He could say it louder, but not more clearly. So much so that he switched from English to Spanish to match his every word: “The film is about empathy, generosity and the deep friendship of helping someone,” he explained. Pedro Almodovar about The next piecethe novel by New Yorker Sigrid Nunez What is your torment?. “This is the response to the hate speech we hear every day in Spain. and the rest of the world. “This film is the exact opposite of those speeches.”
“I want to send a message,” and appealed to the altruism of its protagonists, “to all These unaccompanied children who are fighting to reach our borders. Turning them into invaders is something so delusional, so profoundly stupid and so unjust that what I am proposing is the complete opposite.”
The next piece includes a chapter from Nunez’s book in which Ingrid (Moore), an idle writer, agrees to live with her good friend Martha (Tilda Swinton) in a house in the middle of the forest during the weeks before she becomes terminally ill with cancer, euthanasia is applied.
An urgent law
“It’s a pro-euthanasia film” This is the only solution that the character of Martha, a self-made woman, finds to overcome cancer: “The disease is there, and what is admirable in the character of Tilda is that she manages to get rid of cancer by making the decision herself.”
Almodóvar acknowledges that, even if he finally finds a way to deal with this with support, “it’s terrible to have to behave as if they were criminals.” He concluded: “Spain is the fourth European country to have a law on euthanasia. It is urgent that this Law exists everywhere in the world. Without any political or judicial regulation. The simple fact that the patient and the doctor attest to the seriousness of the patient should be enough.
The filmmaker responded to the question of euthanasia to speak about faith, which he very clearly separated from the creed: “All beliefs are very important and involve support and assistance when you die, But if you are not true to any of these beliefs, you attack them all because you become the owner of your own existence.
Tilda Swinton, who is ill in the film, explained her “belief in the necessity and inevitability of evolution, wherever it takes us,” and described euthanasia in the film as “a triumph, and it is a triumph.” “Martha has this idea of adventure, of transportation. He keeps repeating, a little annoyingly, that they are on vacation. It’s a party. I felt it very real, very close, I can’t say that I wouldn’t act the same way if I were her.”
Ecological and social crises
Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore are accompanied in the film by John Turturro, a lover shared by both in their youth, today mired in cynicism due to contemporary ecological and social crises. A skepticism that Almodóvar shares: “The world is full of dangers. Climate change is no joke. I don’t know how much evidence we need to be sure it’s real. The movie is about a woman dying in a world that is also dying.
Although he suggested: “It may be pretentious, but everyone, in their place, must demonstrate against all this denial and must do so in the areas that are specific to them: home, work, the street. We must stop these types of denialist demonstrations, because the planet is in danger, but otherwise it could be in much more danger. This speech drew enthusiastic applause in the press room.
The filmmaker explained, however, that he was trying “to be optimistic,” recalling how Almudena Grandes dedicated one of his novels to him, saying, and he quoted: “‘Pedro, joy is the best resistance. Happiness is the best way to resist.’ I think he was right.”
His latest films, however, are accompanied by a categorical urgency. A strange way of life, a pleasant romance in the Western manner, seems an exception to the rule established by Parallel mothers, pain and glory And The human voiceplagued by ghosts, far from the vitality of his early works.
Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, passionate
Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, whom the filmmaker described as the creators of a “festival”, an interpretive spectacle in itself, explained their first contacts with the filmmaker from La Mancha: “All these years, I’ve seen Pedro’s films and, this is going to sound stupid, but As an American, I thought there was something uniquely Spanish about them.. What I didn’t realize was that it was just Pedro. When I first went to his apartment, I saw his entire filmography appear right there before my eyes. All the references, colors…”.
Moore added: “His films have always been full of life and humanity, and to be a part of that, of that world that I discovered by seeing Women on the verge of nervous breakdown It was incredibly exciting. “I don’t know how I got into this world, I just feel lucky that it chose me.”
For Swinton, Almodóvar is simply historic. The actress discovered the filmmaker while working and living with Derek Jarman, a filmmaker underground in London in the 80s: “The first film I saw was Women on the verge of nervous breakdown, and everyone It feels like we have a cousin in Madrid waving to us.“.
“Pedro, always at the center of the Movida, was always the face of a cultural movement that we admired and in which we nourished ourselves with trust and camaraderie. Since then, I have prayed to his Church, even though it would never have happened to me that I could find space in a corner of his cinema for me, because of my appearance and my way of speaking,” he explained. “However, I had the courage to tell him one day, when we met: “Listen, I’ll learn Spanish for you, you can mute me, I don’t care. Then he laughed like he does. I thought, ‘Well, at least I told him that.'”
Pedro Almodóvar, historical in Venice
The Feast of Venice discovered Pedro Almodóvar at the dawn of his career, when it was created between the darkness (1983) here. He would return five years later with Women on the verge of nervous breakdown (1988), which won the award for best screenplay. In 2019, he received the Honorary Golden Lion for his “provocative” and “transgressive” style, being “the most influential Spanish director since Luis Buñuel.”
The following year, an empty Lido due to the pandemic will host the premiere of The human voiceadaptation of Jean Cocteau’s play with Tilda Swinton. The actress referred to this work: “It is an act of grace, a greater privilege in my life. It’s something extraordinary. He continued to be the teacher he always was. To be there, to feel the freshness, the rigor and the absolute discipline, it’s wonderful. “I always feel like a student watching her first film.”
Then came the Volpi Cup to Penelope Cruz for parallel mothers, in 2021, but for his second short film in English, strange lifestyle with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, opted for a presentation at Cannes, considered as a direct competition with the Mostra. Today’s screening is therefore welcomed as a symbolic return, even if the reception of the international press on the morning of The next piece It’s warm at the moment.
Pedro Almodóvar will once again share the stage with Tilda Swinton on Thursday, September 26, when he receives the Honorary Golden Shell of the San Sebastian Festival from the actress.
