NYFF: Pedro & Tilda & "The Human Voice"
Thursday, September 24, 2020 at 7:30PM by Nathaniel R
Green. Black. And of course, glorious Red. These are just some of the bold colors worn by Tilda, hanging not just from her body in a true fashion parade, but spilling from her tight mouth. Pedro Almodóvar's first English language project, The Human Voice (2020), a swift 30 minute monodrama "freely" based on Jean Cocteau's play, makes perfectly expected use of Tilda's much-celebrated fashion iconicity. More crucially it doesn't forget her acting gift. The actress repays the auteur with primal colors of jealously, nihilism, and fury in her line readings...
Filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Human Voice is entirely Tilda all the time but for a canine companion (unusual for a Pedro movie), aside from a very brief opening scene set within the world's most Art-Directed hardware store where she purchases a single axe, that is promptly folded up in brown paper like a triangular bouget of roses and unceremoniously shoved into her handbag. In the lushly visual short film, she wanders between "rooms" in ever-changing costumes within an elaborate set that is both finished (fully set-dressed) but also abstracted, existing without ceilings and in an otherwise empty warehouse.
Like so many of Almodóvar's previous projects, The Human Voice, is slippery, fluid in mood and imagery and easy to lose in the meta-stream of the auteur's now-large filmography. In ways that are usually celebrated but are probably more than a little alienating for the casual viewer, Almodóvar's projects are constantly in dialogue with each other to the point where you can be forgiven for temporarily forgetting which one you're watching. Roughly a third of his movies could well interchange their titles without losing their identity. Consider that most of his unforgettable gallery of great characters might be accurately described as women are on the verge of a nervous breakdown and the law of desire is always in play. And that's just a broad overview effect. In other words, he "volvers" all over the place within his own career!
More specifically, in The Human Voice's brief running time he redeploys Talk to Her's score, vividly twins the manic waiting-by-the-phone energy of Carmen Maura in Law of Desire, and blurs the line between whether you're watching a film or the making of that same film which is one of his most frequent tropes. And it's not just past movies that he draws your eye too. The Human Voice even contains an easter egg for his next full feature, A Manual for Cleaning Women. His next film is based on that book which we see in one memorable shot, that cinephiles and bibliophiles alike will drool for, as Tilda restacks a group of DVDs and books. She's been obsessively watching and reading them while waiting for her absent lover to return.
He doesn't return -- this is a mono-drama, after all -- and she becomes increasingly unhinged. But it's not all a Pedro retread. Tilda brings entirely different, more cerebral energy to the material than Pedro's usual muses. She shares Penelope Cruz's utter command of the camera but none of her soft melodrama. She shares with Carmen Maura a kind of deadpan opacity but with less comedy and more abstraction. The Human Voice, then becomes a riveting unlikely faceoff/collaboration between two of cinema's greatest arists. One of the slyest notes, is the ending, which should be entirely distressing but instead feels comical, even oddly amiable, in its rage, as Tilda matter-of-factly exits the set, absolutely done with it, allowing us to escape with her, and just in time. A-
The Human Voice is available to rent for "virtual" screening until September 29th
Reader Comments (10)
Dario Grandinetti's character in Talk to Her was reading The Hours, but Almodóvar was rejected by Scott Rudin. Pedro kept the book in the movie anyway
Can't wait to catch this when it's available.
I need this in my life now!
Does this have a chance of getting nominated for or even winning the short oscar category?
@JR
Sony Pictures Classics has the rights in US, so... Is the frontrunner for live action short film.
Almodóvar: three oscars in three different categories!!!
I hope he wins in the future best picture, director and adapted screenplay. Maybe an animated short film? Thinking in a animation directed by Almodóvar... 🤔🤔😍🤩
JR
They should absolutely campaign for that, it will be an easy win for Pedro.
Technically, Almodovar has only ONE Oscar (Original Screenplay, Talk to Her) and has been nomintated only once more (Director, Talk to Her). He lead to nominations both Penelope Cruz (Lead Actress, Volver) and Antonio Banderas (Lead Actor, Pain and Glory), but the Foreign Film/ International Film is given to the Academy of the country that submits it. So, both the nominations for Pain and Glory, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and the win for All About My Mother aren't officially Almodovar's but Spain's.
So if he wins Short Film Live Action - may happen but I really doubt it, as first it needs to be ellegible! - it would be Pedro's second Oscar, and third nomination.
I don't know if you know this but Carmen Maura's character in La Ley del Deseo does that monologue in the film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pRK2bJ2-i0&ab_channel=eldeseopc Another example of Pedro referring to himself.
Just a question: Do you mean Maura in Law of Desire or in Women on the Verge? I ask only because it's Pepa from Women... who is, as you say, employing vivid "waiting-by-the-phone energy". BUT, Maura is also in Desire AND she performs The Human Voice while immaculately lip-syncing to "Ne me quitte pas" so...
Just had to ask.
Yes, Almodovar is everything to me. :)
If you watch the conversation after the film (I believe NYFF plans to make it available on their YouTube Channel), you can see Pedro's Oscar on his crowded bookshelf, as well as Tilda's brown and white spaniel, who seems to love the camera.
I loved this film (I think everyone will if they love Tilda and Pedro, and who doesn't?), but I wanted more. If Pedro does direct in English, I hope he casts Tilda.
In the aforementioned conversation, they mentioned that they share the same taste in films, so I have to assume that they collaborated in selecting the DVDs included the film. Maybe the dog in the film was even a nod to Tilda as well.