Extraña forma de vida & La voix humaine
Pedro Almodóvar, France, Spain, 2023o
Double programme with two half-hour films by Pedro Almodóvar: La voix humaine is a new film version of the monologue Cocteau play from 1930, in which Tilda Swinton talks on the phone in her flat with the man who left her three days ago. In the process, she goes through all the stages of despair and revolt. Strange Way of Living is a western farce about two former outlaws and lovers who face each other again years later as sheriff and father of a new Bay Guy. The gay showdown has a surprising ending.
Pay attention: This is not a new opus magnum by Pedro Almodóvar, as one has been hoping for again for some time, but a double program with two recent half-hours: La voix humaine (2020) is a new adaptation of Jean Cocteau's play of the same name, in which Tilda Swinton talks on the phone in her fashionable apartment with the man who left her three days ago. In the process, the heroine goes through all the stages of despair and rebellion in factual monologue, perhaps even just fantasizing. Strange Way of Living (2023) is a Western farce about two onetime outlaws and lovers who face each other again years later as sheriff and father of a new pariah. The gay showdown comes to a surprising end. If the first film offers Almodóvar in pure culture - melodramatic, artful and emphatically artificial - the second is a mere curiosity. In short: for die-hard Almodóvar fans a must, for all others a nice and a rather dubious footnote to the oeuvre.
Andreas FurlerGalleryo
