Pedro Almodóvar Returns to the Cannes Film Festival, Where He Debuted Autofiction, which, as its French title indicates, resumes the exploration of his own life that the Spanish director had opened with Douleur et Gloire. A bold and powerful film, opening in cinemas this Wednesday, May 20.
How far should one go to write fiction? How far to draw inspiration from reality without betraying those close to you? Continuing the autobiographical vein begun with the moving Douleur et Gloire, Pedro Almodóvar once again stages a director in decline in Autofiction, which the Cannes regular presented this week in the official selection, just before its cinema release on this Wednesday, May 20.
Raúl, the cinematic double of the Spanish director, is a filmmaker short of inspiration who feeds, like a vampire, on the dramas endured by his loved ones in order to write. He then projects himself into the mind of a fictional alter ego, Elsa, herself a director in the midst of a creative crisis and who, like him, recycles the traumas of her entourage to fuel her scripts. It is on this headstrong mechanism of nested narratives that this tale is built, titled in its original version after the memories of a bitter Christmas that haunt the female character: Amarga Navidad.
Si Douleur et Gloire, qui avait bouleversé les festivaliers de la Croisette en 2019, tenait de l’autoportrait à cœur ouvert, Autofiction relève plutôt de l’introspection cérébrale, un rien théorique mais incontestablement séduisante. À 76 ans, loin des discours parfois cyniques de vieux maîtres revenus de tout, le cinéaste espagnol y affirme avec force qu’il ne serait rien sans les autres, et que le cinéma ne serait rien sans la vie. Diablement réussi, le film démontre une fois de plus le talent incomparable de Pedro Almodóvar pour l’honnêteté brute. Une palme pour Autofiction ?
