Dazzling, daring, innovative, and controversial, Pedro Almodóvar's films must be credited with having attracted the world's eyes to the cinema of Spain and keeping them firmly there. Paul Julian Smith, one of Britain's leading experts on Spanish audiovisual culture, calls Almodóvar ‘el autor más artísticamente ambicioso y consistentemente comercial del cine europeo' (the most artistically ambitious and consistently commercially viable auteur in European cinema) and no publication on World Cinema worth its salt fails to give pride of place to Almodóvar, among the most influential and original world auteurs.
Spanish cinema scholars admit, with greater or lesser reluctance, that the history of Spanish cinema can be divided into two parts: cinema before and cinema after Pedro Almodóvar due to the influence he has exerted on the film industry and future generations of viewers and professionals. It is perhaps easier and less conflictive for those of us who work and live abroad, to be categorical about these affirmations since some of the prejudices invoked against the director within Spain are dissipated and lose momentum outside the national context.
What is it about the films of Pedro Almodóvar that has made them the recipient of such high praise and him to be placed among the World's most revered auteurs? Answering this question would take several volumes since there are so many elements that contribute to the interest he and his work inspires, but it is undoubtedly the case that the key element to understand his success is how his films erupted into the public domain.
Against the background of the solemnities of the auteurs of the generation against Franco who felt the responsibility of representation and bore the burden of using cinema as an instrument to fight the dictatorship by educating Spain about its past, Almodóvar ‘s films were a breath of fresh air: the present, comedy and other genres in a colourful collage, youth and popular culture in themes and characters, innovative images of sexuality and gender, a challenge to the heteronormative world so dominant in Spanish cinema of the time and, all these ingredients, immersed in dynamic, kinetic films, that at first, eschewed formal perfection for the drive to tell engaging stories. In other words: a Spain that some suspected existed but which few had any knowledge of.
His films have become with time more introspective, less celebratory and richer aesthetically and in their subject matter. They continue calling the world's attention to the acting talent and powerful stage presence of actors who were poised to transcend the national star system: Victoria Abril, Antonio Banderas, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, and Marisa Paredes to name a few. They were launching pads for other film industry professionals such as composer Alberto Iglesias.
Finally, it is crucial to highlight his role as a producer at El Deseo. El Deseo has been a key company in renewing the cinema of Spain by enabling a new generation to access the industry. The team of Pedro, his brother Agustín and long-standing collaborator, Esther García, have brought forth the careers of Álex de la Iglesia with the mould-breaking Acción mutante/ Mutant Action, Isabel Coixet (for instance, Mi vida sin mí/My life without me), and crucial co-productions with Latin American directors such as Guillermo del Toro (El espinazo del Diablo/ The Devil's Backbone) and Lucrecia Martel (La niña santa/ The Holy Girl).
As years go by, Almodóvar's films have made it very easy to convince audiences that Spanish cinema is worth a look. I personally keep in a special place the memory of watching Entre tinieblas/Dark Habits when it was first released in the early 1980s. As I walked out of the cinema, I felt that Spain was, at last, no longer that country tied to a dark past and condemned to live out of time: the future had arrived.