The Human Voice Movie Storyline. A woman watches time passing next to the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up, but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn’t understand that his master has abandoned him. Two living beings facing abandonment.
Pedro Almodovar’s 30-minute short film, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival, is a little jewel that carries all kinds of trademarks of the director: Tilda Swinton’s solo drags the film with bright colors typical of Almodovar, comedy adorned with amorous love and passion. full.
Adapted from Jean Cocteau’s play of the same name, The Voice of Man begins with the character played by Swinton buying an ax and then takes place in a single place, in the same house. Swinton speaks on the phone with his newly separated girlfriend, and shifts from emotion to emotion as he rummages around the house. The Voice of Man is a new movie to be added to the masterpieces for Almodovar lovers.
The Human Voice (Spanish: La voz Humana) is a 2020 Spanish-American short drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, based upon the play of the same name by Jean Cocteau. It stars Tilda Swinton and is Almodóvar’s first movie acted in English. It had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2020. It was released in Spain on October 21, 2020, by Wanda Films and Avalon.
Director’z Statement
A woman watches time passing next to the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up, but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn’t understand that his master has abandoned him. Two living beings facing abandonment. During the three days of waiting, the woman only goes out to the street once, to buy an axe and a can of gasoline.
The woman goes through all sorts of moods, from helplessness to despair and loss of control. She makes herself up, she dresses up as if going to a party, she considers throwing herself off of the balcony, until her ex-lover calls on the phone, but she’s unconscious because she’s taken a combination of thirteen pills and cannot answer the call. The dog licks her face until she wakes up.
After a cold shower, revived by a coffee as black as her state of mind, the telephone rings again and this time she can answer. The human voice is hers, we never hear the voice of her lover. At first she pretends to act normal and calm, but she is always on the verge of exploding in the face of the man’s hypocrisy and meanness.
The Human Voice is a moral lesson about desire, even though its protagonist is on the verge of the very same abyss. Risk is an essential part of the adventure of living and loving. Pain is very present in the monologue. As I said at first, it is about the disorientation and distress of two living beings who grieve their master.
Film Review for The Human Voice
“The Human Voice” is a gift from the great Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. It comes in a very small box — a movie only half an hour in length — but it opens up into an absurdly rich emotional epic, like one of those camper vans that turns into a house.
The film is playing at the Kendall Square, paired with the director’s 1988 breakthrough, “Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown,” and if you’re vaccinated or open to risk, I would urge you to see it on the big screen.
The colors and costumes and sets pop with pop-art vibrancy; it turns the act of watching into an experience of the highest sensuality. If this is the first movie you choose to see in a theater after a year in hiding, it may be enough to renew your faith in cinema.
And then there’s Tilda Swinton. She’s the whole show; her and a dog, a playful and observant Australian Shepherd named Dash. “The Human Voice” is an adaptation of the 1930 Jean Cocteau play of the same name; to be precise, it’s a reduction in the culinary sense, with half the volume but the same intensity of flavor. A woman stands on stage and speaks on the phone for an hour, desperately trying to talk an unseen and unheard lover out of leaving her. Ranging through what seems like every possible emotion available to a human being, the monologue is a dramatic marathon for an actress and a fascinating change of pace for Swinton. Her roles tend to the imperious end of the spectrum, and rarely has she appeared as vulnerable — well, imperiously vulnerable — as she does here.
Almodóvar used the Cocteau play as a springboard for “Women on the Verge,” too, only where that film fizzed over with farcical complications, “The Human Voice” sticks closer to the text and to the play’s innate artificiality. Swinton’s character — known only as “the Woman” — lives in a swank, art-filled apartment that is quickly revealed to be a set on a film soundstage, with the actress wandering in and out of the nested realities. She’s briefly out in the real world, too, in an opening sequence that sees her visiting a hardware store to buy a hatchet. (No one buys a potential murder weapon with as much sangfroid as Tilda Swinton.)
The Human Voice (2021)
Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Agustín Almodóvar, Miguel Almodóvar, Pablo Almodóvar, Diego Pajuelo, Carlos García Cambero
Screenplay by: Pedro Almodóvar
Production Design by: Antxón Gómez, María Clara Notari
Cinematography by: José Luis Alcaine
Film Editing by: Teresa Font
Costume Design by: Sonia Grande
Set Decoration by: Vicent Díaz
Art Direction by: Pau Albin
Music by: Alberto Iglesias
MPAA Rating: R for some drug content and nude images.
Distributed by: Wanda Films, Avalon (Spain), Sony Pictures Classics (United States)
Release Date: September 3, 2020 (Venice), October 21, 2020 (Spain), July 27, 2021 (United States)
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