The 79th Festival de Cannes is coming to an end. On May 20, one of the most anticipated films on the program was screened there – Pedro Almodóvar’s “A Bitter Christmas,” a film based on a story from his latest book. Almodovar has failed to come up with a story that can be strongly compared to his most famous films – and the new film is about exactly that: its protagonists are directors who find it extremely difficult to come up with new scripts. Anton Dolin explains why, despite its obvious problems, Bitter Christmas is still fun to watch.
As the title says, it’s 2004. Elsa (Barbara Linney) gets a headache during a thunderstorm. Her migraine was so bad that she asked her friend Beau (Patrick Criado) to take her to the doctor in the middle of the night. In fact, she was having a panic attack. A year ago, her mother died in the same hospital, and they didn’t have time to say goodbye.
How can this be treated if stronger medications don’t help? The psychiatrist advises going somewhere far away, and Elsa decides to travel to the volcanic island of Lanzarote, covered in picturesque black sand. There, the director of two cult (i.e. commercially unsuccessful) films, who has been making money from advertising in recent years, dares to take on a new script – a third – dedicated to her childhood and mother.
The cursor appears on the screen, and an invisible person is writing Elsa’s story before our eyes. As the title says, we’re transported to the year 2026. On the computer is Raul (Leonardo Sbaraglia), an older dandy who also works as a director. He’s working on a screenplay and trying to overcome writer’s block by coming up with a story about the exact same crisis. Behind the persona of handsome stripper Beau is Santi (Kim Gutierrez), Raul’s partner. Elsa’s prototype is Mónica, his loyal assistant and agent of twenty years (Etana Sánchez Gijón). She had just quit her job to be with a friend who lost her child. Therefore, Raoul gives Elsen the same friend, who mourned a similar loss…
Are you confused yet? Then let’s add another level of storytelling. We are in our time, here and now. Pedro Almodovar, the 76-year-old classic of Spanish and world cinema, suffers from anxiety, dissatisfaction with himself, and an inability to come up with a plot comparable to his most famous films. So, going through her book The Last Dream, there she finds the partly autobiographical story “A Bitter Christmas” and turns it into a screenplay about Raoul and Elsa and the screenplay that (one hopes) she will write.
The author is looking for characters, and they are looking for a sane author, not a depressed one. Cleans.
Spoiler alert: None of the three writers were able to come up with a truly engaging, cohesive, and compelling story. In this, their critics – both on screen and behind the scenes – are absolutely right. You will hear (or have already heard, at least in Spain, where the film was released) a lot of harsh and harsh words about Almodovar’s 24th film. However, in some cases, marginal notes or comments are more interesting than the text itself. “A Bitter Christmas” is that very case.
There are numbers listed for the magical powers in the movie. For other directors, they merely slow down events, but here they produce a life-giving effect, adding something simultaneously surreal and documentary to the muddled narrative. Unable to create a complete masterpiece and realize it, Almodovar encourages us to enjoy the beauty of fragments and fragments – as if in a museum of artifacts of some ancient civilization.
With these rights, Bo’s artistic nudity is fully included in the action – then Elsa falls in love with him and invites him to appear in an underwear advertisement (on the day of filming, she learns of her mother’s death). Or the incredibly beautiful song by the director’s favorite Mexican singer, Chavela Vargas. Her famous musical elegy “La Llorona” was presented in her latest farewell performance. In those years, as the heroines aptly note, Chavela did not sing so much as talk or whisper into the microphone.
Almodovar seems to have failed to sing, but his whisper is worth hearing. Between the lines of the confusing and wordy film, full of plot lines abandoned midway through the film, are confessions of something very important to the author – even if most of them are cryptic. Most references and Easter eggs are impossible for an outsider to spot. Thus, in a group portrait that appears in the film of dozens of participants – real people, figures of modern Madrid bohemia – it is very likely that he will recognize only the director’s colorful favorite, actress Rossi De Palma, and will hear her last name spoken.
Against the background of a motley crowd of people, reminiscent of Almodóvar’s youth, the solo melody of his current discordant loneliness sounds even more poignant – when pain turns out to be higher than glory.
He still knows how to impress his loyal viewer with an impeccable combination of colors and patterns in sets and costumes: in general, you can admire this without returning to the plot at any moment. Every now and then there are witty quotations from painting – a white still life in style, a lone figure in a room from a painting.
Almodovar’s new photographer, Barcelona’s Pau Esteve Berba, seamlessly and technically integrates disparate spaces and interiors into a single canvas. Alberto Iglesias’ music is as charming as it is at the best of times – although there is too much of it, which also suggests the director’s insecurity. There is a slight touch of secondaryness to everything, and its declarative nature gives the scene a strangely melancholy quality.
The perfect expression of this mood is the picturesque black landscape of Lanzarote, where the bright costumes of the heroines look especially advantageous. It’s so stunning that you’ll want to forgive and forget the self-repetition: after all, in 2004’s Interrupted Embraces, the director had already used exactly the same landscape for a similar purpose.
I’d like to believe that Almodovar will rebound and make a more energetic and lively film – but on the contrary, I don’t want to believe in the end of his somewhat decadent gloom. He repeatedly said goodbye to the audience, filming the picture of his so-called last will and testament: such an impression was made by “Pain and Glory”, “The Human Voice”, “The Next Room” and now “Bitter Christmas”. But the director still does not intend to retire (thank God) and will most likely return.
“Remember, writing and filmmaking are not the whole life,” Monica tells Raoul. He immediately answers: “It’s all for me.” That’s much better. This means that migraines are not fatal, panic attacks are treatable, and death is not yet on the horizon, but the movie doesn’t work. But Almodóvar manages to get out of this too, giving a performance of creative failure that you can’t take your eyes off at times.