2023-08-16 11:50:00
Having come to Cannes six times in competition, Pedro Almodovar has always left the Croisette empty-handed and has never won the supreme award, namely the Palme d’Or. He was satisfied with the directing prize for all about my mother in 1999 and that of the scenario for Return in 2006. A scandal.
Presented out of competition at the last Cannes Film Festival in an atmosphere close to riot – the hall of the Grand Palais was stormed –, Strange Way of Life (2023), Almodovar’s queer western, finally arrives in cinemas this Wednesday. And that’s good news.
This 31-minute medium-length film, with dialogue in English, is a melodrama starring the American actor Ethan Hawke and another Pedro, the Chilo-American Pedro Pascal, who became famous thanks to the series Narcos, The Mandalorian et The Last of Us.
Symbol of Madrid’s Movida in the early 1980s – this exuberant cultural movement that occurred after the death of General Franco – Almodovar created unbridled and extravagant works, kitsch and colorful, pop and colorful, which made him the star of Iberian cinema – the successes of Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, tie me Up, High heels.
He has calmed down a bit in recent years and reached a sort of maturity. His cinema, more peaceful, became moving from the sublime All about my mother (1999) et Speak with her (2002). The director, who will celebrate his 74th birthday in September, is now reaching the fullness of his art and is now filming melancholic and aging heroes. Mature men who talk about their desires, love each other and tear each other apart. Like the protagonists of Strange Way of Life.
A tragic romance against the backdrop of a difficult dilemma
If he had already shown extracts of Duel in the sun (1946) and Johnny Guitar (1954) in his older films, Pedro had never encountered the western genre before. The action of his medium-length film takes place in 1910. Silva (Pedro Pascal), a cowboy of Mexican origin, crosses the desert on horseback to find Jake (Ethan Hawke), whom he knew well when they were both hitmen. Silva wishes to reconnect with his childhood friend, whom he has not seen for twenty-five years.
Now sheriff in Bitter Creek, Jake must go in search of an assassin who killed his sister-in-law and who, according to a witness, is none other than Silva’s son. The latter, who came to intercede on his behalf, tries to convince Jake of the innocence of his offspring so that he abandons his pursuit. Hence the difficult dilemma of this melodrama.
We quickly understand that Jake and Silva had an affair during their youth. That they loved each other madly in the past. These two rode together. And time has erased nothing of their devouring passion. In the film, after a torrid night of love, each person confides in the other. Torn between reason and feelings, will the sheriff do his duty and do justice, by having the son of the one he loves tried and hanged? Or will the two lovers be able to live together on a ranch and look after each other? It’s the law of desire – the title of a film by Pedro released in 1987 – against the law of the West…
repressed desire
Filmed in a village in the province of Almeria, in the south of Spain, which once served as the setting for Sergio Leone’s famous “dollar trilogy” with Clint Eastwood, Strange Way of Life offers splendid landscapes in CinemaScope. As beautiful as it is sad, the film plays the melancholy card, helped by a superb musical score by Alberto Iglesias. The two magnificent actors bring a lot of emotion to this project, despite the narrative constraints of the short format.
An eminently virile genre, where male friendships hold an important place, the western has always been gay-friendly. For example in The Red River (1948) by Howard Hawks, two young cowboys (Montgomery Clift and John Ireland) compare their respective weapons (read: who has the biggest?). Anthony Quinn’s troubled relationship with Henry Fonda in The Man with the Golden Coltsby Edward Dmytryck was encrypted in 1959.
READ ALSOCinema – Jane Campion takes on the alpha maleBut the homoerotic dimension of the film is clear today, no need for subtext. Ditto for the love-hate relationship between Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge in Johnny Guitar. We also remember the Secret de Brokeback Mountain (2005), by Ang Lee where, in the wide open spaces of Wyoming, two cattle herders (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) lived a secret love story, in which the desire was all the more violent as it was repressed.
Recently, Jane Campion also addressed the question of homosexuality in Montana in 1925 with the fabulous The Power of the Dog (2021), broadcast on Netflix. In short, the western has always been a little gay on the edges, as the disco music group Village People (with its cowboy and its Indian!) had already understood, which sang, in 1979, the hit “Go West” .
A film financed by Saint Laurent
If recently, great filmmakers have sought financing for their films on streaming platforms – like Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, David Fincher or Alfonso Cuaron – others are turning to big brands and the industry luxury – Wes Anderson shot, for example, in 2013, a short film produced by Prada, Cavalcanti Castle.
This is the case today with Almodovar, who was able to finance Strange Way of Life thanks to the support of the house of Saint Laurent. Indeed, the YSL brand has been involved in film production for some time and offers filmmakers total artistic freedom.
Belgian stylist Anthony Vaccarello, artistic director of the Saint Laurent fashion house, was also responsible for the sumptuous costumes for the film. Saint Laurent Productions also worked with Jean-Luc Godard, Bret Easton Ellis, Gaspar Noé – for the 52 minutes Eternal Light –Abel Ferrara, Paolo Sorrentino, Wong Kar-wai, Jim Jarmusch and is currently preparing a feature film with David Cronenberg.
Self-portrait
So of course, Strange Way of Life only lasts 31 minutes. But there is more freedom and creativity in this half hour than in the bulk of current production, whose poverty of inspiration – particularly visual – never ceases to amaze. The short form has never been a hindrance for Almodovar. Three years ago, he had already signed a formidable 30-minute short film, presented in world premiere at the Venice Film Festival: The Human Voice (2020), freely adapted from Jean Cocteau, which recounted the torments of a woman (Tilda Swinton) abandoned by her lover.
This film will also be presented at the cinema in a double program with Strange Way of Life. In fact, the only reproach that one could address to the western of Pedro Almodovar, it is its brevity. Strange Way of Life would have deserved a longer duration and we regret having to leave these romantic and endearing cowboys so quickly.
With an excellent script and a clever ending, this film is a purely artistic gesture. A beautiful romance with heightened feelings, which takes as its theme the resurgence in the present of an ancient passion – a subject already treated in the most personal, autobiographical and introspective work of Almodovar: Pain and Glory (2019).
A self-portrait in which a filmmaker in the midst of an existential crisis – played by his alter ego Antonio Banderas – finds an old lover after a 32-year estrangement and experiences a new burning passion with him. So if you like the inventiveness of Almodovar’s cinema, run to see the medium-length film of our drama queen favourite. His fantasy is precious.
Strange Way of Life, by Pedro Almodovar (Spain, 31 minutes), Pathé distribution, with Ethan Hawke, Pedro Pascal, Manu Ríos, Jason Fernandez, Sara Salamo, Pedro Casablanc. Released August 16.
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