The Wild West called and Pedro Almodóvar answered
A.O. Scott wrote in 2009, Almodóvar’s work often “leaves the viewer in a contradictory state, a mixture of devastation and euphoria, amusement and dismay that deserves its own clinical designation.
Call it Almodóvaria, a syndrome from which some of us are more than happy to suffer.”“I remember it feeling like going to a new amusement park,” Pedro Pascal told the New York Times of seeing Almodóvar’s 1988 film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown for the first time. “An entire world of color and play and a kind of naughty rebelión was introduced to my experience.”Put another way, there is an undeniably queer sensibility to the iconic Spanish director’s films.
If John Waters is the Pope of Trash, Almodóvar is the Cardinal of Camp.For anyone who’s seen Almodóvar’s Law of Desire (1987) or Tie Me Up!
Tie Me Down! (1989) or The Skin I Live In (2011), it’s hard to imagine Brokeback Mountain in a similar visual palette or emotional key.
