Is Almodovar's Pain and Glory a work of autofiction?

Pedro Almodovar’s film Pain and Glory (2019) is a rich and complex narrative of a type that we don’t see often today, at least in films from the U.S. It’s a story about a 60-something film director at a point of crisis in his life and his career – which may call immediately to mind 8 ½, though the crisis and the personality of the struggling director differ widely. In P&G the director Salvador (Antonio Banderas) has suffered lifelong maladies of extreme pain and has neither written nor directed a film for many years and is feeling physically and mentally unable (unwilling?) to begin a new project. He learns from a friend that a local arts group has arranged a screening of a film – his most famous? – from 30 years back, and they want Salvador to be present for a post-screening Q&A, along with the star of the film, Alberto (Asier Exteandia); problem is, the two had a falling out during the production and have not spoken to each other in 32 years. Neverthless, Salvador reaches out to his one-time nemesis and they agree to the proposal – which leads to many complications. Most notably, Salvador develops a heroin addiction – and during his many drug-induced dream states he recalls, and the movie flashes back to, his impoverished childhood as a precocious student, father mostly absent, raised by a devoted mother (Penelope Cruz), with whom, as we see late in the film, he is still close though he feels that he has failed her as a son. Over the course of the film, we see Salvador gradually and tentatively confront his addiction and other health issues, come to terms with his mother, become more open about his homosexuality, and begin a new creative project that may give him some hope of relief from his pain, both physical and psychological. Throughout, the film has fantastic visuals and the most striking color schemes, part of Almodovar’s trademark style – and the conclusion, which I will not divulge, involves a 4^th-wall-breaking surprise that makes us thing anew about the entire movie. We can only hope, at the end, that P&G isn’t an Almodovar “autofiction” (there’s a funny moment in which the adult Salvador discusses autofiction with his mother); artists are liars, so to speak, so perhaps the suffering so evocatively depicted is not (entirely) his own.