Strange Way of Life

This week we’ll be screening double-feature presentations of Pedro Almodóvar latest short film, STRANGE WAY OF LIFE starring Pedro Pascal & Ethan Hawke and his 2020 short film THE HUMAN VOICE starring Tilda Swinton. Following the shorts, there will be a recorded conversation with the director.

STRANGE WAY OF LIFE (2023)

Almodóvar has spent his career creating gorgeous works of cinematic pastiche without sacrificing the essential human core. In his dazzling new short, he has created something unexpected, a hyper-male Western melodrama of vivid colors and explosive homoeroticism starring Ethan Hawke as a small-town sheriff who, after 25 years, rekindles a sexual relationship with a former lover, played by Pedro Pascal, when the latter’s son is suspected of a local killing. Gorgeously shot and scored by Almodóvar’s standbys José Luis Alcaine and Alberto Iglesias, STRANGE WAY OF LIFE captures the rarely dramatized intensity of middle-aged romance.

THE HUMAN VOICE (2020)

Tilda Swinton swallows up the screen as a woman traumatized by the end of a relationship in Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language film. In 30 mesmerizing minutes, Swinton’s nameless character runs through a frightening gamut of emotions, from despair to fury to exhilaration, all while isolated in a luxurious apartment that’s also a stage set; her only companions are her ex-partner’s dog, Dash, and the betrayer’s unheard presence on the other end of her phone. Almodóvar used many of his frequent collaborators, including cinematographer José Luis Alcaine and composer Alberto Iglesias, for this impeccably designed yet combustible adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play THE HUMAN VOICE.