FRANCE: In a homage to film-making, Oscar winning Penelope Cruz stars in Spanish director Almodovar's 'Broken Embraces'

Record ID: 850288

  • Title: FRANCE: In a homage to film-making, Oscar winning Penelope Cruz stars in Spanish director Almodovar's 'Broken Embraces'
  • Date: 20th May 2009
  • Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 19, 2009) (REUTERS) CRUZ NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SPANISH DIRECTOR PEDRO ALMODOVAR SAYING: "I chose women because that was what the author had done, and I could deal with them with a great deal of liberty. I felt that the women embodied strong spirits, and there were marvellous moments as well as intense ones. I felt that I was surround
  • Embargoed: 4th June 2009 13:00
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  • Location: France
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  • Country: France
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  • Reuters ID: LVA3SIGO9PO742YUEF3OYD5FCJPD
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  • Story Text: Spanish director Pedro Almodovar pays homage to film making and his muse Penelope Cruz in "Broken Embraces" (Los Abrazos Rotos), a movie about a director who has a passionate affair with his leading lady.
    The picture, Almodovar's fourth collaboration with Cruz, which is in competition at the Cannes film festival, recalls "films noirs", classic comedies and screen sirens of the past.
    It includes a scene from Roberto Rossellini's "Viaggio in Italia" starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders, and the film-within-a-film revisits Almodovar's 1988 hit "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown".
    "In my filmography there are a lot more female characters than male ones, and above all the female characters are more strong, and solid -- true fighters, as opposed to the men, who are weaker, darker and more solitary. This is true. I don't know... If there is a psychoanalyst in the room, maybe they can say what the reason is... It feels more natural," the Oscar winner told reporters on Tuesday, (May 19) after Broken Embraces was warmly applauded at a press screening.
    Cruz plays Lena, a secretary whoup in a relationship with her wealthy boss Ernesto. Also an aspiring actress, she is spotted by the charismatic director Mateo Blanco, with whom she quickly falls in love.
    When Mateo loses his sight in a car accident, he adopts his pseudonym Harry Caine and reinvents himself completely in order to avoid the painful memories of the past.
    Cruz said playing Lena as well as Lena's character in the film-within-a-film was a test of her acting skills.
    "In my opinion it's one of the best that he's written; one of the most complex, brave and daring scripts. And once again I felt lucky that such a marvellous character was put in my hands -- something so different to everything else that I have done in the past -- and that he trusted me with it in many ways," said the 35-year-old, who has been battling a bout of 'flu in Cannes.
    Cruz won a best supporting actress Oscar for Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona".
    Almodovar is best known for strong female roles, and he again paid tribute to the women who raised him. But the director, a favourite in Cannes who has yet to win the Palme d'Or, said men would have more prominence from now on.
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