The Red and the White

The film has just started. Liquid, twisting graphics are superimposed over shots of plastic bags and hospital dials. The proud words appear, declaring simply: “Un film de Almodóvar”. Credit sequences are always important in Pedro Almodóvar's work – not just for what they inaugurate and anticipate in the story and world of the film to come, but in themselves, as a gesture, a first sketch of the form, tone and style. His credits are a design object, a graphic event. The shape of the letters, their colour, the speed at which they fade in and out – all this is already expressive, even if we are not sure yet what exactly they are meant to express.

The brief opening scene plays itself out and a second scene immediately begins: a domestic glimpse of a mother, Manuela (Cecilia Roth), and her teenage son, Esteban (Eloy Azorín), whose birthday is approaching. It seems we are into the movie now, into its world, past the obligatory threshold of opening credits. This pair of characters starts to eat dinner on their sofa while discussing the classic black-and-white movie playing on TV: All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950), dubbed in Spanish. They discuss the title and its mistranslation. Esteban starts to write in his notepad; we see his hand inscribe todo: all. Then there is a very unusual image, which could be called a point-of-view shot from the notepad: the huge, rather fearsome close-up of a moving nib.