As early as 1987’s LAW OF DESIRE, Pedro Almodóvar has enjoyed making films focusing on the romantic, creative, sexual and spiritual lives of artists, quite often film directors. Not exclusively, of course, but it’s safe to say that the Spanish auteur feels comfortable in the realm of autofiction.
BITTER CHRISTMAS – his most recent film and a satisfying return to his established style following his last two genre-bending English-language projects – is telling two stories in tandem. One follows a woman called Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) whose increasingly worrisome panic attacks have led her to look back on her unfulfilling career in the film industry (the first act is almost entirely devoted to this storyline). But it’s in the character Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) that Almodóvar incorporates further levels of complexity to this late self-portrait. These simultaneous narratives operate at their best when the film gets past the fact that one is a story within a story, and instead treats the two threads as a continuing conversation about the personal ethics of screenwriting.
Out of Almodóvar’s most recent works, BITTER CHRISTMAS is not as structurally pleasing as PARALLEL MOTHERS; nor is it as revealing as his previous films about directors such as PAIN & GLORY (though it attempts to be the most directly self-critical); and it’s not as warm and commercial in tone as THE ROOM NEXT DOOR. Because of this, BITTER CHRISTMAS risks being dismissed as a minor work by a great director (the characters even use this very phrase to describe Raúl’s script in progress). But we should accept that this is a subtler expression of an ageing artist’s internal life, even though it doesn’t fit into the overly ambitious and bombastic passion-projects cinephiles have come to enjoy and respect from our auteurs.
“BITTER CHRISTMAS risks being dismissed as a minor work by a great director [but] we should accept that this is a subtler expression of an ageing artist’s internal life…”
That’s not to suggest that the movie maintains a steady tone or could be considered in any way conventional; to its credit, BITTER CHRISTMAS still offers up enough of the filmmaker’s melodramatic idiosyncrasies and non-linear formal interests. For instance, we get to enjoy extended musical performances – used to both punctuate the narrative and offer the characters a brief moment of emotional release between confrontations – as well as confessional dialogue, intricate storytelling and generally bold aesthetics.
In visual terms, it’s always a pleasure to immerse oneself in the filmmaker’s gorgeous set design and vibrant colour-palettes. One could criticise that, since the transition to digital, his cinematographic approach has been somewhat flattened, but the fact is that his virtuosic use of colour theory and instinctive compositional ability means that BITTER CHRISTMAS looks and sounds better than the vast majority of contemporary releases.
“In visual terms, it’s always a pleasure to immerse oneself in the [Almodóvar]’s gorgeous set design and vibrant colour-palettes.”
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the film is the fact that – despite the narrative being built around self-reflexive explorations of how artists borrow, steal and occasionally exploit the people in their immediate surroundings – the story doesn’t go far enough in demonstrating the personal destruction ultimately caused by the creative process. The only unfortunate compromise that has come with Almodóvar’s maturity of tone is the slight lack of punch and acidity that a character like Raúl is written with. You can argue all you want that this character is not always pleasant, but it might benefit the work, dramatically speaking, were his artistic obsessions to more explicitly disrupt the lives of his loved ones.
What still makes Pedro Almodóvar a great filmmaker is his mastery of tone. Audiences unfamiliar with his specific style will always risk feeling alienated by the seemingly jarring use of bombastic orchestral music and soap-opera performance-styles. But he continues to weaponise these characteristics in the building of his own stylised worlds. And it’s here that, having become so attuned to this exercise, he takes the occasional step back and allows small, behavioural moments to speak for themselves.
“…PAIN & GLORY effectively announced a new wave of delicate reflection for the previously confrontational writer-director. BITTER CHRISTMAS is a most welcome addition to this wave.”
With his last few releases, Almodóvar has entered a quieter mode. For being an infamous provocateur, the last time he made a movie with shock-value was THE SKIN I LIVE IN from 2011, and almost ten years before that, his deeply disturbing TALK TO HER is a film which could not feel more tonally distinct from his most recent effort. We can conclude that his similarly autobiographical PAIN & GLORY effectively announced a new wave of delicate reflection for the previously confrontational writer-director. BITTER CHRISTMAS is a most welcome addition to this wave.
It’s deeply touching that, by using subtler messaging as described, Almodóvar can explore topics like panic attacks with what feels like a more tender sense than previously seen in his work. Additionally, in a film wherein what we’re viewing is the self-confessed, ever-evolving subconscious workings of an artist’s dangerous ego, there’s always going to be a lot to consider from the viewer’s perspective. With plenty of insight into the turbulent life of a beloved creative, this makes the experience of watching BITTER CHRISTMAS absolutely worthwhile.