The rich and satisfying tropes often found in Pedro Almodóvar's films — passion, betrayal, lust, and... Penélope Cruz, lots of Penélope Cruz — are on display in his latest, Broken Embraces. Told in flashbacks, the film is about a Spanish director who loses his sight, and his lover, in a car accident. The festival favorite, whose 2006 entry Volver won Best Screenplay and Best Actress, joined Cruz this morning to talk it over -- and confess his more adventurous approaches to directing women -- with the press.
Almodóvar received a far gentler treatment from the media than Lars von Trier, though the same British-tabloid knucklehead who yesterday seethed over Antichrist began the presser with yet another greeting: "How fantastic to see a provocative film, and provocation here meant in a good way as opposed to some of the other things I've seen here." Then he went on the kiss up to Cruz, who was recovering from the flu (not H1N1). "The regular flu," she said.
Thankfully Almodóvar got down to business, brushing off the celebrity reporter's piffle, and spoke about his directing method. "With some actors, I provide full information before shooting the film," he explained. "I fill them in on how I view the character, how I see the part. Other times, I provide nothing because I want them to play the scene instinctively. If necessary I play all the parts on the set. In one of the films I shot some time ago, I even performed cunnilingus on an actress to show the actor how he was supposed to play the part."
As if in a scene straight out of an Almodóvar film, his cell phone rang midway through his comments. After retrieving it from his pocket, he said, "It's my sister. I hope it's not an emergency because I won't be able to answer."
While dealing with tragedy, Broken Embraces also boasts some of the filmmaker's trademark humor. The film surrounds the production of Girls and Suitcases, by the auteur Harry Caine -- both titles most perfect for an Almodóvar film. "It's true that was more fun to go back to a time when there was more humor in my films," he said. "I felt at ease in this free adaptation of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I also felt extremely inspired, and this allowed me to make lots of scenes which will appear on the bonus DVD, about 15 minutes of this film-within-a-film."
And despite her long relationship with Almodóvar over three previous collaborations, Cruz still had some trepidation on the set. "The comedy wasn't easy," she said. "It was more difficult and it is much more tricky, much more precise. I felt stressed out about this. I had to go from one character to another."
Again, Broken Embraces is all about women. "It's true in my films there are more female characters than male characters," Almodóvar explained. "Above all, the female characters are much stronger, tougher, solid, robust. They can fight. They're inexpendable, whereas the male characters are much weaker and more hermetic, they're darker. My family life was completely governed by women. Up to the age of about 8, I lived entirely surrounded by women, and by strong women. The post-war women, I don't know how they got by. Despite the situation they managed to feed us every day; they managed to find something to allow us to survive. Spain was marked by this generation of woman. A generation that I admire enormously, personally." Though he did admit, "You will find more and more male characters in my [upcoming] films."
Since Broken Embraces is a film-within-a-film, Almodóvar can't help but making grand pronouncements on cinema. "I wanted to add the last scene, the last sentence, Films always have to be finished even if done blindly, because I fully believe the cinema can be made more perfect," he said. "In the cinema everything works out. Directors must get through it to the end. For me a film has to be fully respected."
Judging by the positive press reaction to the screening, his film has received just that.
[Photos: top, WireImage; film still, Cannes Film Festival]