Almodovar Week at the Roxie May 20-26

As one of the most beloved foreign filmmakers in the United States, Pedro Almodóvar has been blending melodrama, suspense, black humor and visceral emotion for more than 30 years. His eclectic filmography dabbles in everything from excess, passion and the complexity of family and identity. At the core of his movies, though, are his fascinations with the disenfranchised, with the roles adopted by women- in particular the figure of the housewife- and questioning the established definitions of gender, class and sexuality.

This mini-retrospective returns to the young, vital, and rarely revisited stage of Almodóvar’s storied career, tracing his progress, from the manic energy of PEPI, LUCI, BOM… to the darkly humorous feminist comedy WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?. Other highlights to be screened include his first explicitly gay film (LAW OF DESIRE), the highest-grossing film in Spanish history for a decade (WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN), the carnally provocative (TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN!), and the tongue-in-cheek melodrama of ridiculous implausibility (HIGH HEELS).