Bravo Pedro! The Spanish Filmmaker Who ‘Gets’ Mental Health
He’s been hailed as the most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel - but there’s one area where he truly excels. Over a five-decade career, writer-director Pedro Almodóvar has probed the inner workings of our minds… and splashed them in vivid colour across the silver screen.
good.film
2 years ago
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They say it’s all in a name. With roots timelessly embedded in Latin culture, “Pedro” - meaning “rock” or “stone” - is a dashing, classic Spanish name that’s all about strength, tradition, and loyalty. But we’d add a few more colourful labels when the “Pedro” we’re describing is one of the art-film world’s most unique: Señor Pedro Almodóvar.
Like a moth to a bright red flame, you may have already been drawn to the award-winning Spanish filmmaker’s work for his bold sets, sizzling scripts and array of flavourful characters. He has the wizard-like ability to combine humour, tragedy, desire and great insight all within one movie, and he works with the best of the best of the Spanish film industry: Latin A-listers like Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Rossy de Palma.
Now in his 70s, the openly gay writer-director (he was approached to direct 2005’s Brokeback Mountain) has been making features since 1978. His not-so-secret “process”? Writing the most critical scene first - one that often ends up placed smack in the middle of the movie.
Any one of his films make for a fabulous, fast-paced watch. Think sensual, spicy dramas, outrageous comedies and macabre thrillers (often all at once). When you spool up an Almodóvar flick, you know you’re about to go on a stimulating, multi-sensory journey.
Beyond the sets, the scripts and the sexy Spaniards, there’s something else Almodóvar is really good at, and that’s prodding and poking into the nuances of mental health. We’d go so far as to say that Pedro’s approach to mental health in his storytelling is unlike any other filmmaker. Where other directors play it safe, Almodóvar actually “goes there.”
Learn more about the social causes Pedro Almodóvar explores in his work, like Female Empowerment and Mental Health
In 2022, Collider wrote of the prolific filmmaker: “Almodóvar stands as one of the most respected, thoughtful filmmakers in the world, noted for his colourful production designs and ability to tell transgressive stories with a progressive heart.”
(Side note: Pedro also manages to educate viewers on the fraught history of Franco era Spain with many of his stories - for example, the genocidal Terror Blanco (“White Terror”), carried out by the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War, that makes up a critical part of the story in 2021’s Parallel Mothers. Almodóvar played a key part of La Movida Madrileña: the artistic movement and cultural renaissance that swept throughout Spain after Franco’s fall.)
What’s fascinating about Pedro, beyond his brilliant films, is how effortlessly he understands that mysterious grey matter we’re all governed by. How does a man, in the autumn of his years, capture the complex nuances of the (often female) mind with such brilliant ease? Let’s take a spin through Pedro’s career catalogue to find out.
First stop: Almodóvar’s 1988 film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - the film that catapulted his career onto the international stage and put Spanish cinema back on the cultural map. Okay, so the title is a bit on-the-nose - but trust us when we say that this film does a great job of showcasing what suffering from anxiety actually looks and feels like.
Our protagonist, Pepa, is in a state of acute anxiety as her boyfriend, also a colleague, appears to be leaving her. They work as voice actors, dubbing international films into Spanish (this really is a film for film lovers). During one potent, dramatic scene, we see the two of them playing Hollywood stars Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden - Pepa driven to tears as she overdubs Crawford’s dramatic tones.
We’re soon introduced to further anxious characters and dominating dynamics which overhaul Pepa’s original worries - to the point where a terrorist threat gets involved (!) - but all the while we, the viewer, know what’s truly on Pepa’s mind: her crumbling relationship and her fractious mental state.
There’s a chaotic, outrageous element to this film, like when Rossy de Palma’s character, Marisa, drinks gazpacho that’s spiked with sleeping pills, or a phone full of messages is literally hurled through a window in frustration, leaving a trail of smashed glass in its wake. These hijinks are funny, but they aren’t designed to make light of characters experiencing mentally heightened states - they’re just Almodóvar’s way of pointing out the humour in life’s lows.
