Fans have been salivating to know more about Pedro Almodóvar’s gay western Strange Way of Lifeever since it was announced last year. So much so that many festival goers and journalists at the Cannes Film Festival screening were left waiting and then turned away in what the Hollywood Reporter dubbed a “mini-riot.”
We still have very little information about the short film, but we do know that The Last of Us star Pedro Pascal plays a former gunslinger named Silva who tracks down his former flame Sheriff Jake played by Before Sunset star Ethan Hawke. The pair reunite after 25 years and old flames are rekindled.
The short focuses on the relationship between the two men, but if you were expecting to see explicit sex, you may be slightly disappointed — though apparently there is a shot of Pascal’s butt!
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In an interview with Indie Wire ahead of the film’s premiere at Cannes, Almodóvar said: “The film is full of these moments that are erotic without being explicit sexually or having to do with any kind of physical nakedness. There’s a certain intensity, these pauses, that are very erotic and carnal for me.”
While audiences should expect to get more tender moments and sexual tensions than a film chock full of sex scenes, Pascal did tell Indiewire that all of Almodóvar’s films have a “playful sexiness.”
“I don’t imagine sexual chemistry as something to approach,” The Mandalorian star explained in the interview. “It’s simply a matter of playing the character. Pedro put his trust in us to inhabit the story as he felt so much of the work was accomplished by casting.”
When asked about the bedroom scene with Pascal, Hawke brushed it off saying, “I did a play in 1991 where Steve Zahn and I made out so, you know, I’ve always been game for a good time.”
He went on to say that intimate scenes are “a very difficult thing to photograph” and can often feel “soulless.” But both Hawke and Pascal relied on each other to communicate real emotions. “I know Pedro put a lot of thought into what he was trying to communicate to the audience,” the Dead Poet’s Society star said. “He’s always trying to figure out the story he wants to tell.”
Pascal agreed: “It’s exciting to step into that world. It also helped to have a scene partner as good as Ethan.”
It makes sense that Almodóvar would direct a queer western considering he came close to directing Brokeback Mountain. He has even said that his 31 minute short film is a “response” to the 2005 hit.
“It had more to do with a question asked in that film regarding what two men would do on a ranch together,” the director explained. “I see this film as a kind of answer to that question.”
If this has you just as excited as the audience at Cannes, don’t fret because Sony Pictures Classics will release it in the US this fall.
Strange Way of Life is a 31-minute film.
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