We're celebrating Pedro Almodóvar all week. Here's Chris Feil on Pedro's standby composer...
Here at The Film Experience, ruminating on Pedro Almodóvar’s list of frequent collaborators would most likely find an actress’s name come up first. But aside from his onscreen talent, there is one now prolific relationship the director has that’s equally worth celebrating: composer Alberto Iglesias.
The Almodóvar/Iglesias collaboration is now ten films deep, dating back to 1995‘s The Flower of My Secret without a single gap film since. His work is inextricable from what Almodóvar creates on screen, a cohesive piece of the melodrama that enhances the tone rather than defining it. Let's discuss five favorites from his work after the jump...
No other director has had quite the symbiotic relationship with the composer like what he has with Pedro. At this point, Iglesias is as integral to the Almodóvar aesthetic as saturated colors and strong female characters.
Iglesias has three Oscar nominations to his name, but strangely none for his work with the auteur.
The Flower of My Secret
The start of something special. The film itself is sometimes forgotten among the Pedro’s filmography, but you can see hear why Iglesias’s work here was the beginning of such a lasting relationship. This score is as lush as any of the director’s visuals, a true matching of wavelengths.
All About My Mother
Built of almost as many personalities as the women that populate the film, this score is jazzy and surprising. Single passages of music feel like they have their own mini-chapters containing tiny multitudes, constantly shifting like heroine Manuela’s emotional landscape. This one is perhaps the quintessential Iglesias/Almodóvar pairing.
Bad Education
Of all his work with Almodóvar, Education is maybe Iglesias’s most dramatic - the two collaborators at their most Hitchcock/Hermann-esque. Iglesias weaves a frantic string section into more elegiac religious themes, just as the director blurs the lines between memory, fiction, and performance. Like the film, it feels shrouded in secrets to be revealed, still alluring with all its tragedy.
Volver
Not only is Iglesias in harmony with the director’s rhythms, he’s also keyed into the ensemble as well. The score is built on fraught feeling, in sync with both the unsaid painted all over the actresses faces and their highest peaks. Like the film, Iglesias does the very most while still having nuanced emotional intelligence.
Julieta
Don’t call the film lesser Almodóvar and likewise don’t brush off Iglesias’s immaculate work within it. This score is the artist at his best: revealing an emotional terrain for its characters they can’t always express for themselves, heightening the melodrama, and matching Almodóvar’s noir. My personal favorite of his work.
What is your favorite Alberto Iglesias collaboration with Pedro?