PEDRO ALMODÓVAR HEADS TO THE WILD WEST
THE SPANISH FILMMAKER RIDES INTO NEW TERRAIN WITH HIS STARRY SHORT FILM STRANGE WAY OF LIFE
THE WESTERN — STARK, dusty, often emotionally constipated — doesn’t seem an obvious match for Pedro Almodóvar, one of cinema’s most colourful, passionate directors. Which is exactly what makes Strange Way Of Life so interesting. The English-language short sees two ex-lovers, gunslinger Silva (Pedro Pascal) and sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke), reunite after 25 years. Silva wants to make a life together, but Jake insists it’s impossible. In 31 minutes, it plays with all the genre’s typical themes — violence, isolation, revenge — from a queer perspective.
“From the beginning, the idea revolved around this conversation where [two men] reveal opposing desires,” says Almodóvar. “It was important to me that it be a Western because it’s kind of a taboo topic in the genre… You have this very masculine genre where male desire has never really been explored.”
Almodóvar is not coming to the genre as a curious tourist. He’s been a fan since he was a boy — “I saw Red River, The Searchers; I was hooked” — and has twice toyed with making his own. He once tried to adapt Tom Spanbauer’s The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon, about a bisexual Native American, and turned down an offer to direct Brokeback Mountain, worried he wouldn’t be free to make the carnal version he imagined. He loved Ang Lee’s take but says, “He pushed it as far as Hollywood would allow. In my vision, there was a kind of animality.”
Without spoiling Strange Way Of Life, it is in a way Almodóvar’s literal answer to Brokeback Mountain. “There’s a moment [in Brokeback] when Jake Gyllenhaal’s character asks Heath Ledger if they could live on a ranch together. Ledger answers, ‘But what could two men do?’ In my movie, there is the answer to that question.”
In the end, Strange isn’t so out of step with the rest of Almodóvar’s films. It’s a little more visually muted and light on female characters, but his Western is playing with all his favourite themes: secrets, familial tension, unfulfilled desire. Almodóvar counts himself as one of many directors — Kelly Reichardt, Jane Campion — discovering this genre can be anyone’s playground. As he says, “I think the Western is still a land to be discovered.”
STRANGE WAY OF LIFE IS IN CINEMAS FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY ON 25 SEPTEMBER