pain and glory
(Dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
Pedro Almodóvar has always taken advantage of his work to capture his identity and to partially reflect on some of his most emblematic characters. He never did it in such an extreme and honest way until the release of Pain and Glory, about a maturing filmmaker struggling to find himself in the face of his personal crisis. Mishaps that force him to search within himself and that force him to recall his past to remember the most tender maternal love and the flowering of his sexuality, to later contrast it with his present, maternal old age and the reunion with an old love . Demons that eat away at him and that can only be exorcised from the screen with one of the most brilliant metanarratives in our memory.
Rome
(Dir. Alfonso Cuarón)
It should surprise no one that what many consider Alfonso Cuarón’s masterpiece is also his most intimate film. More curious is that for this, the filmmaker showed himself as a character that goes from the secondary to the tertiary, to better devote all his attention to the figure of Cleo. She is a nanny who was decisive in the development of the filmmaker, because beyond a woman hired for the service, she was another member of the family. It is not a banal expression, because the director really introduces us to a person who was always there when he was needed, even when this meant neglecting his own problems. The immersion in the filmmaker’s closest circle does not stop here, but offers a sincere and sometimes painful portrait of the Mexico of the time, thus demonstrating how little we have changed in so many aspects of our existence as a country.
The Fabelmans
(Dir. Steven Spielberg)
What is it that leads any child to become a movie genius? But above all, an eternal fan of the seventh art? Steven Spielberg answers this beautiful question with The Fabelmans, which leads us to the heart of his childhood and youth to explore the roots of a love that has wandered through joys and sorrows, and has overcome all kinds of obstacles, many of which seemed insurmountable, to give an imperishable union. It is not a small thing, because along the way he also left one of the best filmmakers in all of history. After all, who has not enjoyed his work? Perhaps the director’s most honest film and incidentally, one that has everything to further strengthen his path to immortality. Spoiler alert: pay close attention to the portrayal of their parents. You’ll never look at Close Encounters of the Third Kind the same way again.