonio Banderas in arguably the best performance of his career, Salvador is a multi-faceted, deeply compelling character, navigating the trials and tribulations of interpersonal relationships, success, failure and indeed, glory. He also offers some welcomed bisexual representation, leaving me quietly wondering if there’s anything these frequent collaborators can’t do?
More often than not, cinema is my vehicle to escape the burdens of everyday life. Pain is unfortunately never temporary, but through it—not despite or because of it—we occasionally encounter brief, shining moments of glory, such as this film.
Maddie Purdon is a writer from Australia. You can follow them on Twitter @madfrieza.