THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodòvar’s film that won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

I went to the cinema with Monica thinking I would be moved but actually I got angry.

You can find the review on the blog Matavitatau and incredibly this time Nick was more lenient than me.

Of course: The room next door has a lovely part.

Everything concerned to the visual sphere represents perfection, starting with the colours used in a sublime as well as communicative way

In an interview, set designer Carlota Casado  mentioned Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings among the references.

If you look at her paintings:
Oriental poppies
Ladder to the moon
Jiimson weed white flower

you can get a clear idea of the range of greens that I particularly admired.

The costumes, which we could call outfits, by Bina Daigeler are a riot of colour, style and quality.

Every single detail is meticulous, even I quote: ‘the coffee machines.’

The settings are fabulous: New York at its most magical and a house that represents the perfect blend of architecture and nature.

The set is Casa Szoke, designed by the Aranguren+Gallegos Arquitectos studio  near Madrid, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, and located on the slopes of Mount Abantos in the forest of La Herrería. 

As if that were not enough, the furniture elements are well-known design pieces and the painting People in the sun by Edward Hopper becomes an integral part of the narrative as well as the visual.

And Almodòvar completes the representation of beauty by quoting James Joyce: The Dead from Dubliners

The snow falling faintly through the universe, and faintly falling, upon all the living and the dead.

The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodòvar’s first English-language film and his intention, I would say successful, was to make it as American as possible.

But then there is the verbose part, let me use the term, the dialogues in my opinion are that much excessive that they break the balance of everything else.

And there are a number of unfinished elements.

I will not go into the profile of the protagonist, nor into the euthanasia issue, because everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

But remaining on the mere portrayal of the illness and the physical and psychological suffering, perhaps because I have unfortunately experienced it from my side, I could not help but get nervous.

An exclusive death.

Real life, however, is quite different.

Did you enjoy it? Did you find the ending unsettling or inspiring?