Navigating Installation: Pedro Almodóvar

5:03 minutes Film noir, along with musicals, comedy, and melodrama, is one of the genres that Pedro Almodóvar has spotlighted in this installation. In NOIR, atmospheres of suspense and dread are conjured using lighting and camera angles. The staircase is also a key component in this genre’s cinematic iconography, suggesting the idea of displacement and movement, which differentiates noir in film from similar atmospheres seen in still photography. Almodóvar has included references to Luis Bunuel’s The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (Ensayo de un crimen, Mexico, 1955), offering a glimpse into one of his key cinematic inspirations.

Live Flesh (Carne trémula, Spain/France, 1997)

Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos, Spain, 2009)

7:46 minutes The Shrinking Lover (El amante menguante) is a film within a film inspired in part by Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man (USA, 1957) and German Expressionist cinema. This fictional movie—a silent fantasy film with tragicomic performances—engrosses Benigno (Javier Camara), a nurse and one of the main characters in Talk to Her (Hable con ella, Spain, 2002). The scenes of Alfredo (Fele Martínez) walking over the body of his lover Amparo (Paz Vega) meld with Benigno’s own tortured fantasy, an imagined relationship with Alicia (Leonor Watling), a comatose woman under his care.

Talk to Her (Hable con ella, Spain, 2002)

3:31 minutes Pedro Almodóvar’s deftness in crafting memorable visual compositions is on view here. He uses the language of film to reveal the human form, heightening the provocative imagery. Almodóvar’s audacious depictions of trans, gay, lesbian, and queer bodies underscore the spectrum of gender and sexuality explored in his stories. The montage showcases key influences such as Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux sans visage, France, 1960) and Louise Bourgeois’s sculptural work, which influenced elements of The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito, Spain, 2011).

Bad Education (La mala educación, Spain, 2004)

Live Flesh (Carne trémula, Spain/France, 1997)

Law of Desire (La ley del deseo, Spain, 1987)

The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito, Spain, 2011)

Bad Education (La mala educación, Spain, 2004)

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Átame!, Spain, 1989)

Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos, Spain, 2009)

Julieta (Spain, 2016)

The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito, Spain, 2011)

Talk to Her (Hable con ella, Spain, 2002)

4:09 minutes Recalling his own Catholic schooling, Pedro Almodóvar’s relationship with religion is a specter that haunts his films, finding its way into the production design, narrative, and dialogue. In this montage, Almodóvar has excerpted two scenes that forefront this relationship. In Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria, Spain, 2019), one of the filmmaker’s more autobiographical films, Asier Flores plays a young Salvador Mallo who balks at prospect of a religious education. An older Mallo, played by Antonio Banderas, resurfaces in FAMILY, another montage that leans heavily into the director’s own personal history.

Bad Education (La mala educación, Spain, 2004)

Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria, Spain, 2019)

4:51 minutes Four of the channels in this installation show only one scene (THE SHRINKING LOVER, GUILT & PAIN, BERGMAN & MELODRAMA, and CAFÉ MÜLLER). This focus immerses visitors in a significant scene and contrasts with other channels that show excerpts from different films edited together. The attention paid to this scene lays bare Becky’s (Victoria Abril) guilt-ridden confession from High Heels (Tacones lejanos, Spain/France, 1991). Along with Talk to Her (Hable con ella, Spain, 2002), High Heels is one of two films that is given this focus by Pedro Almodóvar in this installation.

High Heels (Tacones lejanos, Spain/France, 1991)

4:26 minutes In a departure from generic cinematic formulas, MUSICALS emphasizes theatricality and stage settings over the use of song and dance to further narrative exposition or character development. This approach, showcasing moving melodies at critical junctures in the storyline, is perhaps a nod to Pedro Almodóvar’s time in a punk rock band and fringe theater during his early career. For the medley seen here, Almodóvar has also re-envisioned his films so that Caetano Veloso in Talk to Her (Hable con ella, Spain, 2002) is seemingly singing to Becky (Marisa Paredes) in High Heels (Tacones lejanos, Spain/France, 1991).

The Flower of My Secret (La flor de mi secreto, Spain/France, 1995)

High Heels (Tacones lejanos, Spain/France, 1991)

Talk to Her (Hable con ella, Spain, 2002)

High Heels (Tacones lejanos, Spain/France, 1991)

4:15 minutes This montage is not only a showcase for Pedro Almodóvar’s distinctive humor captured through visuals and dialogue, but it is also a spotlight for the talented actors in his universe who can match the director’s precise comic timing. Like the storied collaborations between Howard Hawks and his actors such as Rosalind Russell and Katharine Hepburn in their screwball comedies, Almodóvar partners with Rossy de Palma, Carmen Maura, Marisa Paredes, and Julieta Serrano here for ribald romps.

