Part of this, for me, might have been the stylistic choice to block most of the present day scenes in a less cinematic manner, almost staged like a soap opera with little camera movement or cuts, and rigid almost wooden performances. This is contrasted with the flashback scenes which feel very pastoral and more lush creating a dichotomy between the two parts of the story. While this is somewhat explained in the final moment of the film, for me it was jarring. That mixed with the film’s rather abrupt and often staged feeling transitions meant the film never felt like it flowed.
Almodovar’s seemingly self-referential story often feels stunted and stalled. He connects to moments of the past and then shuts them down right away. Again, this is made to feel like the point but it is a point of frustration and kept me from getting swept away in his story. I keep feeling like more was being taken away. His meeting of an old lover not only comes at us rather abruptly (in one of those too coincidental to feel real moments movies tend to do) but then is shut down faster than we can start to feel the emotional impact of it. Again this is contrasted with a scene from his past of his first moments of sexual awakening which is quite artfully done.
Throughout Pain & Glory I would just be getting into the emotional resonance of the story when he would take it away and start something new so I often felt it wasn’t reaching me. I never felt either the pain or the glory and wished more of that felt real.
Pain & Glory
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz
Writer/Director: Pedro Almodovar
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