This book offers a comprehensive film-by-film analysis of Spain's most famous living director, Pedro Almodóvar. It shows how Almodóvar's films draw on various national cinemas and genres, including Spanish cinema of the dictatorship, European art cinema, Hollywood melodrama and film noir. It also argues that Almodóvar's work is a form of social critique, his films consistently engaging with and challenging stereotypes about traditional and contemporary Spain in order to address Spain's traumatic historical past and how it continues to inform the present. Drawing on scholarship in both English and Spanish, the book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of film studies and Hispanic studies, scholars of contemporary cinema and general readers with a passion for the films of Pedro Almodóvar.

Reviews

'Sánchez-Arce adds significantly to understanding of Almodóvar with these insightful close readings of his features-readings that employ a methodology blending feminism and formalism while situating the films in appropriate sociopolitical and historical contexts.'
CHOICE

'The cinema of Pedro Almodóvar successfully manages the difficult task of finding new things to say about an auteur who has been widely written about and studied.'
Dolores Tierney, Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas

Introduction
1 The early films: Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón and Laberinto de pasiones
2 Kicking the habit: Entre tinieblas
3 High windows and ugly aesthetics: ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto?
4 Faking Spain: Matador
5 Other voices, other stories: La ley del deseo
6 Pure theatre: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios
7 On the verge of a genre breakdown: ¡Átame!, Tacones lejanos and Kika
8 The end of romance: La flor de mi secreto
9 Circle lines and memory work: Carne trémula
10 Remembering children: Todo sobre mi madre
11 Still lives: Hable con ella
12 Faking memory: La mala educación
13 Motherlands: Volver
14 Archaeology in the dark: Los abrazos rotos
15 Visual seduction: La piel que habito
16 'Crisis cinema': Los amantes pasajeros and Julieta
Afterword: Dolor y gloria
Filmography
References
Index