The Passion of Pedro Almodvar

The films of Pedro Almodvar teem with characters who at once are and are not alter egos of the director. In film after film, the Spanish auteur mines his past for alternative selves, telling and retelling formative stories from his own life, plumbing the depths of his memory while exploring other lives he might have led. What can Almodvars work tell us about the quest for self-knowledgefor understanding who we are and who we might yet become? James Miller considers seven of Almodvars most personal films, arguing that together they offer a revealing self-portrait of the director and his search for meaning. Beginning with Volver, Miller traces Almodvars signature obsessions backward and forward through the directors filmography. Deeply shaped by the counterculture of the 1960swhich arrived belatedly in Francos SpainAlmodvar has long been fascinated by the exhilarating power and devastating limitations of artistic and sexual transgression. In rich readings, Miller shows how Almodvar tests the blurry line between fiction and reality, the bounds of individual freedom, and the durability of a sense of self. In so doing, the director turns cinema into a form of philosophical investigation and self-exploration. A keenly observed, masterfully written portrait of one of world cinemas greatest creative forces, The Passion of Pedro Almodvar finds in film new ways to tell the story of a life.