Moving into the 90s and 2000s, Almodóvar’s newer films “go there” in much more literal ways. We see characters controlled by compulsion, genius and revenge, all self-justified by unprocessed grief (The Skin I Live In). Sometimes, it’s murder that exposes his characters’ mental state (Volver). There’s even a case of retrospective baby-napping (Parallel Mothers).
The thing is though, despite topics that are far more extreme than his “lighter” works (try I’m So Excited to really be entertained), there’s an immediacy to the way Almodóvar tells a story that cuts through to us. Somehow, in that magical alchemic way that cinema can weave, he allows you to empathise with and even forgive characters for doing the unforgivable.
Of course, this isn’t to say that anyone struggling with their mental health will end up committing heinous crimes. But it circles back to a message which we can all apply to ourselves: I’m struggling, there’s much more to my mind than just what’s on the surface, and look… sometimes I just want to throw things out the window!
At this point you might be wondering, do Almodóvar’s somewhat peaky characters ever seek actual professional help? In The Skin I Live In one character has spent time in a mental health facility, and is on medication to ease the psychosis she’s suffering due to past trauma. But traditional counselling isn’t the Almodóvar way: instead, many of his films showcase ‘round-table’ type confessionals. Think proper women’s circles, where many of his (mostly female) protagonists share their truths - and darkest thoughts - about what’s really going on.
What this underlines is the power of a social network. Sharing tough and tightly held secrets with those close to you. Because once an Almodóvar character has spilled the beans, their afflictions do appear lighter, and their world often gets better. They aren’t sanding away at their trauma in therapy, but they do often arrive at a catharsis, eventually.
Our culture has evolved to a level of acceptance in seeking professional mental help - and no wonder, because it works - but one of Almodóvar’s great lessons is that we can’t abandon our social networks to support us through tough times, nor underestimate the healing power of sharing our truth, when we’re ready.
His character dynamics aren’t the only way Almodóvar reveals the terrain of his characters’ mental health. He is justifiably famous for filling the screen with brightly coloured, beautiful film sets. Almodóvar’s commitment to stimulating, maximalist art direction all aid these rich stories, as they ooze colour, variety and visual truth.
Even Harry Caine - the main character of Broken Embraces, blinded after a car accident which killed his lover - has an abundant, colourful apartment despite being unable to see, and despite his ongoing grief. Is that really necessary, Mr Almodóvar? Yes, in this world, it is. You don’t need a Masters in Interior Design (or Psychology!) to know that the inner palette of our homes are an instant visual shortcut to the internal workings of our minds.
Using sharp and vivid cinematography, Almodóvar also loves to create lingering close ups, showcasing an array of facial expressions laid bare that most films shy away from. Close ups which manage to tell the internal story.
We can’t overlook that, to our eyes, the sexy magnetism of Almodóvar’s European characters and stories is a bit of a cultural thing as well. With our prim colonial background, we Aussies tend to view these passionate Spaniards as being much more likely to showcase how they’re feeling - and okay, maybe that observation is a bit problematic in itself. But it’s true that in Latin cultures, folks are able to cry, laugh and shout with much more abandon!
This flagrante delicto is even reflected in the name of Almodóvar’s filmmaking company - El Deseo (“The Desire”). His passion for Spain is a continual showcase throughout his storytelling. Perhaps that is why he’s so good at baring the core truths about mental health: much like Spain’s fraught and challenging recent history, which still dictates much of what emotionally underpins that country, mental health is all about what’s beneath the surface. Spain is scarred, Almodóvar’s characters are scarred… we are all scarred.
There’s no doubt that we’re having a much more open dialogue about our mental health in 2023. That’s not just great, it’s long overdue. But maybe one of our ongoing issues as a culture is our need to define mental health, and our struggle to digest it in ways other than diagnoses, labels and treatment. That’s where great storytelling can educate us in glorious ways that medical textbooks simply can’t.
So what can we learn from Pedro Almodóvar and his work to deepen our understanding of mental health and wellness? For us, it’s that our impulses and conditions aren’t always labelled and linear. It’s that a strong social support network matters. And finally, that there is humour to be had in everything. Everything.
If all else fails, we could always move to Spain to feel truly expressed. Or then there’s the budget version: repaint the interiors of our apartments a bright tomato red to tell the world what we’re really feeling. We know Pedro would approve - just maybe run it past your landlord first.
