Pain and Glory (2019)

Ah, my first Pedro Almodóvar viewing in five years. It's also easily his most recent film that I've seen, with 2006's Volver a distant second. Given that P&G draws inspiration from the writer-director's own life, according to an interview on the DVD, I can guess why he hasn't directed much of note in between.

Scenes jump around among the '60s, the '80s, and what I take to be roughly the present, but always in Spain. As a kid (Asier Flores), Salvador "Salva" Mallo is quite the achiever, but he lives in a backwater village of caves, and his mother (Penélope Cruz) and father (Raúl Arévalo) see the seminary as his only affordable means of education, much to his chagrin. As an adult (Antonio Banderas), he becomes a film director, but I wouldn't say he's any happier. Certainly not by the time he has a ton of illnesses at once, the rarest and most serious of which makes it hard for him to swallow even liquids.

All About My Mother (1999)

My sister prompted me to check out several Pedro Almodóvar films a while back. I always had mixed feelings. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown struck me funny, but I've largely forgotten it. Mom agreed that Volver was only fitfully good. Talk to Her, while unique, vulgarly seems to disregard Almodóvar's usual knack for dealing with women. And I don't dare check out the NC-17 Bad Education.

All About My Mother is no exception. I can tell that skills went into the making, and the results elicit emotions effectively. It has plenty of female interaction. But not everyone wants to dwell on the subjects, including teen son death, HIV/AIDS, prostitution, nun pregnancy, and the social travails of transvestites.