Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Dedicating a retrospective to Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar means bringing light to a major cinematographic work, all together definitively cinephile, popular and exhilarating. This fierce artisan of film staging is carried by characters driven with vivid forces that often take them away from comfort and push them to discover brand new facets of themselves. They are then transformed, by means of love or disillusion. Coming back, they put conventional opinions at rest, shaping genders and social constraints. The art of filming does the rest.
The crisis of an actress that her lover is about to leave.
Pedro Almodóvar
Born in 1949 in Calzada de Calatrava, Spain, Pedro Almodóvar had a provincial childhood, marked by a strong women presence and a religious education. At the age of 18, he moved to Madrid and worked various jobs while immersed in the Madrid movida, a creative and fiery cultural movement that coincided with the democratic transition. He was introduced to theater, performance and writing in counterculture circles, and even wrote Patty Diphusa, a landmark novel in the emerging homosexual literature. In the 70s, he began directing short and then feature films. Initially noticed by the underground milieu, the filmmaker had a growing success in Spain. In 1986, he co-founded the production company El Deseo with his brother, and two years later, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown brought him international fame, which has never waned since.
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Podcast : Philosopher avec Almodovar
Exubérance, passion, identités perdues, corps transformés, désir violent et humour doux-amer... Voici quatre émissions pour philosopher avec Pedro Almodovar ! Découvrez un cinéaste unique en son genre à l'univers bariolé, qui saisit ce qu'aucun autre regard n'a jamais su capter : le langage des émotions à même la peau, la caméra qui effleure les corps et sublime les ambiguïtés dans des couleurs éclatantes. Ode à la folie qui mélange les corps et les esprits pour le meilleur et pour le pire...