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Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar’s deep affection for Madrid takes center stage in a new exhibition in the Spanish capital. This heartfelt tribute showcases the city’s significant presence in his illustrious film career through Madrid, Almodovar Girl exhibition, running until October 20 at the Conde Duque Cultural Center.
The Madrid, Almodovar Girl exhibition displays 200 photographs from Almodovar’s 23 movies, along with notebooks, movie props and the first camera he ever bought, a handheld Super-8. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Almodovar’s film debut in Madrid with his first short film released in 1974.
Pedro Sanchez, the exhibition’s commissioner and author of a book on Almodovar’s connection to Madrid, eloquently describes the relationship: “The story of Pedro Almodovar and Madrid is a story of requited love. Pedro Almodovar is Pedro Almodovar thanks to Madrid.” He adds, “Almodovar has repaid Madrid in spades for what the city has given him by being his muse.” Many foreigners’ initial exposure to Spanish culture, particularly Madrid, is through Almodovar’s films.
The exhibition includes a striking chart showing the percentage of action in each of Almodovar’s films that takes place in Madrid. It varies from a mere six percent in the 2011 drama The Skin I Live In, a tale of a vengeful plastic surgeon, to 100 percent in seven of his films. Among these is his international breakthrough, the 1988 romantic black comedy Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Almodovar moved to Madrid from a small village in Castilla-La Mancha in 1967 at the age of 17, escaping the arid, rural life during the final years of General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. Reflecting on his journey, he once said, “I have never felt like a stranger here.” Following Franco’s death in 1975, Almodovar became a pivotal figure in Madrid’s cultural movement, la movida, which broke many of the Roman Catholic dictatorship’s taboos.
Sanchez highlights the synergy between Almodovar and Madrid: “Like Madrid, Almodovar has a transgressive, multifaceted, critical, open, fun, cosmopolitan and friendly personality.” A map at the exhibition marks 272 locations featured in his films, showcasing Almodovar’s preference for working-class areas like Vallecas and everyday spots such as hospitals, taxis, bars and cemeteries over famous landmarks.
One iconic scene was shot outside the Conde Duque building, the current exhibition site, where in the 1987 film Law of Desire, a city street cleaner hoses down Carmen Maura’s character on a hot Madrid night at her request.
Known for his vivid color palettes, Almodovar has said this is “a way of taking revenge” on the Franco dictatorship’s grey years. He even recreated his Madrid apartment for the 2019 film Pain and Glory, a semi-autobiographical story about an aging film director, complete with some of his own furniture.
Upon visiting the exhibition before its public opening on June 12, Almodovar remarked, “This is my life.” The 74-year-old director won an Oscar for his screenplay for the 2002 film Talk to Her, about two men who form an unlikely bond while their girlfriends are in a coma. He also received the best foreign language Oscar for the 1999 film All About My Mother, which tells the story of a woman coping with the sudden death of her teenage son.
The exhibition concludes with a video of Almodovar’s speech from 2018, when Madrid city hall declared him an “adoptive son” of the city. Reflecting on his journey, Almodovar said, “I came mainly to get away from the village, to urbanize a bit and then to go and live in Paris or London, but without realizing it, I stayed. Now I can say that both me and my characters will continue to live here.”
With AFP
