28/08/2026
Now Showing at The Garden Cinema.
๐๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐๐ซ ๐๐ก๐ซ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฆ๐๐ฌ tells two alternating stories, one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during a long weekend in December. The second takes place in 2026 and stars Raรบl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a script that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia. Mixed with fiction, Elsa is, in a way, Raรบlโs alter ego, who, like him, resorts to autofiction as a solution to a long period of creative drought. He looks inside himself, and he canโt help but also look at the people who make up his most intimate universe: his partner and his assistant. The film narrates the close relationship between reality and fiction, between inspiration and life, exploring the limits of autofiction and stories within stories.
๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ซ๐๐๐ง ๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ฆ๐ ๐๐ข๐๐ฐ:
Despite acknowledging Bitter Christmas as Almodรณvarโs return to form, some reviewers have also dismissed it as overly self-referential.
We beg to disagree. After all, Fellini did the same thing in 8ยฝ, and nobody holds it against him.
Ultimately, Bitter Christmas is a complex, gripping, and thought-provoking meditation on the ethics of writing and the relationship between artists and their work. Hereโs the paradox: making great art seems to demand a healthy dose of narcissism, one that can as easily damage the a creators closest relationships. Where is the line drawn?
Dazzled by the boldness and campness of Almodรณvarโs aesthetics, itโs easy to forget his filmography is grounded in the impeccably crafted screenplays he writes himself. Bitter Christmas is another; one in which the art of writing becomes both the subject and the source of suspense โ so skilfully crafted that it makes the whole thing look effortless.
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![๐๐ต ๐ช๐ด ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐จ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ด ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ค๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ, ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ต ๐ณ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ด ๐ค๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐จ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ด.Le Mรฉpris [Jean-Luc Godard, 1963] ...](https://img5.cineplo.com/705/046/1742043557050464.jpg)
