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09/18/2023

Review 'Strange Way of Life': Almodóvar's Privilege


By Daniel Ruiz, (X: @tatoruiz)

Caetano Veloso lends his voice to another Almodóvar story, and with that mournful, solemn, yet suggestive voice, he opens the short film that the Spaniard premiered with great fanfare at the last Cannes edition. An unusual song for a western, but this is Almodóvar, who transforms the genre and infuses it with a melodramatic spirit, a sense of desolation, absolute longing, and a storyline filled with secrets, a past brimming with suppressed desire and homoeroticism.

His men exude masculinity but have different interests, ones that go beyond saving damsels and decapitating foes. They also exude youthfulness (though not all of them are truly young), like Manu Ríos, the new sex symbol with expressive eyes, who here mimes singing Veloso's fado. He's famous for "Elite," that successful Netflix product, and his chest, which has been the center of attention on red carpets. His appearance underscores one of the characteristics of "Strange Way of Life," a short film brimming with beautiful men.

Eighteen years after Ang Lee's homosexual cowboys, we finally get to see the Spanish version, as he was offered to direct the Hollywood drama but declined at the time. A decision that, like several others, has haunted him throughout his career (since then). "Brokeback Mountain" presented sex in the dark, suggested but lacking in emotion and meaning. Almodóvar, on the other hand, has his cowboys making beds, discussing the past and future, and openly expressing their desire to continue sleeping together. Furthermore, he decides to show us the butt and package of the other Pedro, Pascal, the new sex symbol who dazzles and captivates us all. He's also the only one (Almodóvar) who has managed to make that man named Ethan Hawke desirable, reinforcing his deep voice, which resonates here and leads us to imagine more, despite the coldness of his character. In other words, "Strange Way of Life" is what Ang Lee's film wasn't—an intensely erotic proposal that blends nostalgia and absolute tenderness.

In "Strange Way of Life," all of Almodóvar's interests converge: fashion, restraint, a complicated and troubled past, intricate storytelling, and vivid colors. Here, it's not the usual red that resonates but the green of the jacket worn by Silva (Pascal), which, according to Almodóvar himself, is a green already explored in other westerns. Also, the strong earthy tones that, due to the genre of the film, could not be avoided.

Despite being somewhat "more of the same" or what we've become accustomed to, the short film's narrative leaves us in a state of suspension, with a feeling of incompleteness. With his previous short film, "The Human Voice," starring Tilda Swinton, Almodóvar returned to a storyline he had already explored in "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" or "Law of Desire." Turning it into a short film was a masterful exercise that reminded us that the storyline still obsessed the director and was nothing more than a display of skill and ability with a larger budget and more freedom. In his new short film, the opposite happens, and hopefully, in the near future, he will explore it again at length because he undoubtedly has much to tell us through that genre exercise.

But not everything in "Strange Way of Life" is a debt. Pedro knows how to make his protagonists endearing. Absolutely unforgettable. Being an expert in melodramas, he knows how to condense all the wounds carried by his characters. The contrast of voices and tones only serves to remind us of the thorny and complex past of both. The absence of sexual scenes only reinforces the director's intentions: to focus on the great conflict and his vision that two men can perfectly coexist in a universe that is supposed to be as masculinized as any other heterosexual couple in cowboy and gun-wielding cinema.

The short film, presented in Latin America through MubiFest, arrived in Peru with the support of the Lima Film Festival, accompanied by Esther García, the producer of the short film, and the other films by the Spanish director since "Matador" (1986). Esther, friendly and vivacious, to whom the festival paid a heartfelt tribute, revealed not only that Pascal spoke zero Spanish but also that she (along with Agustín Almodóvar) was responsible for fulfilling the director's whims. "Every work by Pedro has only one reason, and that's because he wants to make it," which generated immediate laughter from the audience. "He does what he wants at any given moment and doesn't consider commercial considerations. He's not influenced by simple trends (...) he just wanted to tell the story." Esther, who was in conversation with Josué Méndez, the festival's artistic director, and Enid "Pinky" Campos, a Peruvian producer, discussed the challenges faced by cinemas in this era. However, with Almodóvar, it's different, whether it's a feature film or a short one. "It's a very different situation because his work is always in demand." He is, of course, one of the privileged few. And many of us want to see the result of all that privilege.

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