Pedro Almodóvar returns with a new film that reflects on the connections between creation and reality, as well as with life itself. For Almodóvar it’s also about how a film can rebel against itself. Almodóvar, whose last film The Room Next Door was met with praise, does not appear like he is going to be slowing down any time soon.
Bitter Christmas tells two alternating stories, one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during a long weekend in December. The second takes place in 2026 and stars Raúl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a script that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia. Mixed with fiction, Elsa is, in a way, Raúl’s alter ego, who, like him, resorts to autofiction as a solution to a long period of creative drought. He looks inside himself, and he can’t help but also look at the people who make up his most intimate universe: his partner and his assistant.
The film narrates the close relationship between reality and fiction, between inspiration and life, exploring the limits of autofiction and stories within stories. The stories within the film mirror each other, often at times resembling something akin to a musical. Said Almodóvar, “Inspiration is always mysterious, obscure, and sudden. Fortunately, when it appears, it is unmistakable, and all the creator has to do is let himself be carried away by it. And once whatever it is has been developed (a script, a novel), return to it again and again and rewrite it. The pleasure and what defines writing is rewriting.
Watch the teaser for Bitter Christmas below
Bitter Christmas is coming soon to US theaters, with no release date set yet.
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