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The media allude to a kind of poetic justice for Pedro Almodóvar on the occasion of his latest milestone, receiving a Golden Lion for his first English-language film ‘The Room Next Door’; after an endless ovation of perfectly synchronised clapping from the audience. An echo that will continue to resonate forever not only in the history of Spanish cinema, but also on the international scene.
Almodóvar’s cinematographic work is orbited by a collective of devotees who adore everything from his traditional spirit and kitsch aesthetics to the drama, redemption and freedom of the era they project. Within all these sequences, the gastronomy, especially in La Mancha, has just emphasised the narrative of his films, which drink from the revolutionary cultural movement of the Madrid of the Transition under a modern vision of Spanish society.
Pop Costumbrism
Pedro Almodóvar projects this cinematic universe of pop costumbrismo in kitchens, restaurants or culinary enclaves in which women claim their rights, while sharing their darkest secrets. Spaces in which great banquets of Spanish food are displayed with regional or traditional dishes that have contributed to its internationalisation, due to the filmmaker’s cultural transcendence worldwide.
From the bacalao al pil pil that Carmen Maura prepares for Bom in ‘Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón’ (1980), to the pisto manchego of Victoria Abril in ‘Átame’ or the ‘choricillo’ offered by Peter Coyote in ‘Kika’; along with other dishes such as omelettes, squid, peppers or flan. A ‘cañí’ menu that also includes desserts such as the wafers and doughnuts that Aunt Paula (Chus Lampreave, again) leaves for Sole (Lola Dueñas) and Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) in ‘Volver’.
Crimes and horror
The kitchen becomes the symbolic context in which some of the great plots of his filmography unfold. A setting in which sordid scenes of crime or intoxication take place, as in ‘Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios’ (Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown). Pepa’s legendary gazpacho is projected as the axis of the action that revolves around the police asking: ‘What’s in this gazpacho? Tomato, cucumber, pepper, onion, a pinch of garlic, oil, salt, vinegar, breadcrumbs and water’. The secret ingredient? Large doses of Valium that Rossy de Palma ends up consuming in the film.
Beyond representing food as a weapon, death is also illustrated in the kitchen. In ‘Volver’, Raimunda will end up murdering her husband with a knife because he is an abuser and rapist. The kitchen is filled with blood and violence.
The muffins are also presented as a symbol of Gloria’s everyday horror in ‘What have I done to deserve this! Here, food becomes yet another reflection of the domestic hell she experiences, as well as the gap between social classes.
Love
In Almodóvar’s stories, family affection is often expressed through food. Gastronomy is channelled as an affective act around the kitchen or the table, especially by the mothers or women who inhabit and empower their stories.
This affection for food is projected by characters such as Chus Lampreave in ‘La flor de mi secreto’, or Manuela in ‘Todo sobre mi madre’. So do the protagonists of Volver: ‘Tomorrow I’m going to feed you so much that you’re going to fall on your asses’. Their potato omelette is an example of this. In ‘All about my mother’, the kitchen is also the sacred space in which love is transmitted.
Breakfast
In Pedro’s films, breakfast is the culinary ritual par excellence. In ‘Kika’, Rossy de Palma expresses to Paul Bazo: ‘you can eat as much as you can’, reflecting the importance that the director gives it.
Meanwhile, in ‘Atame’, Ricky (Antonio Banderas) makes sure that the girl he has just kidnapped eats breakfast, despite the violence suspended in the scene. In ‘Broken Embraces’, for example, breakfast plays a healing role. After a night of confessions, in the morning Diego (Tamar Novas) serves orange juice, Spanish omelette and coffee to reconnect spiritually with his mother (Blanca Portillo). You have to start the day well’, he concludes, before receiving another confession.
