Nathaniel in Venice: "Parallel Mothers" and city impressions

Nathaniel reporting from Venice - Day 1, Part 1

"Dont Look Now" .. the most famous Venice movie?

Dearest readers, what's the first thing you think of when you think of Venice? My first memory of the city,  vicariously, is Madonna's gyrating gondola ride in the "Like a Virgin" music video. Nothing as seismically sexy is likely to occur in pandemic 2021 (tourists and masks kinda kill that vibe) but I did witness the paparazzi chasing a celebrity the literal minute I exited the airport to board a boat to my airbnb. Seeing paparazzi in the country that invented the word was fun but I didn't recognize the celebrity (short girl with black hair and baggy clothing with heavily tatted tall boyfriend?). Auspicious beginnings. 

Venice is one of the most beautiful cities you'll ever see this side of Copenhagen, and that's surely due to all the canals; Oh to live on the water! Travelling to the movies each morning by boat is going to be heaven. Coming back to the main island at night to sleep, though, is as eery as any shot from Don't Look Now (1973), since every street feels like walking down a dark alley, even in the middle of the day. The buildings are uncomfortably close together  -- sometimes you have to turn sideways for other pedestrians -- and the streets are utterly mazelike. With the caveat that I have a terrible sense of direction, I was lost four times in the first 24 hours. 

My first screening was the opening night film Pedro Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers so the festival began, figuratively, with Penélope Cruz asking the audience to smize...

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Elisa's Venice Diary #1: Almodovar, Campion. Here are lions.

by Elisa Giudici

What a start! There's a way of saying in Italian: il buon giorno si vede dal mattino. It means you can tell if something is remarkable from the very beginning, as you can judge how a day will be by the way it begins. Well, the first day of my fifth year as a press pass holder in Venice was so amazing I am not going to tell you if I liked what I saw, but how much I enjoyed every single title.

PARALLEL MOTHERS by Pedro Almodóvar
I was unsure about the opening movie of Venezia 78 due to Pain and Glory: how to follow up such an intimate, powerful, memorable movie (the kind of film a director puts his entire life in it, and that he or she can only make once or twice in a career). How can the follow up be anything but a disappointment? Happy to report Pedro Almodóvar is far from having finished the meaningful things he wants to say while endlessly rearranging his favorite themes and actresses...

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"Parallel Mothers" to open Venice

by Nathaniel R

Reporting Pedro Almodóvar news twice over. First, his 22nd feature Parallel Mothers will open the 77th Venice Film Festival on September 1st, followed by a September rollout in Europe.  Sony Pictures Classics will distribute the film in the US though they haven't announced a specific date yet. Almodóvar has been an arthouse sensation in the international marketplace since the late 80s. Though he feels like an Oscar perennial the truth is that though he's often in 'the conversation', as it were, Oscar has been a bit stingy; Collectively his films have earned 7 Oscar nominations and 2 wins (Best Foreign-Language Film for All About My Mother and Best Screenplay for Talk To Her) but are often snubbed despite outclassing their competitors. Remember Volver not placing in Foreign-Language Film and The Human Voice not landing in the short film category just last season when in both cases they both ought to have won those particular categories given the finalists? 

The second bit of news is that we'll be launching a Thursday series here at TFE in which we'll (re)watch his whole filmography... which we've been meaning to do for awhile. His official debut Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (1980) is surprisingly available on HBOMax at the moment!

The Human Voice... on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

You already know that we loooooved The Human Voice by way of its NYFF run last year and the Best of 2020 article. It's now one of the ten finalists for Best Live Action Short (a category we'll review as soon as we're able to track down the only two entries we haven't seen). Now we have word about its release plans. The Human Voice, based on the Jean Cocteau "monodrama" will be in theaters starting March 12th in the US, three days before Oscar nominations are due. Will it be nominated? Who knows! Some Academy members might resent a world class auteur infiltrating a category that generally rewards newbies but others, judging on the work alone, might easily go for it. Thirty minute films are generally a hard sell for standard movie ticket prices. So it will be paired with Pedro Almodóvar's international breakthrough feature, the Oscar nominated Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) in theaters. If you've never seen the latter indisputable classic, here's a perfect excuse to rectify that gaping hole in your 80s cinematic knowledge, and get a great new 30 minute Tilda Swinton performance in the process. 

That is IF movie theaters are open where you are by March 12th and you feel comfortable going. 

1987: Carmen Maura in "Law of Desire"

Each month before the Smackdown, Nick Taylor considers alternates to Oscar's ballot...

I bet Pedro Almodóvar's filmography would be a fun one to watch in order. His visual ideas and narrative fascinations recur throughout his films, yet his deployment and examination of them take on different textures at different points. Murder, art, cinema, romantic passion, heartbreaking yet inextricably devoted family ties, queerness, as filtered through the generic keys of farce, melodrama, and thriller, it’s all there from his earliest works to last year’s tremendously moving Pain and Glory, each film recognizably guided by the same hand. There’s great fun to be had in watching different stylists and performers interpret Almodóvar’s very tricky vision, and no collaboration largely specific to the earliest stages of his career is quite as gratifying as Carmen Maura’s heroic work with him throughout the ‘80s. 

Granted, I’ve only seen three of their six collaborations in this era - What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Law of Desire, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - so if the first few aren’t up to snuff I’ll amend this. But those films are colorful, highwire efforts whose successes are as much the result of Almodóvar’s inspired writing and direction as Maura’s brilliant acting. Law of Desire provides her the least farcical, most dramatic role of this trio, as well as the only instance where she’s not the main character...

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