Pedro Almodóvar, the godfather of Spanish cinema, is back again! This Oscar season he is throwing his hat into the ring with The Room Next Door (2024), his first full-length feature in English, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, that has been hailed by the Guardian as “a gorgeous, fragile tale of life and death”.
However, his staggering filmography of twenty-two Spanish-language films ought not to be forgotten. They are narratively challenging, thematically subversive and down-right camp: a filmography that boasts some of the crown jewels of Hispanic, and global, cinema.
Almodóvar’s aesthetics are what set him apart from other auteurs (just see how important they are in my Letterboxd ranking of his work!). With gorgeous looks designed by the likes of Jean Paul Gautier and luscious apartments that look ripped out of Architectural Digest, most shots from Almodóvar films are instantly recognisable. His sets are fitted with kitsch retro furnishings in vibrant colours that harken back to 1980’s Spain, a time, after the fascist dictatorship, in which the country started becoming a liberal haven for those needing to express themselves.
His sets are fitted with kitsch retro furnishings in vibrant colours that harken back to 1980’s Spain, a time, after the fascist dictatorship, in which the country started becoming a liberal haven for those needing to express themselves.
Such as the LGBTQ+ community: a group that finds solace in the films’ garish and opulent visuals to which Almodóvar himself belongs. This can be represented in the host of larger-than-life characters that appear over his twenty-two features: a gay film director in Pain and Glory (2019); a lesbian nun in Dark Habits (1983); trans sex workers in All About My Mother (1999) and Bad Education (2004). Pedro Almodóvar has always been ahead of his time with queer representation in cinema, normalising our lives and representing them with truth and honesty, showing their complexities through nuanced scenarios that don’t often occur in heteronormative stories.
One can also not ignore Pedro Almodóvar’s penchant for telling women’s stories. His ensemble of Chicas Almodóvar (Almodóvar Girls) is an exclusive group of actresses who reappear, as different characters, throughout the auteur’s films, be it a bone-chilling horror, like The Skin I Live In (2011), a vulgar, melodramatic farce, like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), or an emotional crime drama, like Volver (2006). The latter features the ostensible breakthrough role of, Hollywood legend, Penélope Cruz, an actress who received two of her four Oscar nominations starring in Almodóvar pictures.
His ensemble of Chicas Almodóvar (Almodóvar Girls) is an exclusive group of actresses who reappear, as different characters, throughout the auteur’s films, be it a bone-chilling horror, like The Skin I Live In (2011), a vulgar, melodramatic farce, like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), or an emotional crime drama, like Volver (2006)
Even so, despite the specificity of the characters he highlights in his films, something about what Pedro Almodóvar has to say is essentially Spanish. As well as playing into traditional stereotypes of Spanish culture (the bullfighters in Matador (1986) and Talk to Her (2002) instantly spring to mind), the director also features other areas of the country, such as the rugged coastline of Galicia in Julieta (2016) and the other-worldly black sand beaches of the Canary Islands in Broken Embraces (2009). These multifaceted portrayals of Spain present the country, which is often viewed through a singular, unwavering viewpoint, as an entity as diverse and extravagant as the people who inhabit it.
Thus, Almodóvar’s work makes people sit up and take notes. It makes them see Spain, and the films it produces, worthy of acclaim, both within critical circles and the pop culture zeitgeist.
