Director Pedro Almodóvar reveals the secrets of ‘Bitter Christmas’

The career of legendary Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is in much better shape than most recent fictional alter egos.

In his new film, “Bitter Christmas,” the character Elsa, whose early films earned a cult following, has been making a good living directing commercials, but she wants to make another movie, one with impact… even if it means stealing sensitive stories from her friends’ lives to create a powerful story.

Elsa, who is played by Barbara Lennie, isn’t real, however. She’s a creation of another character, Raul, a former hot shot writer-director whose career is fading. He is writing a film about Elsa called, yes, “Bitter Christmas,” and he’s borrowing heavily from his life to make it work — her panic attacks were his, her boyfriend resembles his, her willingness to lose friendships by borrowing reality to make a script work resembles him, too. He alienates his longtime assistant, Monica, who sees everything she has just gone through in Elsa.

Raul (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and Monica (Aitana Sanchez-Giton) are creations of Almodóvar, whose career is doing just fine. “Pain and Glory” and “Parallel Mothers” each earned two Oscar nominations, and this film “Bitter Christmas” was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

There is much of Almodóvar in his creations — he too had those panic attacks, and like Raul, he admits that when he’s writing, the people in his life “recede into the background.”

But in a sit-down interview at a Manhattan hotel during the New York Film Festival, Almodovar stressed that there was one crucial difference. He is meticulous about not lifting his friends’ lives and sticking them into his scripts … at least not in any recognizable way.

It’s a “moral responsibility,” he said. “I always mix any external inspiration with fiction and change a lot of characteristics so it ends up being someone unrecognizable. I never make a portrait of a person and put it in a movie. I conceal it in some way.”

The genial Almodovar, 77, always has an interpreter with him for interviews. He understands English well and often starts his responses off in English, but as his brain starts whirring with thoughts, he switches to Spanish so the ideas can tumble out at full speed.

“I realized I wanted to be careful about it from the first moment I thought about it,” he said. “I’ve always been cognizant of the fact that it could be painful for them.” That said, he acknowledges that friends still sometimes see themselves on screen.

“Many people think that,” he said with a chuckle. “I remember someone saying, ‘You’re telling my story,’ and it was someone completely different — they didn’t know that person. There’s a vanity there. I also have people approach me to say, ‘You have to tell my story on film.’”

Almodóvar’s films are often dark in tone. He says he’s inspired by suffering, not happiness, even when his life is good. “If you’re happy, there’s no tension, and pain offers a more complex and deeper portrait of people and their stories.” But he is mostly a happy person, especially when he’s working. “I’m happier when I’m writing than when I’m on vacation.”

Another thing Almodovar shared with both Raul and Elsa was that he was struggling with where to go with each of their stories until he found a solution late in the game.

Near the end of the film, Monica confronts Raul about using her life to save his script and, fittingly, Almodóvar says, she saved his script. “That explosive encounter wasn’t there from the beginning, and when it occurred to me, it completely changed the direction of the story,” he says, explaining that he planned to focus more on Elsa but that enlarging Monica’s role changed the ending of the film. “It was a shift that I enjoyed very much.”

When Monica unleashes a barrage of questions and criticism at Raul, that was essentially Almodóvar talking to himself. “I was myself in front of Monica,” he says. “I didn’t want to do a portrait of a self-complacent director, because that director represents me. And I wanted to question my work, which I do through Monica’s character. There’s something liberating and healthy in self-criticism. I wanted to question my own process. I also found it quite funny and entertaining to do.”

Being self-aware of himself as a writer means he has become “less satisfied with what I’m writing.” And that’s one other way Almodóvar differentiates himself from Raúl. Like his character, he has been successful for decades: he broke out 40 years ago with stylized, often gaudy, films such as “Matador,” “Law of Desire,” “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” and “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” His work grew more realistic with 1999’s Oscar-winning “All About My Mother” and 2002’s Oscar-winning “Talk to Her,” but he has continued experimenting with style and form all along.

When Raul and Monica are arguing, he says that even if his latest project is just a minor film, people were always grateful for a minor film of Bergman or Fellini’s; it’s both egotistical and self-doubting at the same time. But Almodóvar says he could never think he was making a minor film, even as he ages.

“I’m absolutely more ambitious than ever,” he says. “With experience, I know more about how to write, and I am more clear with my material. I was passionate about making movies at the beginning, but now I focus more on my movies and my passion is bigger than ever before. I’m more demanding of myself and my time now, which is crazy.”