Unusually for me I have not been thinking a lot about PedroAlmodovar lately….Yesterday I played Dark Habits (1983) again. I have to say that I’ve seen the master piece more than 5 times but probably I haven’t played it since I am in the US, ( 6 years ago). It was a trip to see the reality of a dead and unrecorded period, the beginning of the 80th. I say unrecorded because even when we have more documentation of the 80th than we do from the past decades before the 80th seems to me this period where art got initially corrupted by marketing in all its aspects. Music, Fine Art, Cinema….after Duchamp and Before the 80th everything was an experiment, after the 80th as we know everything is a business. And it feels like he struggle of the politic situation and the lack of cultural approach in the first years of this magic decade in Spain was ( as it usually is) the perfect ingredients for the most powerful stimulation of creativity based on critics of a society that was about to get economically improved and culturally screwed.
Even when Pedro Drama feels heavier than a Richard Serra piece, one has a hard time to make the difference between good and bad. So it is from the representation on his characters to the way of filming. Nothing is left to accidental encounters even when it all feels part of a great accident. Not bad from a guy born in Calzada de Calatraba.
After thinkning of that aspects of Pedro’s films I think of the work of Maurizio Cattelan who being an 11 years younger artist, was also born in a society washed by the influences of Christianity. He as well has dedicated his career to create art that is satirical and controversial under similar questions on the good and the bad that we can see in Pedro’s work. Don’t miss the interview (click here) to Maurizio by MICHELE ROBECCHIfor Interview Magazine. By the way the “original” Photo is from Mr Sorrenti…
