Editor's note:Wendy Guerra is a Cuban-French writer and contributor to CNN en Español. Her articles have appeared in media outlets around the world, including El País, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, El Mundo and La Vanguardia. Among her most notable literary works are “Ropa interior” (2007), “Nunca fui primera dama” (2008), “Posar desnuda en La Habana” (2010) and “Todos se van” (2014). Her work has been published in 23 languages. The comments expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author. See more atcnne.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) – “The Room Next Door,” the first film shot entirely in English by Spanish director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar, has won the Golden Lion at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.
Its stars, the fabulous and very unique actresses Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, were also responsible for ensuring that this trip literally came to a safe harbor in the city of canals.
The film, produced by Agustín Almodóvar, with music by Alberto Iglesias and costume design by Bina Daigeler, is a game of ideas and musings about death, wars, their consequences, and friendship between women. It focuses on the relationship between Ingrid and Martha, close friends in their youth, who met in the editorial office of a magazine during the 1980s. Years later, they were no longer the same. Ingrid became an autofiction novelist and Martha a war reporter. The circumstances of life separated them and, after decades without contact, they meet again on the brink of an extreme situation.
“The film tells the story of a woman who is dying in a dying world and of the person who decides to share her final days with her. Being there for a terminally ill person, knowing how to be there for them, sometimes without saying a word, is one of the greatest qualities that we humans possess,” said the creator of this story during the awards ceremony.
In his stories, Almodóvar explores complex sociological paths, unusual and rare in the European cinematography that preceded him; the exposure of marginalized groups, silenced problems and well-kept secrets in Spanish society of all times. The entire narrative discourse of the director from La Mancha is based on this critical reflection, armed with endearing leading and secondary characters and memorable dialogues.
Black humor, the rescue of culture, the purest traditions and the wonderful native landscapes, irony, open-mindedness and the vision of emptiness in very delicate moments of the lives of its protagonists are part of an identifiable language that has marked us forever as spectators, forcing us to quote titles, plots and dialogues like these:
“Except drinking, everything is so difficult for me.” “The Flower of My Secret” (1995)
“I would like to lie, but that is the bad thing about witnesses, we can't.” “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (1988).
“The only thing I really have are my feelings and the liters of silicone that weigh me down like a ton.” “All About My Mother” (1999).
The soundtrack plays a major role in Pedro Almodóvar's work. Lyrics and melodies come in and out, resolving, relaxing or deciding the character of the sequences, complementing the verbal and extraverbal language of the dialogues, gestures and visual lines.
Why is music so important in Almodóvar's work? Not everyone knows that Pedro was, during the so-called Movida Madrileña, one of the emblematic figures of the Spanish punk movement. With only one album –“Cómo está el servicio… de señoras”– his work from that time is an object of worship for followers, collectors and scholars of the genre.
Would “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” be the same without the presence of La Lupe with the song “Puro teatro”? We cannot forget a bright and emotional Penélope Cruz, with a cracked voice singing “Volver”, in the film of the same name. And in “Tacones lejanos”, the unforgettable interpretation of Becky del Páramo becomes a monologue dedicated to her daughter Rebeca, who metaphorically welcomes her from prison. Since then, the bolero “Piensa en mí” has been part of the dramatic heritage of Spanish cinema.
The presence of pop is very evident in the work of this director. From the opening credits, letters and symbols appear in an explosion of bright colors. A close-up of red lips, details of ripe tomatoes ready for gazpacho, tight purple dresses sliding over the black of a Madrid night. David Hockney's blue swimming pools and Magritte's kiss with their heads covered in “The Lovers.” All this and more is part of our sensory illusion when we look at the projection of the world according to Pedro Almodóvar.