Kika (Spain/France, 1993)

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, Spain, 1988)

The Flower of My Secret (La flor de mi secreto, Spain/France, 1995)

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, Spain, 1988)

4:21 minutes While Pedro Almodóvar’s numerous cinematic influences are seen throughout the gallery, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman headlines this montage. Almodóvar singles out a key scene from High Heels (Tacones lejanos, Spain/France, 1991) that infuses elements of Bergman’s Autumn Sonata (Höstsonaten, Sweden/Federal Republic of Germany/UK, 1978) into Almodóvar’s visceral confrontation between mother (Marisa Paredes) and daughter (Victoria Abril). This scene also highlights Almodóvar’s flair for the film genre of melodrama—which places an emphasis on verbose and maudlin dialogue—and its significance in the director’s oeuvre.

High Heels (Tacones lejanos, Spain/France, 1991)

4:11 minutes Desire is perhaps the one theme that runs throughout all of Pedro Almodóvar’s films. It appears in many forms; and in this montage, the theme of desire is juxtaposed with various types of sexual acts—overt, implicit, symbolic. Almodóvar’s frank depictions of LGBTQ identity—rarely centered in cinema and radical for its time—can be seen in the two excerpts from Law of Desire (La ley del deseo, Spain, 1987). The passion between Antonio (Antonio Banderas) and Pablo (Eusebio Poncela) in the first scene from the film and the revelry of Carmen Maura’s transgender character in the last scene show that desire has no limitations in Almodóvar’s world.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Átame!, Spain, 1989)

Live Flesh (Carne trémula, Spain/France, 1997)

Law of Desire (La ley del deseo, Spain, 1987)

Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos, Spain, 2009)

Law of Desire (La ley del deseo, Spain, 1987)

4:52 minutes Motherhood is a complex and layered force in Pedro Almodóvar’s work. In MOTHERS, Almodóvar has selected two clips from his filmography that express the limitless bond between mother and child as well as the significance of women to his creative genesis. The director has frequently explained that his interest in storytelling emerged when he was a young boy growing up in the rural province of Madrigalejo, southwest of Madrid. Enraptured by the village matrons’ stories, including those of his own mother, he learned how to complement reality with fiction—a distinctive trademark of Almodóvar’s screenplays, which diverge from a place of (at times autobiographical) truth as soon as he puts words to a page.

All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre, Spain/France, 1999)

Volver (Spain, 2006)

4:10 minutes Talk to Her (Hable con ella, Spain, 2002) opens with this scene in which the curtain rises to reveal Pina Bausch in the dance performance Café Müller. In the audience, Benigno (Javier Camara) and Marco (Dario Grandinetti) coincidentally sit next to each other in the theater, unaware their lives would soon intersect. A longtime fan of the German choreographer, Pedro Almodóvar expertly weaves the performance into a metaphor for his story. Almodóvar explains, “The woman sleepwalking is such a perfect expression of the two women in the film who live in a state of limbo. And the man who comes to her aid, pulling chairs from out of her way so she doesn’t fall over, perfectly represent the two men in the film who try to help the two women.”

Talk to Her (Hable con ella, Spain, 2002)

4:18 minutes This last channel in the installation focuses on a deeply personal theme in Almodóvar’s oeuvre. In Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria, Spain, 2019), Salvador Mallo has a heart wrenching and candid conversation about his sexuality with his mother (Julieta Serrano) that reflects Almodóvar’s own experience. At the conclusion of the dark comedy What Have I Done to Deserve This? (¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!, Spain, 1984), the central character Gloria (Carmen Maura), a long-suffering housewife, briefly contemplates jumping from her balcony. Her crowded domestic world thins out as the film goes on and she is simultaneously relieved and dejected by the freedom, before being pulled back from the abyss by the return of her son Miguel. In the final excerpt from Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria, Spain, 2019), a self-reflexive reveal shows that actors (Asier Flores and Penelope Cruz) were playing Salvador Mallo and his mother, respectively, in a film directed by Mallo (Antonio Banderas). This closing reaffirms the centrifugal role of cinema, Almodóvar’s religion and desire, around which all else revolves.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Átame!, Spain, 1989)

Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria, Spain, 2019)

What Have I Done to Deserve This? (¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!, Spain, 1984)

Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria, Spain, 2019)

All films courtesy of El Deseo unless otherwise noted. All About My Mother courtesy of El Deseo, Pathé. High Heels, Kika, Live Flesh, and The Flower of My Secret courtesy of El Deseo, TF1.