NYFF 58 Review: Almodóvar’s ‘The Human Voice’ Runs the Emotional Gauntlet of Post-Breakup Sentiments
“These are the rules of the game… the law of desire.” Like a hammer, in a flurry of appeals, a nameless woman states an inherent universal truth to romance: to experience love also means to know of its heartbreak. Dumped by her five-year lover who left her for another flame, we find our lead on an evening of despair. Love has come and gone, and now, as like the rules dictate, it is time for the heartache to begin.
Within the confines of Pedro Almodóvar’s adaption of The Human Voice, we find an exploration of this period. Based on Jean Cocteau’s single-act play, La Voix humaine, we are given thirty minutes to see this vulnerable state through and observe the headspace created by the absence of love. Like the play, the short (largely) takes place within the woman’s apartment as she makes her final case to her ex-lover over the phone. You cannot hear the man on the other end, only the words of woman, staging a form of voyeuristic eavesdropping not unlike that of a loud phone conversation out in public. It is a messy and taxing conversation, full of daggers and harsh words, but Almodóvar seems in to be interested in exploring the folds of this romantic void — a void that, as our nameless woman will learn, is not easily filled nor navigated with rational grace.
Shot over the pandemic summer, The Human Voice is an aesthetic delight from everyone involved. Almodóvar makes known his artificial construction right away, frequently showing the sound stage where the central apartment is built, complete with undressed plywood walls on the exterior of his set and shooting scenes against the gray facades of their shooting location. Inside, you are greeted to a meticulously detailed apartment supplied by production designer Antxon Gomez that’s driven by vibrant primary colors and artistic reference abound. Acoustically, you’re met with a wonderful classical composition from Alberto Iglesias that simmers in the background as Almodóvar renders these sum parts into a final composition. It would appear, in this case, that brevity and conciseness make for a concentrated dose of well executed cinema.
The role of the nameless woman goes to Tilda Swinton who carries the film in monolog, pouring out grief, singing wishful affections, and professing bitter remorse for a relationship gone sour all in thirty minutes. It’s a showcase of range that nimbly modulates the postmortem phase of love, turning on a dime with breaths of hope and receding back with affirmed rejection. So much of the film is contingent on the titular human voice that you end up hanging on each and every word, picking up on the small fragilities and searing scorn that are carried upon Swinton’s voice. The dialog can be stiff, overbearing at times in its dictation, but also profound in its ability to succinctly convey the emotional gauntlet of post-breakup sentiments.
But by the end, The Human Voice offers something resounding, the final rule of the game: moving on. After all, what kind of arc would we have if not for the resolution? It’s the final punctuation mark on the film, but it’s a fiery one. The heart may be in flames, but at some point it’ll be extinguished, ready to love again. And as the woman herself says, “The only words I’m keeping are the ones you spoke to me in person, there engraved on my heart … and I’m doing my best to erase them.” How and when to erase them is something Almodóvar lets us decide.
—
