NYFF 2020 Film Review: The Human Voice
Color and Passion ignite in Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut
Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar makes his English language debut with The Human Voice. A raw and emotional one-hander starring Tilda Swinton, the short film expertly combines an exquisitely staged production with a fiery element, breathing cinematic life into Jean Cocteau’s stage play. A mesmerizing cross section of Almodóvar’s directorial style, Swinton’s artful performance, and Cocteau’s monodrama, The Human Voice is a tour de force on multiple levels.
From its opening moments, The Human Voice is unmistakably a Pedro Almodóvar project; unbridled passion met with lush, transparent artifice, the 30-minute short film suffuses its bite-sized runtime with the same brand of lacerating pathos found in the Spanish auteur’s feature-length filmography. From its candied sets and wardrobe to Tilda Swinton’s one-hander performance, this brisk adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s famed monodrama employs a captivating vividness, bringing a witty air of modernity to the classic spurned woman archetype.
Almodóvar has always had a fascination with Cocteau’s La voix humaine, obliquely referencing it in 1987’s Law of Desire, only to use the play as an explicit springboard just a year later in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. With this production of The Human Voice, the director finally brings a full-fledged iteration to the screen, taking textual and artistic liberties that warrant a “freely adapted” credit. And while it certainly wasn’t intended to be a production constrained by COVID-19 quarantine rules, The Human Voice is uniquely suited to benefit from distanced and economical shooting. Utilizing its exquisite dress and signature Almodóvar coloring to amplify Tilda Swinton’s lone presence, the film is a pure distillation of filmmaker, actor, and source material.
“A metamorphosis of Jean Cocteau’s text into an explosive new configuration, The Human Voice is every bit as bold and colorful as the stage it rests upon.”
Opening with a short prologue featuring Tilda Swinton’s nameless protagonist perusing a hardware store for the perfect hatchet, The Human Voice sets the tone with wry humor and an undercurrent of spiritedness - as the worried shop-owner looks on, it’s safe to say that the axe is going to be used for something other than chopping trees. Soon after, the setting shifts to the rest of the film’s singular location, an apartment set that could only have sprung from Almodóvar’s imagination. Ever the aesthete, Almodóvar straddles the thin line between the gorgeous and garish through Antxón Gómez’s extravagant set design, bringing to life a locale replete with color, kitsch, and detail. The credits reveal a long list of luxuries that make an appearance (Cartier, Hermés, Margiela, just to name a few), and the production is full of stunning backdrops that complement Sonia Grande’s costuming perfectly.
Swinton’s unnamed woman pops in a pair of AirPods, speaking to her lover on the night before he leaves to marry another woman: “These are the rules of the game, the law of desire.” It’s meta-reference, of course, and the discreteness of the headphones give the illusion of monologue as we only ever hear one side of the conversation. Over the course of 30 minutes, we’re plunged deep into the throes of devastating heartbreak as Swinton visits all the stages of grief, commanding hairpin turns in emotion and performance that would be wholly out of reach for a lesser talent. It’s an impassioned soliloquy that is uniquely Swinton - grappling with her unheard ex-love, we become witness to love and loss, appeasement and anger, forgiveness and fury. And just like Almodóvar’s acclaimed Pain and Glory just one year ago, The Human Voice utilizes self-conscious theater to signify catharsis. As Swinton walks among the rooms of the apartment, the seams of production unravel around her: pans from the bird’s eye reveal a ceiling-less soundstage, remnants of gaffer tape line the floors, and the windows to the outside world peer into nothing but a bare warehouse wall. It’s a well of gimmickry that Almodóvar seemingly loves to revisit, but damn if it doesn’t work like gangbusters - a powerfully apt metaphor for the end of love and how empty and scripted things can feel in the wake of heartbreak and loss.
For those unfamiliar with the works of Pedro Almodóvar, The Human Voice is a bite-sized primer that ties together the heavy themes running through his longer works. And for those of us who have closely followed his storied 40-year career, the film represents - in its purest form - an exciting new direction with resonant shades of the past; there’s more passion, theatricality, and eye-popping stimulation packed into its brisk 30 minutes than most features fit into two hours. A metamorphosis of Jean Cocteau’s text into an explosive new configuration, The Human Voice is every bit as bold and colorful as the stage it rests upon.
