Friday, August 30, 2019

Dolor y gloria / Pain and Glory



Kärsimys ja kunnia / Smärta och ära.
    Un film de Almodóvar.
    ES 2019. PC: El Deseo. P: Agustín Almodóvar, Ricardo Marco Budé. D+SC: Pedro Almodóvar. Cin: José Luis Alcaine – digital – camera: Arri Alexa SXT – colour – 1,85:1 – released on DCP. PD: Antxón Gómez. AD: María Clara Notari. Cost: Paola Torres. Makeup: Ana Lozano. Hair: Sergio Pérez Berbel. VFX: El Ranchito. Graphic design and animation: Juan Gatti. M: Alberto Iglesias. S: Pelayo Gutiérrez. ED: Teresa Font.
    C from Wikipedia:
Antonio Banderas as Salvador Mallo
Asier Flores as Salvador Mallo (as a child)
Asier Etxeandia as Alberto Crespo, actor
Leonardo Sbaraglia as Federico Delgado, Salvador's friend from the Movida period
Penélope Cruz as Jacinta Mallo, Salvador's mother
Julieta Serrano as Jacinta Mallo (in old age)
Raúl Arévalo as Salvador's father Venancio Mallo
Cecilia Roth as Zulema
Pedro Casablanc as Doctor Galindo
Nora Navas as Mercedes
Susi Sánchez as Beata
Julián López as presentador
Paqui Horcajo as lavandera Mercedes
Marisol Muriel as lavandera Mari
Rosalía as lavandera Rosita
César Vicente as Eduardo
Neus Alborch, Kiti Mánver, Carmelo Gómez.
    Songs include:
– "A tu vera" (comp. Juan Solano, lyr. José Antonio Ochaíta and Xandro Valerio, 1962 for the movie El balcón de la luna, sung by Lola Flores), perf. Rosalía and Penélope Cruz as lavanderas.
– "Come sinfonia" (Pino Donaggio), perf. Mina (1961). The song is heard in extenso also in the music trailer of the film.
    Film excerpts:
– Lucrecia Martel: La niña santa
– Elia Kazan: Splendor in the Grass – Warren Beatty, Natalie Wood
– Henry Hathaway: Niagara – Marilyn Monroe, "Kiss"
    Distributed by: Sony Pictures Releasing International.
    Spanish premiere: 22 March 2019
    Finnish premiere: 30 Aug 2019, released by Finnkino with Finnish subtitles by Jaana Wiik.
    Viewed at Kinopalatsi 2, Helsinki, 30 Aug 2019.

Official synopsis (Cannes 2019): "Salvador Mallo, a film director in his physical decline, experiences a series of reencounters. Some of them in the flesh, others remembered. His childhood in the 60s, when he emigrated with his parents to a village in Valencia in search of prosperity; the first desire; his first adult love in the Madrid of the 80s and the pain of the breakup while this love was still alive and intense; writing as the only therapy to forget the unforgettable; the early discovery of cinema; and the infinite void that creates the incapacity to keep on making films. In recovering his past, Salvador finds the urgent need to recount it and, in that need, he also finds his salvation."

AA: Dolor y gloria is a mellow and serene reflection on pain: the pain of getting old, facing declining health, losing one's creativity. The story emerges in a purgatory of the film director Salvador Mallo. On a memory journey back to childhood Salvador reassesses his life, and his passion for film-making is rekindled.

Having directed personal films of gravity (Todo sobre mi madre, Hable con ella, La mala educación, Volver) Pedro Almodóvar indulged in genre cinema: a romantic thriller (Los abrazos rotos), a horror film (La piel que habito), and a comedy / musical / catastrophe mix (Los amantes pasajeros). With Julieta he returned to gravity.

With Dolor y gloria Almodóvar returns to self-reflection, following La ley del deseo and La mala educación. Autobiographical affinities were present in Volver and Los abrazos rotos, too. Having externalized his flights of visual fancy into genre movies Almodóvar adopts a more sober and serene approach in Julieta and Dolor y gloria. Julieta introduced the presence of conscience more prominently than before, and this presence continues in Dolor y gloria.

Salvador processes his final meetings with his mother who is dead by now. In their last moments his mother reveals him certain truths for the first time. "You have not been a good son", she states. "Don't put our life into your films. No auto-fiction. The village people don't like what you have done. You have presented them as stupid." Salvador protests: "I owe you everything". Mother insists: "They don't like it". (Quotes are not verbatim).

Salvador is depressed and does not sleep well. A letter from childhood surprises him like a message in a bottle. In a gallery of amateur art specializing in naivism a portrait appears of Salvador as a child reading. It is a water-colour painted by a mason who helped make the poor family's miserable cave into a much more beautiful space. The mason was illiterate, and little Salvador taught him to read, write and calculate, thus transforming him and changing his life. In return, the athletic mason's nude bath provided little Salvador his "el primer deseo", still unconscious, still latent. The letter behind the painting expresses the mason's gratitude from 55 years ago.

A fun detail for programmers of film archives: there is a sequence about Filmoteca Española mounting a tribute to Salvador Mallo at Madrid's legendary Cine Doré. Salvador has been invited as a guest of honour together with the lead actor Alberto Crespo to answer questions about their most revered movie Sabor. Since both are on heroin, they fail to come. Instead they give a disastrous Q & A via the mobile phone.

