INTERVIEW JAMES MOTTRAM
‘I’V E BEEN TRYING TO NOT REPEAT MYSELF. IT ’S IMPORTANT TO ME’
All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Volver, Bad Education… every Pedro Almodóvar movie is pure European event cinema. His new work, Strange Way of Life, with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, sees him venture into English to create a unique queer western. Total Film meets the man to talk sex, drugs and Barbie…
When Total Film last met Pedro Almodóvar, at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival for Pain and Glory, the Spanish maestro was offering up selfies like confetti. Dressed in a bright yellow shirt, he was wearing two watches. Why? One to tell the time and one to track his step count. Today, over Zoom, TF can’t resist asking the 73-yearold how that’s all going. ‘Madrid, it’s more than 40 degrees,’ he sighs. His home is a ghost town, the streets empty, making it impossible to get those steps in. ‘Generally when it’s not so hot, I reach 4,000 to 5,000, but I don’t reach 8,000. This is a failure. I’m sorry!’
It’s about the only thing Almodóvar has failed at over the decades, in a career that began with 1980’s Pepi, Luci, Bom with Carmen Maura, whom he had met when he moved to Madrid in the Franco era, pursuing filmmaking while working other jobs. His second feature, 1982’s Labyrinth of Passion, was his first collaboration with then-fledgling actor Antonio Banderas. They have reunited multiple times since, notably in 1988’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the chaotic comedy that broke Almodóvar in the US, earning him a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nod.
His early work was known for its garish design and outlandish subjects. Dark Habits (1983) stirred up controversy with its tale of sinful nuns; Matador, again with Banderas, conflated sex and murder; Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! was given an ‘X’ rating in America. But as he has aged, Almodóvar’s tone has shifted, with films such as Live Flesh, All About My Mother, Bad Education and the Oscarwinning Talk to Her seeing him tackle more serious subjects. Only when he came back with 2013’s fun-but-farcical I’m So Excited! were audiences treated to a glimpse of the Almodóvar of old.
Yet, despite constant offers, Almodóvar did not direct an Englishlanguage film until the 2020 short The Human Voice with Tilda Swinton. Now he returns with another, Strange Way of Life, a queer western that also marks his first collaboration with Yves Saint Laurent’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello (so you can imagine how stylish it looks). Ethan Hawke plays Jake, a sheriff on the hunt for a murderer. During his investigation, he runs into an old compadre, Silva (Pedro Pascal), a former lover and drinking buddy. With discreet nods to The Wild Bunch
