Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz are teaming up again, following their acclaimed collaboration on Volver. Their new project is a drama entitled Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces), which begins filming next month in Spain.Details of the plot are still unclear although Almodóvar has previously said that the movie, which he also wrote, will be shot in the “style of a 50s film noir”.
“It's the longest script I've ever written,” the Spanish director told El Mundo last December. “It's got something of film noir. There will be about an hour of American film noir from the 1950s. It won't be a comedy but there will be humour.
“Cruz is to portray a woman who has a passionate and destructive love life. On his blog (www.pedroalmodovar.es), Almodóvar explains how he sees Cruz's characters leading two very different lives. One life sees her “grave, hurt, pursued by fate … a fallen angel, a woman straight out from a 50s thriller translated to the 90s”. The other facet will see her “blonde, light, pop, ingénue, absurd”. Almodóvar's blog, available in Spanish, English and French, promises to chronicle production on Los Abrazos Rotos.
Regular Almodóvar contributors, such as Rossy de Palma, Kiti Manver, Chus Lampreave and Lola Dueñas have also joined the cast. Veteran actor Ángela Molina, who starred in Live Flesh, will play Cruz's mother.
It was previously thought that Cruz and Almodóvar would work on a thriller entitled La Piel Que Habito (The Skin I Live In), the story of a plastic surgeon who exacts revenge on the men who raped his daughter. But it seems the project, adapted from the novel Mygale (Tarantula) by French writer Thierry Jonquet, has been put on the backburner. “I am thinking of filming it after Broken Embraces,” writes Almodovar on his blog, “but I still want to tinker with the script.”
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