In Julieta we saw mostly actors new to Almodóvar, but in Dolor y gloria his regular talents return. It is a thrill to see Antonio Banderas doing "Almodóvar"; a bit like Ward Bond interpreting "John Ford" in Wings of Eagles, but Banderas's performance is much deeper, richer and subtler. Cecilia Roth brings bite to her brief and important role as Zulema who puts the story in motion. Penélope Cruz is wonderful as Salvador's mother, but especially gripping is Julieta Serrano portraying the final days of the same mother. The presence of these beloved faces adds enormously to the wealth of the texture of the movie.

As every movie by Almodóvar, Dolor y gloria is a striking piece of modern visual art. It may be less self-consciously image-driven than some of his other visions, but there are more than enough of visual delights here. Image-driven visions start right with the first shots: a depressed Salvador in an underwater session, and four singing lavanderas by the riverbank of Salvador's childhood.

Graphic design and animation are by Juan Gatti. The main credit title is like a gallery piece of video art of psychedelic colours. Salvador's alarming health condition is portrayed as a medical animation sequence.

Dolor y gloria is Almodóvar's third digitally photographed film. Julieta, shot by Jean-Claude Larrieu, displayed a subtle, rich and warm colour world without digital aberrations to garish colour or a gray-blue palette. The imagery was close to an oil painting.

Dolor y gloria like Los amantes pasajeros, Almodóvar's first digitally photographed film, has José Luis Alcaine as the cinematographer. Both films follow a frankly digital looking approach: unrealistic, stylized, bright, hard, and sharp. Digital stylization looks different than the photochemical stylization for which Almodóvar became famous in films like Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown, also shot by Alcaine.

The impact of Dolor y gloria is sinking in, and it remains to be seen if it will be as deep as in Almodóvars photochemical masterpieces. Digital is more striking on the surface, but surface is only an invitation to reach the beyond, the infinite.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK:

PEDRO ALMODÓVAR (EL DESEO, 2018, BEFORE FILMING):

“Dolor y Gloria” narra una serie de reencuentros, algunos físicos y otros recordados después de décadas, de un director de cine en su ocaso. Primeros amores, segundos amores, la madre, la mortalidad, algún actor con el que el director trabajó, los sesenta, los ochenta y la actualidad. Y el vacío, el inconmensurable vacío ante la imposibilidad de seguir rodando. También habla del teatro como elemento que dinamita/dinamiza el pasado y lo arrastra hasta el presente. Habla de la creación, cinematográfica y teatral, y de la imposibilidad de separar la creación de la propia vida.

Al contrario que “Julieta”, “Dolor y Gloria” será una película con protagonistas varones (Antonio Banderas y Asier Etxeandía), donde también recupero a dos actrices que adoro, Penélope Cruz y Julieta Serrano, en personajes secundarios esenciales
.

Pedro Almodóvar.


SOUNDTRACK ALBUM

Dolor y Gloria (Banda Sonora Original)
Alberto Iglesias
March 22, 2019
1  Salvador sumergido  by Alberto Iglesias  2:31    
2  Geografía y anatomía  by Alberto Iglesias  3:13    
3  Noche en la estación de trenes I  by Alberto Iglesias  1:39    
4  La cueva de Paterna  by Alberto Iglesias  2:32    
5  Arreglo de cuentas  by Alberto Iglesias  2:26    
6  La addicción  by Alberto Iglesias  1:48    
7  Fumar a escondidas  by Alberto Iglesias  2:28    
8  La torre árabe  by Alberto Iglesias  1:41    
9  El niño maestro  by Alberto Iglesias  1:48    
10  Salvador en la torre  by Alberto Iglesias  0:49    
11  Reconciliación  by Alberto Iglesias  1:08    
12  Piano Bar y coro infantil  by Alberto Iglesias  1:43    
13  La addición II  by Alberto Iglesias  2:10    
14  Huevo de zurcir  by Alberto Iglesias  0:52    
15  Reencuento de los amantes  by Alberto Iglesias  2:32    
16  Escena urbana  by Alberto Iglesias  1:11    
17  La habitación de la madre  by Alberto Iglesias  0:52    
18  Euforia después del beso  by Alberto Iglesias  2:02    
19  Acuarela y TAC  by Alberto Iglesias  0:58    
20  Come sinfonia  by Mina  2:37    
21  El primer deseo  by Alberto Iglesias  1:56    
22  Arte popular  by Alberto Iglesias  1:56    
23  Noche en la estación de trenes II  by Alberto Iglesias  2:32    
24  Quirófano  by Alberto Iglesias  1:36    
25  Claqueta final  by Alberto Iglesias  7:46    
26  Encore I  by Alberto Iglesias  1:52    
27  Encore II  by Alberto Iglesias  0:45    
28  Geografía y anatomía (Instrumental)  by Alberto Iglesias  3:22


Come sinfonia
1961
perf. Mina

Sogno, sogno
e tu sei con me
chiudo gli occhi
e in cielo splende già
una luce.

Io sogno
d'esserti vicino e di baciarti
e poi svanire
in questo sogno irreale.
Lassù
sento gli angeli che cantano per noi,
dolcemente, dolcemente
É un canto fatto di felicità!

Ascolto
e ti sento ancora più vicino
la musica che sento
è come sinfonia
Lassù
sento gli angeli che cantano per noi,
io vorrei, io vorrei
che questo sogno fosse realtà
realtà d'un sogno amor

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Giuseppe Donaggio
Come sinfonia lyrics © S.I.A.E. Direzione Generale, Accordo Edizioni Musicali S.r.l., Curci Usa Music Publishing, BMG SAPHIRE SONGS OBO ACCORDO EDIZIONI MUSICALI SRL

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