There is, of course, a long history of great filmmakers coming to terms with their own history and mortality through storytelling. Back in the present day, the reunion with Crespo inspires another reunion that’s among the most heartbreaking and moving scenes in Almodovar’s history, all while Mallo’s lingering health problems appear to be getting disconcertingly worse. It takes a great deal of trust between writer/director and actor to put something that feels this personal up on screen and not have it come across as self-serving or maudlin. In the flashbacks, the wonderful Penelope Cruz plays Mallo’s mother, and, again, the long working relationship between actor and auteur clearly influences the final product. From the story of heroin and Crespo, it goes very unexpected places, all of it intercut with memories that Mallo is having of his childhood. It’s a story of someone reaching into the past, pulling out something formative, and then using it to reshape and inform the present-like how great artists often do.ĭon’t worry-“Pain and Glory” is not the story of a drug addict. Years later, they reunite for a Q&A and Mallo, in a great deal of pain because of chronic health problems, decides to try chasing the dragon himself, quickly becoming addicted to heroin. Mallo didn’t like Crespo’s work in their breakthrough film, accusing it of being too influenced by the actor’s heroin use. Is Alberto Crespo ( Asier Etxeandia) intended as a stand-in for Banderas or someone else from Almodovar’s past or a purely fictional creation? It’s likely a mix of people Almodovar worked with over the years with whom he lost touch, either intentionally or otherwise. So when “Pain and Glory” opens with a narrative in which a famous director reunites with an actor whom he made a star decades earlier, the meta-aspect of watching Banderas play a version of Almodovar himself is clearly intentional. (With the exception of maybe Penelope Cruz, but she’s in here too.
#Blood glory and pain skin
Of course, casting Banderas as a stand-in for Almodovar himself named Salvador Mallo brings the world of fiction and reality together in interesting ways before the film has even begun, given how often the two have worked together across the decades in films like “Matador,” “ Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!,” and even the more recent “ The Skin I Live In.” It’s unlikely that any collaborator knows Almodovar as well as Banderas, who has worked with him now for over three decades.
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