Two great masters, intimate cinema and a snowy first film: great cinema is also making a comeback.
“The Room Next Door” by Pedro Almodovar (3/5)
With Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton…
The synopsis
Ingrid and Martha, long-time friends, began their careers at the same magazine. When Ingrid becomes a successful novelist and Martha a war reporter, their paths diverge. But years later, their paths cross again in disturbing circumstances…
The criticism
Pedro Almodovar is perhaps the greatest working European filmmaker. Great in talent of course, but also in the way he knew how to renew his cinema and not lock himself into a specific genre. For his first English-language film, he explores the territory of Douglas Sirk, while maintaining his lucid look at human relationships, more complex than a simple newfound friendship.
It’s beautiful, sophisticated, perfectly carried out on a narrative level – the first part is a model of the genre, always giving the viewer, without forcing the point, just through a short dialogue or a look the information which allows them to understand what ‘Ingrid experiences contact with Martha. Of course, Pedro Almodovar has already done more embodied, as if he refused to let go of the reins of emotion on a subject as difficult as assisted suicide. If the door has been left ajar for a long time, tears flow behind closed doors.
Also read Pedro Almodóvar: “I don’t understand why…
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