THE HUMAN VOICE

Pedro Almodóvar

Spain 2020

30min

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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 abandoned him. Two living beings facing abandonment.

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Working primarily in English for the first time, Pedro Almodóvar adapts Jean Cocteau’s one-act play about a woman on one end of a telephone call, who gradually falls apart as her lover ends a longterm affair. This highly precise featurette is a showcase for a bracing, multifaceted performance by Tilda Swinton, acting for the man on the line while showing us a very different emotional reality. Almodóvar combines his customarily eye-popping mise en scène with the frank theatricality of a soundstage, yielding a reality as precarious as that of the protagonist. (Michael Sicinski)