The Human Voice (2020)

Directed by: Pedro Almodovar | 30 minutes | short film, drama | Actors: Tilda Swinton, Agustín Almodóvar, Miguel Almodóvar, Pablo Almodóvar

‘The Human Voice’ is a short film by Pedro Almodóvar, based on the rock-solid play ‘La voix humaine’ by Jean Cocteau. With his trademark visual acuity, the aging Spanish prodigy guides us through the despair of an abandoned woman in thirty minutes.

The abandoned woman, a well-known character in Almodóvar’s world, is the mirror image of the fatal woman – in both cases notoriously lonely. Tilda Swinton is the interpreter, that’s okay. We see her buying stuff in a hobby shop, with which she then takes revenge on the man who left her. In a funny way.

A dog wanders through a sparsely furnished loft, the woman has fallen asleep after her violent act. She throws her head in the shower without undressing. You are then barely 10 minutes away, and regardless of the further settlement, you find yourself in a real Almodóvar, with music and images in harmony.

Swinton is the solitary focus of a one-act play – originally a monologue, and that theatrical rubs in the sequel with the wonderful cinema that is so unique to Almodóvar. It actually draws his cinematic art into the normal; he’s going to align with conventions. Almodóvar is not a stage director and that is a problem. Perhaps the expectations are too high.

What can be said is that ‘The Human Voice’ is too much of a talking script. Regardless of the actress’s qualities, which are immense, the master’s unique talent is not exploited in Swinton’s monologue, making this short film a perfunctory operation. The content is nothing without the form, and the form is leading in Almodóvar, or should be.