The Human Voice

An elegant jeu d’ésprit from Almódovar, with a bleak hint that moving on from the present malaise will mean some kind of wholesale destruction.

Peter Bradshaw

Archive - Festival 37
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain 2021
30 minutes
English, Spanish
Subtitles in Hebrew

Pedro Almodovar’s short film is a charming small jewel in bold colors, adapted from Jean Cocteau’s play of the same name, with a wonderful performance from Tilda Swinton. A short, sharp shot of distilled Almodóvar: passion, emotion, heartbreak, wit, and melodrama exquisitely bound up in a tale for our times.

A woman watches time passing next to the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up, but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn’t understand that his master has left him. Two living beings facing abandonment.

Broken Embraces (2009), Bad Education (2004), Talk to Her (2002), All About My Mother (1999), High Heels (1992), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988).

L'amore (1948) by Roberto Rossellini, based on the same play by Jean Cocteau, is screened in the Festival’s program alongside Law of Desire, an early Almodóvar film that refers to the play as well.