Pedro Almodóvar’s new film, worn by Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke, is finally out in theaters! But surprise, if you let yourself be tempted by this sensual western, you can see another film by the Spanish director.
What is it about ?
Silva crosses the desert on horseback to find Jake, whom he knew twenty-five years earlier when they were both hitmen. Silva wants to reconnect with his childhood friend, now sheriff, but this reunion is not his only motivation…
Where and how to see Pedro Almodóvar’s new film?
Strange Way of Life is the new short film by Pedro Almodóvar, a world-renowned Spanish director, to whom we owe Parle avec elle, Bad Education, La Piel que habito and Madres Paralelas.
But surprise, his new film will be released in cinemas together with his previous short film La Voix Humaine, inspired by the play by Jean Cocteau and carried by Tilda Swinton. This short film, which was his first film in the English language, was released directly on VOD and DVD in 2020.
This double theatrical release has been baptized “The Almodóvar Experience”, and it allows spectators to attend a session of approximately 1 hour (the two short films lasting half an hour each), instead of only 30 minutes for a short film.
You can now find the list of cinemas near you offering “The Almodóvar Experience” on the showings tab of the Strange Way of Life film sheet or the “The Almodóvar Experience” sheet, because the large Most of the 245 theaters screening Strange Way of Life plan to screen the two shorts together as part of “The Almodóvar Experience”.
But some cinemas are betting on only offering the screening of the latest Strange Way of Life short film, such as cinemas on the Kinepolis circuit (those in Belfort, Lomme, Nancy, Mulhouse, Nîmes, Rouen and Thionville) and other cinemas such as the Cinos in Berck sur mer, the Caméo Saint-Sébastien in Nancy and the Star in Strasbourg.
Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as terrible lovers of the Wild West
For Strange Way of Life (Extraña forma de vida, in the original version), presented in preview at the Cannes Film Festival, Pedro Almodóvar called on two Hollywood stars for his second English-language film.
El Deseo DASLU / Iglesias Mas
It brings together Pedro Pascal, the popular actor that everyone is tearing up and who we saw in Game of Thrones, Narcos, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Mandalorian and The Last of Us, and Ethan Hawke (Dead Poets Society, Before Sunrise Trilogy, Welcome to Gattaca, Sinister), for a very special short-lived project.
Indeed, the winner of the Directing Prize for Tout sur ma mère in 1999 and the Screenplay Prize in 2006 for Volver, but also President of the Jury in 2017, has returned to the short format for this fiction which he sees as “An Answer to Brokeback Mountain’s Secret” and to the question “What would two men do out West, working on a ranch?”Strange Way of Life recounts the reunion “and more so affinities” of two childhood friends, Silva and Jake, who were contract killers.
The screening in Cannes was followed by long applause and a question-and-answer session led by journalist Guillemette Odicino. The Spanish filmmaker explained his intentions with this short film:
“This western is abstract, the opposite of a vintage western. But I didn’t want to make a spaghetti western either. I isolate the two characters in a very particular situation. It seems that they meet to love each other when in reality they have hidden agendas. I wanted to do a western my way.”
With all the warmth, color and humor for which he is known, Pedro Almodóvar breathes new life into the western genre with his melodramatic vision of a queer romance. And it works! Very rhythmic, impeccably performed and as funny as it is moving, Strange Way of Life sounds like a chronicle of the life of two lost souls in a Wild West that does everything to oppose them but also to fatally attract them to each other.
El Deseo DASLU / Iglesias Mas
Inspired by new attempts at westerns like Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog which he quoted, Pedro Almodóvar took some interesting paths in his directing and directing actors, as he explained: “I decided not to show their naked bodies but rather that we hear their voices bare. What they say has a lot more impact on their sexuality and tells it more than sex scenes that I could have shot.”
Ode to desire, this short film does not play the easy card with overly explicit sexual scenes and prefers suggestion (which leaves room for the imagination) and restraint (frustrating but delicious), even if Pedro Pascal radiates sensuality with a slightly mischievous air.
Instead of more graphic scenes, we witness suggestive and contemplative shots but also heartfelt dialogues on this tortured but very tender love relationship, going as far as showing his characters making the bed again after a long night of sleep. ‘love. But one thing is certain: we would have liked to have had a longer version!
The movie Strange Way of Life is currently in theaters.