Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1170309
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 SEPTEMBER 2019 FILM FILM JUST like we saw with Quen- tin Tarantino's latest foray into that rare beast – the inde- pendently-minded blockbust- er – Pedro Almodovar returns to cinemas with a by-now req- uisite bout of orchestral fan- fare, eager audience and en- thusiastic critical reception in tow. Unlike Tarantino's stran- glehold over public attention, however, Almodovar coasts on both aesthetic brand recogni- tion and the ability to marshal back stars that he's made fa- mous worldwide to work for him once again. In this case, it's Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, the latter playing the former's mother in sprinkled flashbacks that recall both our protago- nists' and Almodovar's own childhood in Franco-era Spain. Here's where another sprinkle of similarity to Tarantino can be sustained: this is also a film that plucks the bittersweet lute strings of nostalgia to mes- merising, memorable effect, though the melody that gradu- ally builds up is created out of far more personal matter than Hollywood pastiche-history. But the comparison fares best when compared to the under- lying basis of the experience on offer. Like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Almodovar's Pain and Glory proceeds like a perfectly pitched, perfectly timed and perfectly executed performance of a mature di- rector fully in control of their powers and fully conscious of the legacy that they're likely to leave behind. Self-awareness without sti- fling self-consciousness is in fact key. Later on in the film, Almodovar explicitly puts into question the validity and ethi- cal murkiness of 'auto-fiction', prodding at the idea that an autobiography is never, in fact, a solitary affair, with friends and family sometimes ending up as collateral damage to the artist's cathartic exploration of their past. But that's precisely what happens in this honest and smoothly-moving feature, with Banderas's ageing director Salvador Mallo being nudged back into public life after a re- mastered version of his early masterpiece, 'Sabor', is sched- uled for a one-time screening to an appreciative audience. But as his doting agent Mer- cedes (Nora Navas) informs him, the crowds would love to hear from the film's star, Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxean- dia), who has faded into rela- tive obscurity while Salvador continued to make his films. But there's bad blood between the pair, stoked into bitter being by Salvador's dissatis- faction with Alberto's perfor- mance in Sabor, which he saw as an irreconcilable distortion of his own vision for the char- acter. Needless to say, their forced reunion gets off on the wrong foot. But a combination of Salvador's newly-discovered predilection of cocaine and the chance discovery on Alberto's part on a half-finished mono- logue on Salvador's computer leads both men towards an un- likely creative renaissance. The true brilliance of Almo- dovar's confessional expose' is that it succeeds in being both nakedly revelatory while never once giving in to exploitation and sentimentality. And for a The world's most celebrated Spanish film-maker lays all vulnerabilities bare with this tender and quietly delightful exploration of the crises that mark a film-maker's twilight years Teodor Reljic Game of mirrors: Antonio Banderas (right) is a stand-in for director Pedro Almodovar and Asier Etxeandia is an actor with a grudge in the Spanish film-maker's tender- raw exploration of his personal crises and cinematic legacy Turning the camera around