Pedro Almodovar (1949-)




FILMOGRAPHY

Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980) - Optimum R2

Labyrinth of Passion (1982) - Tartan R2

Dark Habits (1983) - Fox Lorber R1 / Optimum R2

What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984) - Fox Lorber R1 / Optimum R2

Matador (1986) - Sony R1 / Optimum R2

Law of Desire (1987) - Sony R1 / Optimum R2

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) - Sony R1 / Optimum R2

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990) - Pathe R2

High Heels (1991) - Universal R2

Kika (1993) - Optimum R2

The Flower of My Secret (1995) - Sony R1 / Optimum R2

Live Flesh (1997) - Sony R1

All About My Mother (1999) - Sony R1

Talk to Her (2002) - Sony R1 / Pathe R2

Bad Education (2004) - Sony R1 / Pathe R2

Volver (2006) - Sony R1 / Pathe R2 / Edko R2

Broken Embraces (2009)

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Almodovar on DVD

Almodovar Retrospective: Viva Pedro!

RECOMMENDED WEB RESOURCES

Pedro Almodovar's Official Site

Viva Pedro!

Wikipedia

Senses of Cinema

Strictly Film School

Bright Lights Film Journal

Almodovar Bibliography - via UC Berkeley Library

Filmography Reviewed

Volver - production notes, images and many more

Almodovarlandia

Guardian Unlimited - 2002 interview

Guardian Unlimited - 2006 interview

Time Out - 2006 interview

Latina.com - interview

Bad Education - interview

Time - The Catholicism and Conversatism of Spanish Society

A Tribute to Pedro Almodovar - in French

The New York Review of Books - The Women of Pedro Almodovar

GreenCine - Almodovar's Fluid Identities

Enforex

Almodovar Quotes

FILMS

Bad Education

Volver

Broken Embraces

BOOKS

Desire Unlimited by Paul Julian Smith

Pedro Almodovar: Interviews by Paula Willoquet-Maricondi

Pedro Almodovar by Marvin D'Lugo

A Spanish Labyrinth by Mark Allinson

Almodovar on Almodovar by Frederick Strauss

his blog, news about his new film (with pics). You can choose español, English and French languages.

Every fall, say October and November, I always find myself gathering Almodover discs from my shelves. There's something wonderfully "autumn" about his films, especially the recent ones from Live Flesh to Volver. The sense of longing for renewal and a glimmer of celebration and love in the admist of falling leaves.

What a beautiful thought, Michael! I immediately thought of Live Flesh when I read that. What remains with me from Live Flesh (which I believe is even set in the fall)is a feeling of forlorn resignation and loss, mingled with the orange glow of a love finally realized. A very "autumn" movie indeed! You've prompted me to re-visit all the newer Almodovers this month!

I must ask...does anyone else greatly prefer his newer films (well, 1995 or so-on) to his older output? Maybe it's the "look" of his 80's films that just doesn't grab me, but as someone who started out with Bad Education, it's harder to appreciate rougher, less...refined work than to what I am accustomed. A large part of my love of his films is the vivid, sharp and splashy display that is every single scene, and while his older films that I've seen were filmed well and have an ostensibly interesting plotline, they didn't have the same finesse that he obviously has cultivated over the years, and this holds me back from appreciating them a vapid filmfan I am, apparently.
Maybe I just need to pick up Dark Habits or Law of Desire and try again..

Though I'm far from dismissing his newer output and can't claim to dislike a single film in his oeuvre, I do prefer those works that were made previously to All About My Mother.
Which was actually my first, LQ, being the youngster that I am.
I mention this as contrast to your theory that your preference may have to do with your popping your cherry with Bad Education and so on since I came to know his films backwards as well.
And I really believe that it's unfair to compare them. They should 've enjoyed, or derided, on their own terms.
Yes, nowadays he's less racy when it comes to themes, ideas and sexuality.
But he's also grown more sophisticated, much more skilled.
He no longer feels like breaking taboos and there's no need to, really.
He can concentrate on his characters and reworking genres.
And on being the airtight technical perfectionist he's grown into.
So. If I say I prefer the earlier films, there's a very simple reason for it.
They 're way more fun, daddy-o.
Following Michael's canny observation, spring and summer have certain graces that autumn does not and viceversa.

What ripples through Almodovar's late films is tremendous melancholy (swirled with very humane humor) - the loss of and longing for innocence, freedom, mom, child, love. As we get older, the more loss we experience. Almodovar is showing that more and more in his films.

After Kika, his films darken in colors - more brown, orange, gold-yellow, red, no more bubbalicious colors. With a bit of green and blue thrown in the palette, the small glimmers of "renewal" peeking through the piles of autumn leaves. Talk to Her dissolves into a full-screen splash of summer green foliage. Volver ends in the black-dark hallway as Carmen Maura reaches the slant of light coming from her bedroom. Black hallway leading to the black sand of his next film. Almodovar fell in love with the "sombre monochrome beauty" of Lanzarote's black, lava beaches and cactus deserts so I won't be surprised to see his color palette reaching its "winter" stage.

I will return with some thoughts of Law of Desire, one of my favorite Almodovars, a rare, gutsy gay masterpiece. I also love Bad Education, certainly Almodovar's most painful film. The horrible tragedy surrounding the real Ignacio I find incredably unbearable to breathe through. It just reminds me so much of some friends lost to drugs or diseases. Their brilliant talents wasted forever. I remember feeling so rejuvenated after leaving its screening the first time, saying "Finally we have our own Vertigo".

I've recently become infatuated with Almodovar and have loaded my netflix queue with his films. So far I have only seen Talk to Her and Live Flesh, and have adored them both in their melancholy and sparse humor. Although I must admit that Flesh is my favorite of the two for how intricate its story was and how well it connected the different relationships in the end. Talk to Her was endearing mainly for the performance of Dario Grandinetti, who I could not help but be captivated by his every reaction and word, he oozed with such passion and love that has been sorely lacking in modern-day leading men; he reminded me of Rock Hudson in All That Heaven Allows with his suave charisma and, well, sheer manliness in how he projected himself. I hope I take to his early work as much as I have to his later films, but I fear that my reaction will be the same of LQ.

i just love the glossy style of his films, remindes me of the classic technicolor
era. Besides it fits his movies themes so well, who could forgot about the towel scene in volver

Almodovar is adapting Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown into a TV series for Fox.

La piel que habito, his new project will be filmed this summer with Antonio Banderas and without Penélope Cruz.

Interview with Pedro today

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/ ... icul_1/Tes

I may have mentioned before on this forum, but that new Almodovar was one I heard about MANY years ago and I've been hoping for it ever since, assuming it is the same story.

Yes, it's a 10 years old projetc since he filmed Todo sobre mi madre. In the Pais article, he mentiones that is working with 4 scripts at the same time.

1st day of shooting in the green Northwest (yes, we exist) and witout the fucking guitars in the beautiful Santiago de Compostela.

http://www.abc.es/20100820/cultura-cine ... 01318.html

Another article

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/revista/ ... irdv_3/Tes

1st picture

http://www.elpais.com/fotografia/agenda ... age_3/Ies/

His going to shoot his next film this summer, it will be a screwball comedy, set into a plane, with a problem.
Probably again with Banderas and Penélope. Release spring 2013

Name: Los amantes pasajeros, "The travelers lovers"

Article:

http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/ ... 33818.html

Snakes? Transvestites?

Probably just a flashback.

Teaser trailer and some news about Los amantes pasajeros.
It looks like the effects of Ozpetek's Mine Vaganti.

http://es.paperblog.com/disparatado-tra ... r-1609054/