The impact of Pedro Almodóvar in my life

I remember when I first started following the Oscar season and saw a Spanish name nominated for Best Director: Pedro Almodóvar for Talk to Her. I was curious about him. I was too young to watch the film, but I never forgot his name. I read that he was from Spain and that his films were admired not only in Europe but also in Hollywood.

Then came Bad Education, which created a huge sensation when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. Once again, I was too young to watch it because of the age restriction, but Almodóvar's name kept appearing wherever people were talking about cinema.

Everything changed in 2006, when I convinced my father to take me to watch Volver. I still remember seeing the poster outside the cinema and immediately falling in love with its artwork, with Penélope Cruz's face filling the image. By then I had already developed the habit of watching the Oscar nominees every year, and hearing Penélope Cruz nominated for Best Actress made me even more excited to finally experience one of Almodóvar's films.

Looking back, I was probably still too young to fully understand Volver. Many of its themes escaped me, but some films stay with you before you even understand why. I remember the colours, the folklore, the clothes, the music and, above all, the feeling of hearing a story told in my own language. Some scenes stayed in my mind long after I left the cinema, even if I could not yet explain what made them so powerful.

From that moment, I started following Pedro Almodóvar's career. I searched for his earlier films and, as I grew older and became capable of processing cinema differently, I revisited the films I had watched as a teenager while discovering the classics I had missed.

Looking back now, I think what made me continue returning to his films was not only the stories themselves, but the world he creates.

There is something in Almodóvar's cinema that I have never found in another director. His production design and his use of colour immediately immerse you in his universe. Every apartment, every piece of furniture, every costume and every wall seems carefully chosen. The colours can be exaggerated, almost theatrical, but they never feel excessive. Instead, they become another character in the story and create a version of Spain that feels vibrant, emotional and unmistakably his.

Even today, I feel I can recognise an Almodóvar frame after only a few seconds. The strong reds, the carefully decorated interiors and the everyday spaces transformed into cinematic ones have become part of his signature. His films remind me that visual style can tell a story before a single line of dialogue is spoken.

And then there is the dialogue.

His characters move naturally between tragedy and comedy. A heartbreaking confession can suddenly become funny without losing its emotional weight, and moments of joy are never far away from sadness. That balance is something I admire enormously. His films rarely belong to one genre. They are dramas, melodramas, comedies and thrillers at the same time, yet they always feel coherent. That freedom is one of the reasons why I keep returning to his work.

If I had to choose the five films that best represent Almodóvar's cinema, I would probably choose All About My Mother, Volver, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Talk to Her and Broken Embraces. Interestingly, they do not belong either to his earliest years or to his most recent period. For me, they represent the moment when every element of his cinema—his writing, visual style, humour and emotional complexity—came together perfectly.

Almost twenty years after convincing my father to take me to watch Volver, I found myself standing a few metres away from Pedro Almodóvar at the Munich Film Festival. It was one of those moments that made me realise how much cinema has accompanied different stages of my life. The teenager who simply wanted to watch the latest Oscar nominee could never have imagined that one day he would attend film festivals as accredited press and meet one of the directors who shaped the way he understands cinema.

I do not think his recent films have reached the same level as the extraordinary run of films he made during his middle period, but that has never stopped me from looking forward to every new release. Even when one of his latest works does not completely convince me, I always discover something worth taking with me: a memorable character, a conversation, an image or a question that stays in my mind long after the credits roll.

That, for me, is what has always defined Pedro Almodóvar's cinema. His films remind me that cinema is not only about telling stories. It is also about creating worlds that you recognise instantly and, somehow, never completely leave behind.