When Carmen Machi Shit Herself, Almodóvar's two worst films according to Almodóvar, the La Mancha director's passion for Onlyfans... and other such matters

Gossip is frowned upon, yet it serves its purpose. Kant despised it, considering it the cause of "superficial and malicious judgments" (as well as "a sign of weakness"), and yet, according to his biographies, he himself was an incorrigible old codger of East Prussian social life. Gossip serves both as social glue and as a vehicle for stereotypes and misunderstandings. Pedro x Los Javis, the documentary recently released on Movistar+, directed by the latter and starring the former almost exclusively, can be considered, and seen, as a great monument to backyard gossip between the great figure, undisputed genius, of contemporary cinema, Pedro Almodóvar , and two of the filmmakers who have generated the most expectations long before his monumental series Messiah; that is, Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo . And indeed, prejudice aside, the almost fetishistic devotion to the Marshmallow armchairs, quilted dressing gowns, melodrama, and every line of the script in each of the 23 feature films (on the way to 24) by the La Mancha native make the miniseries (that's what it is) the perfect setting for a long session of secrets spread across three 45-minute chapters. But not only that, at the other extreme, it's also a somnambulant journey, transparent in its unconsciousness, at once carnal and mystical, to the very heart of a way of understanding cinema, friendship, life, the power of fiction, and even death. Let's just say that the documentary allows for and is enjoyable in both readings, both Kantian, from the sublime and the banal; from the complete illustration of a universal voice, that of Almodóvar, and from the guilty pleasure of gossip.

From the first scene, the frivolous one, Pedro x los Javis is a quite nutritious (not to say inexhaustible) source of anecdotes, some of them well-known, but always memorable. Or not so much, depending on how you look at it. This is how we learn that Carmen Machi literally shat herself. We don't know if it was on top, underneath, or on someone. She did it on the set of Hable con ella , and it was due to some digestive biscuits (fiber stuff) that she ate one after another, up to 17, because of the retakes. We also learn that if, as she has repeated in many interviews, it was Tie Me Up! That film that discovered a very young Penélope Cruz's vocation when she wasn't old enough to watch certain things, it was the lead role in Kika , later played by the unique Verónica Forqué, the first role she landed in the La Mancha native's filmography. To get it, she lied about her age ("I always did," she says) and, of course, she was discovered. Two years later, he would debut with the La Mancha native in Live Flesh . Before that, Almodóvar himself confesses his fascination with Onlyfans and in the confession lets slip that if he had known about it earlier, he would have used it so that the characters of Gael García Bernal and Lluís Homar could meet in Bad Education . And all this while the director confesses which are the two films in his filmography that he appreciates the least ( Kika and Los amantes pasajeros ) right next to those he considers his most accomplished works ( All About My Mother, Talk to Her and Bad Education) . And all this while Almodóvar remembers a lost science fiction script where women are household appliances. And all this while he finally tells the story behind the saint-filled acceptance speech he gave when collecting the Oscar for screenplay for Talk to Her: it was dedicated to none other than Harvey Weinstein. On closer inspection, it's nothing more than gossip, but who (and Kant) can resist?

But it's not advisable, however tempting it may be, to remain in the noise and foam of the days. Pedro x los Javis surprises with its delicate and extremely baroque workmanship, capable of replicating the very soul of Almodóvar's cinema. The entire miniseries is wisely conceived by screenwriters Brays Efe and Paloma Rando as a great Sirkian mirror, like a great fiction within a fiction, like a great and unfinished making of determined to lay bare the artifice of reality itself. "Reality should be forbidden," was the phrase, almost a motto, uttered in The Flower of My Secret by Gloria Muñoz before a disproportionate Marisa Paredes (but has anyone ever been better in a film?), and the series applies itself to this with a devotion that is anything but Franciscan. Evidently reminiscent of the long-forgotten television of silences and confidences embodied by people like Paloma Chamorro, Pedro x los Javi alternates archive footage ("If I weren't Pedro Almodóvar, I'd want to be God," he says in one of those interviews that are no longer heard) with a long conversation on his knees, but without a safety net. Structured by theme, the three chapters explore issues such as friendship (female friends in particular) and mothers, the law and desire, cinema and death. And so we hear the vibrant, prejudice-destroying author discovering cinematic grammar for the first time in Between the Darkness , his third feature film (fourth if we include the lost Folle... folle... fólle me Tim! ), alongside the master director who, as unashamed as ever, confesses his ultimate fear: "I don't understand why something living has to die... I admire people who believe in God because he is the great shield. The best support to face the inevitable. But the individual has to be the master of his life and also of his death when life only offers you pain."

There's more, much more, and the statements by Esther García (we're missing Lola), brother Agustín, and the inseparable collaborators José Luis Alcaine (his reflection on white light is beautiful) and Alberto Iglesias alongside each and every one of his actresses (we're missing Victoria) and his occasional alter ego Antonio Banderas complete a perfect tour of—to paraphrase the cannibalistic councilwoman—desire as the main driving force of everything. And in the background, the songs. Nathy Peluso reinterprets, not just sings, Puro teatro by La Lupe, and Luz Casal returns to her Piensa en mí. Albert Pla whispers Soy infeliz by Lola Beltrán, and Banderas, with Refree on the piano, recovers Déjame recordar by Bola de Nieve. Guitarricadelafuente appropriates the miracle of Cucurrucucú paloma , and Amaia does the same with the tango Volver, embracing Penélope Cruz with her voice. They're all songs from the Almodóvar universe, from Almodóvar's life in the cinema, from Almodóvar as seen by the two Javieres. There's gossip, yes, but with emotion, melodrama, and inexhaustible taste.