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Pain and Gloryis at once the gentlest and most emotionally naked movie Pedro Almodovar has ever made.
Its being billed as an autobiographical work, though thats more a matter of approach than of actual content.
Salvador, at times, seems to be a man built entirely out of memories.
This is the pain, presumably.
These are the glories.
(Almodovar once said that, as a cocaine person, he hated when his actors did heroin.)
And yet creation swirls around him.
An early film, now regarded as a classic, is given a restoration and screening.
A stray composition about a long-lost lover becomes a monologue that then prompts a remarkable and tender reunion.
Its a performance of phenomenal range, but it also feels so unified, so controlled.
Melodrama has always been in the directors bones, but hes resisted the indulgence that comes with it.
And then the tears come, like Noahs flood.
