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Almodovar: "Pain and Glory"

A poor gay boy reads all the time. His strong-willed mother recognizes that he has a future; she wants to send him to the seminary, because that's the way for a poor boy to get an education.

The boy reacts: "I don't WANT to be a priest."

The tough, beleaguered mom explains the ways of the world. She doesn't have any money. Her dipshit husband moved her to a cave--a cave!--and more-or-less disappeared. (The absence of the father is one of many things this movie handles so quietly, so deftly.)

The mom needs to make her cave beautiful, and she is smart, so she sees opportunities. An illiterate manual laborer stops by; Mom speaks up. The laborer can apply tiles to the cave walls; in exchange for this, little Pedro Almodovar will teach the laborer to read. (Let's not pretend that the little boy is anyone other than Pedro Almodovar.)

This small exchange sets so many things in motion. It will be a big source of Pedro's love and admiration for his mother in later years. (Like so many other things in the film, the connection isn't made explicit. But of course Pedro admires his mother's chutzpah. That's why he remembers the exchange even well into adulthood.) The laborer will grow fond of the boy and will create, for him, a work of art--a work of art that will help to coax Pedro out of his own artistic crisis many decades later. The little boy, experiencing his first homosexual feelings, "el primer deseo," will become smitten with the laborer, and this will combine with heatstroke to create a rupture in the plot.

Penelope Cruz does such beautiful work--understanding that her boy is both special and vulnerable, concealing her understanding in gruff gestures.

"Pain and Glory" seems--above all else--a love note from the adult Pedro Almodovar to his mother. (Mothers and sons are not a new interest to him. See "All About My Mother.")

The scene that really slaughters you is the moment when Mrs. Almodovar--close to death--bluntly informs her son that he is a disappointment. Pedro listens with love and gently apologizes. It's a spectacular scene.

Unlike anything else I watched this year--and, let's be honest, "Pain and Glory" probably deserves the Best Picture Oscar. It wasn't nominated. C'est la vie.
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