The snow in New York is pink, pink because of climate change. Personal trainers can no longer have physical contact with their clients; they risk being accused of harassment. Euthanasia is still illegal in many states. On the Dark Web, you can buy every kind of illegality imaginable. The world is ending—or perhaps it’s already over. Healthcare systems are collapsing, pollution has overtaken the planet. The right wing imposes its laws. Both the living and the undead walk this Earth, and the only thing that makes existence worthwhile is beauty. The beauty of colors, cinema, literature, great love stories, design, painting, and that small slice of nature not yet violated by humanity (in one scene, the protagonist opens the window of her New York apartment, and all we hear is the roar of traffic; later, when she moves to a house in the forest, we hear only the singing of birds). Hopper’s paintings, the novels of Hemingway and Faulkner, the films of Buster Keaton, Rossellini, Ophüls, and John Huston... Beauty will save the world! Almodóvar and his characters are like Schopenhauer; they experience art as a liberation from the pain of existence. But when the protagonist can no longer revel in this aesthetic ecstasy due to her illness, she will decide her end on her own terms, infusing beauty even into death.

“There are many ways to live a tragedy.”

Martha (like the title of a Fassbinder film, one of Almodóvar’s obsessions) has terminal cancer. After years of absence, she reconnects with Ingrid, a friend from the past (Ingrid, as in Bergman, who is also referenced in the film). The first is a war reporter estranged from her daughter; the second is a writer terrified of death. Ironically, Ingrid ends up face to face with death herself. Martha asks her to stay with her during her final days before taking the fatal pill.

"The Room Next Door" is Almodóvar’s most political film. His earlier works were also political, though less overtly so; they were wild and ironic, unruly, provocative, and excessive, reflecting a Spain emerging from the repression of Franco’s dictatorship. His films were filled with toxic nuns, transvestites, openly gay characters, groups of friends engaged in pissing and sadomasochism, and pedophile priests. Even Parallel Mothers was political in its portrayal of the drama of the desaparecidos. Almodóvar knows the world is at war, and this is his war film: the war that has shattered Martha’s fiancé’s mind, the war Martha confronts daily as a reporter, the war between Ingrid and death, between Martha and death, between Martha and her daughter. There is life in death, and death in life.

The utopian female solidarity that Pedro proposes in all his films is more exalted than ever here, embodied in Moore’s character, who helps her friend driven by a complex set of motivations: she cares for her out of shared history, perhaps harbors something homoerotic between them, and wants to finally confront her greatest fear.

Almodóvar has two great actresses at his disposal and places the camera entirely at their service. He reduces the traditional shot/reverse shot in dialogues, favoring wide shots that frame both performers together, emphasizing their expressions and reactions, which the audience is invited to scrutinize continuously. The staging is geometric, Bergmanian, and painterly. The colors are blazing and dazzling. Red, yellow, blue, and green dominate the scenes, with each color representing a state of mind. Swinton wears a striped sweater in yellow, red, blue, and green, embodying a tangle of emotions. Blue symbolizes fidelity and stable relationships (Ingrid completely lets herself go with Martha, with total trust between them). Red, the color of living in the moment (Ingrid has no future and is forced to live in the now). Yellow generates negative sensations but also optimism (Martha, though physically suffering, has moments of positivity and decides to die wearing a stunning yellow dress). Green is seen on Ingrid’s sweater during a police interrogation following her friend’s suicide. The authorities suspect she helped Martha die, but Ingrid remains calm and composed; green is the color of relaxation.

The soundtrack by the trusted Alberto Iglesias nods to Hitchcock, especially as Almodóvar infuses the narrative with a thriller-like tension tied to the protagonist’s suicide (when will it happen? Any morning, Ingrid might find her friend dead). Hitchcockian references peak with the arrival of Martha’s daughter, also played by Swinton: Vertigo.

Almodóvar’s cinema shifts directions film after film, tackling new themes, changing languages, moving from Spain to America... but it always remains faithful to itself and to a stoic, deeply personal idea of filmmaking. His works uphold female supremacy, explore mother-daughter conflicts (Volver and Julieta above all), male indeterminacy, and technical mannerisms that heighten the drama but, in moments like The Room Next Door, are cooled by a sparse, surgical direction.

Almodóvar now possesses the power of the great classic directors in cinematic history.

Death is beautiful.

09-Dec-2024 by Emanuele