To fancy a filmmaker is to fancy his shoes, his eyes, his legs, the way he drools when he sleeps, and the drugs he does. Pedro Mercedes Almodóvar Caballero, known on the screen simply as “Almodóvar,” fancies himself. Each film he writes is glazed with his life’s sticky resin, polished and bruised in tandem. Such eccentric sincerity is a phenomenon built over time, and understanding Almodóvar’s journey helps us understand what informs his filmmaking.

Content warning: this article contains brief mentions of suicidal ideation and attempts, historical homophobia and racism.

The year was 1972, and it was a hot summer day when John Wojtowicz and his two partners in crime would attempt to rob the Chase Manhattan Bank in Brooklyn, NY. It was a botched-robbery-turned-hostage-situation that would go down in infamy as one of the first instances of what we have come to refer to as a “media circus.” A few years later, it would be adapted into Sydney Lumet’s 1975 film, Dog Day Afternoon, starring Al Pacino as Sonny, the film counterpart of Wojtowicz.