Cinema Therapy — Charlyne Gelt, Ph.D.

Pain and Glory

"I shut my eyes in order to see."
— Paul Gauguin

PAIN AND GLORY is an amazing semi-autobiographical film made by famed Spanish filmmaker and director, Pedro Almodovar (“Salvador” in the movie, played by Antonio Banderas). It’s about one man's search for meaning which takes him on a meandering journey across the oceans of his life, career, and relationships. As an actor, Banderas brings it all to life!

Using episodic film techniques to capture the ebb and flow of the director’s memories, we watch Salvador move through various stages of his life―from being sent against his will to a seminary school as a boy, to the overwhelming influence of his mother (Penelope Cruz) who taught him life lessons, to the awakening of his sexual and creative desires, to his trying to make reconciliations with the ghosts of the past (family, lovers — and himself), to being “fully in the stream of life” as a successful writer/director (“Without film making my life is meaningless,” he says), to the present where his career is in steep decline. In fact, he’s having a hard time seeing any future at all in his art.

In the opening scene, we see Salvador floating peacefully in a pool while sitting in a chair, trying to relieve his back pain. His eyes are closed which allows for an intense state of self-reflection, self-observation, and a silent questioning of his life’s purpose and values: “Who am I? What is my purpose?” Because of his severe back pain, Salvador has been unable to work. He can’t even write: “If you can’t write, then what do you do?” he asks. He now abuses his pain medication, something he has been having to deal with.

As he floats in the pool in a state of detachment, his mind and body become as one, a blank canvas on which images appear, first of his mother (played by Penelope Cruz) and the women from their village singing as they drape wet laundry over wild grasses by the riverside. Then his mind meanders, like the river itself, as he thinks back on a lifetime of ruptured relationships; he winces from the pain of reflecting on the scars of his relationships, searching “inside” to find the truth about them. His face is now a mask of pain, melancholy, regret, questioning, and deadness.

In the present time, Salvador has been asked to speak at a cinema showing with a Q&A afterwards of his first smash hit, made decades ago, forcing him to reconnect with his leading actor with whom he has had a rift for decades, believing the actor did not give his best performance because he was on heroin. He tries to make reconciliations with the ghosts of the past ― family, lovers, and himself ― while grappling with philosophical questions about art and passion and the origins of desire.

We watch moving interactions with his aging mother at the end of her life. Then, Salvador reflects on how he and his mother once lived in what was literally a cave painted white and decorated with tiles of artwork by an illiterate but handsome laborer he taught to read. In another scene, the laborer ignites 9-year-old Salvador’s passion, leading to his sexual awakening and that then flows into a scene with a former homosexual relationship.

Writing was his “therapy!” It allowed Salvador to forget the unforgettable, as was his early discovery of using cinema. Then the shock of the infinite void that led to his current incapacity to keep on making films. PAIN AND GLORY gives a voice to creativity. It speaks about the difficulty of separating it from one's own life and about the passions that give it meaning and hope. In recovering his past, Salvador finds the urgent need to once again recount it in writing, and in that action, he also finds his salvation.

Psychological Implications
There comes a time in most of our lives when we, like Salvador, begin to question the meaning of our existence: Why am I here? What is my purpose? Without a framework to give our lives purpose we can easily fall into a painful existential depression (“midlife crisis”), drifting without a sense of direction or little interest in what life has to offer.

PAIN AND GLORY conveys a powerful, low-key message about this midlife crisis, which can sneak up on us in a variety of way. In Salvador’s case, his severe back pain triggers his crisis and catapults him into a state of uncertainty and ultimate recognition of his deep need to rekindle his former passion for his art and find a new sense of meaning. Once, his life had been about overcoming setbacks. And as a filmmaker, he’d been able to transform difficulties into something useful or even inspirational. His writing had fueled others. Now, as a man who is physically fragile and emotionally vulnerable, he questions what will give him the inspiration to move through his pain.

As in a therapy situation, PAIN AND GLORY encourages us to look at the meaning of life from a retroactive perspective. What events made lasting impressions on us and impacted our later actions, reactions, and relationship choices? In Salvador’s life, a number of events made lifelong impressions on him, especially his mother’s role in influencing his adult relationships. “Is my life a drama or a comedy?” he once asks her. His physical pain and soul’s suffering lead him to question his life’s journey, his decisions, and his relationships. He manages to touch his soul's pain and sadness, and cradle the memories stored in every cell of his body. By so doing, and then by writing so movingly about the world of an artist looking back on his life ― he finds his way forward.

Jung calls this healing process individuation, meaning the coming together of the split off aspects of the self ― when the conscious and unconscious become integrated into a well-functioning whole. Salvador is on just such a journey in this movie, and we are privy to it. Viktor Frankel also believed that the search for meaning was one of the important driving forces in the human psyche. As Salvador navigates through the real-life harsh recollections of his inner world, we witness his desire for relatedness and meaning as to the quality of his life relationships. His life begins and ends in a linear fashion but reflects his inner life as it meanders like the ebb and flow of the tides, connecting him with the inspiration for his life’s work, and a desire for a deeper connection to soul.

"Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again." ― Joseph Campbell

Charlyne Gelt, Ph.D. (PSY22909) is a clinical psychologist who practices in Encino. She leads Women's Empowerment Groups that help women learn the tools to move beyond self-destructive relationship patterns. She may be reached at 818.501.4123 or cgelt@earthlink.net. Her office address is 16055 Ventura Blvd. #1129 Encino, CA 91436.