Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Pain and Glory Blu-ray Movie Review

8½ 2

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 31, 2020

Federico Fellini’s 8½ is regularly cited as one of the best films of Fellini’s long and venerable career, and indeed as one of the best films — period. In a wending, dreamlike presentation, Fellini offers the tale of a film director named Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) with health problems and a creative block who frequently retreats into reveries about his childhood as a kind of therapy, though some of those memories are painful, including some subtext (and actual text) referring to the supposedly stifling environment of being raised in an overpoweringly Catholic nation. It’s certainly no coincidence that Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory apes many of these same foundational elements, and the connection is made perhaps even more overt due to the fact that the film director with health problems, a creative block and a penchant for dreaming about his childhood in this outing, Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas, Academy Award nominated for this performance), has a former lover actually named Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia) who plays into the plot proceedings. Pain and Glory may ultimately not have Fellini’s almost magical ability to virtually hypnotize his audience to coax them into Guido’s at least occasionally trance like existence, but this is certainly one of Almodóvar’s more potent recent films.

The film includes some scenes of a young Salvador (Asier Flores) and his mother Jacinta (Penélope Cruz) more or less camping out in a train station in an isolated Spanish town called Paterna, since they have arrived during a local celebration and everything is closed. Jacinta is obviously stressed about this and evidently other things, and there are some passing comments about Jacinta’s husband and Salvador’s father, Venancio (Raúl Arévalo). There’s a bit of a, well, Fellini-esque reveal at the very end of the film during the last train sequence that won’t be spoiled here, other than to say it indicates that whatever creative blocks the bulk of the film depicts Salvador as experiencing have evidently been overcome.

The adult Salvador is both a physical and mental wreck as the film begins to unfold, though, getting by without any creative projects on the horizon, but he at least has the glimmer of some excitement due to the fact that one of his most celebrated films from decades past, Sabor (Flavor in English), has been remastered by a cinetheque and is about to be screened for the public. The folks behind the screening have asked Salvador to participate in a Q & A after the showing, but they have also requested that Salvador appear with the film’s star, Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia), a hoped for reunion that has some inherent hurdles due to the fact that Salvador and Alberto famously fought during the production and haven’t spoken to each other since the film wrapped. The reasons behind this discord are only fitfully doled out as Pain and Glory unfolds, and some may feel a more blatant recounting of the supposed subtext could have benefitted the film.

Another way in which Pain and Glory arguably departs from what might be thought of as the magical realism in Fellini’s film is Pain and Glory's reliance on a more pedestrian combination of frankly unbelievable coincidences which propel the plot forward at a couple of points. The first of these revolves around how Federico reconnects with Salvador and another perhaps even less believable one occurs later when Salvador finds a piece of art with a connection to a young man named Eduardo (César Vicente), a teen Salvador had known during Salvador’s childhood, and whom Salvador tutored in reading and writing (despite being younger than Eduardo). The impressionable young Salvador fosters certain nascent sexual fantasies about Eduardo as well (there’s a recurrent subtext of Salvador being gay, and one potentially offensive epithet is used in that regard in the English subtitles accompanying this Spanish language release).

All of that said, though, Pain and Glory shares a certain sweetness with 8½ with regard to the childhood flashbacks, and there is what struck me as one example of a more intentionally Fellini-esque dabbling with magical realism in an early scene documenting a young Salvador by a riverside where a bunch of Spanish women, including Salvador's mother, are washing clothes, in a sequence which really could have come straight out of some alternate universe version of 8½. There's a really beautifully warm set of relationships depicted in these childhood sequences, even if daily traumas sometime intrude, and even despite the fact that in one "current" time sequence, and elderly Jacinta (Julietta Serrano) doesn't exactly think back on the times in general, or even Salvador in particular, with much fondness.

The film also benefits all around from fine performances, with some especially sweet and appealing work from young Flores as Salvador in his childhood, and Almodóvar keeps things well paced throughout, though, as mentioned above, I personally would have preferred a bit more early and better defined detail on the spat informing the relationship between Salvador and Alberto (it struck me as especially notable that it's Alberto who uses that aforementioned epithet for being gay, in an aside that seems to suggest all sorts of things but which is never really developed). There is some potentially disturbing content here revolving around drug use in general, and heroin in particular, and this is another element that I felt frankly could have used a bit better explication, especially with regard to Salvador's history (or non-history, as the case may be) with substance abuse.

Pain and Glory Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pain and Glory is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's Sony Pictures Classics imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb lists Arri cameras and a 4K DI, and aside from one kind of surprising but brief moment of banding during the Sony masthead at disc boot up, I noticed no issues whatsoever to an often stunning visual presentation. The film has an intentionally dreamlike ambience in several of the flashback scenes, with detail levels consistently excellent despite a kind of hazy, dewy ambience in some moments. Fine detail is superb throughout the presentation in both timeframes, and you can virtually count the hairs on the adult Salvador's beard stubble in some scenes. There are a couple of curious stylistic conceits, including a frankly bizarre animated sequence early on documenting Salvador's health issues (see screenshots 3 and 16). The palette is beautifully warm and nicely suffused throughout this really appealing looking transfer.

Pain and Glory Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Pain and Glory doesn't offer a lot of opportunity for "wow" sonic effects, but the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (in the original Spanish) provides really good placement of ambient environmental effects in both exterior and interior settings, along with more than capable support for the dialogue and occasional musical moments. There is some nice attention paid to differing ambient reverb in various locales, including some nice spaciousness in the kind of weird cavelike home the child Salvador lives in for part of the film. I noticed no issues whatsoever with regard to distortion, dropouts or other damage.

Pain and Glory Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Q & A with Director Pedro Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas (1080p; 33:10) is moderated by Scott Mantz and thankfully has a better outcome than the supposed Q & A documented in the film. In English, though with optional English subtitles for anyone who needs help.


• Pedro Almodóvar: In His Own Words (1080p; 25:45) is a nice career spanning reminiscence, with Almodóvar talking about some of the student protest movements that informed his early works and how his own memories played into this film. In Spanish with English subtitles.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:28)

Pain and Glory Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Anyone who is a fan of 8½ will most likely instantly see the pretty unmistakable connections between this film and that legendary Fellini opus, and if Pain and Glory can't quite compete (understandably, it should be added), it is a rather sweet and heartfelt film from Almodóvar and should almost certainly engage existing Almodóvar fans, while potentially wooing a few new ones. Performances are excellent throughout, and the technical merits and supplements on this release are first rate. Highly recommended.