Legendary Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film — Dolor y Gloria — opens with the camera slowly encroaching upon a man floating at the bottom of a pool, motionless, seemingly relishing in the release of all physical tension for the few moments that his breathlessness will allow. The film then cuts to a group of women and a young boy on the side of a river, the women washing clothes by hand and singing harmoniously as the wind blows through the reeds and the sun shines warmly. Thus begins Almodóvar’s most personal story of his career, a very rich and moving narrative that interweaves history, memory, creativity, and desire into a deep reflection upon the man’s seven decades of life and four decades in film.
