‘Strange Way of Life’: Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal are Old West Lovers in Pedro Almodóvar’s Smoldering Short 

Alci Rengifo

Even established directors sometimes return to short films to exercise new interests or try out an idea that could later grow into a larger concept. You can feel Pedro Almodóvar indulging in the challenge of trying something new to him, in a genre familiar to all, with “Strange Way of Life.” It’s the latest short film from the great Spanish director, running at only a little over 30 minutes. During those days of lockdowns amid the pandemic, he released a short Jean Cocteau adaptation, “The Human Voice,” starring Tilda Swinton in a mad dash of silky melodrama. Almodóvar now returns to the form with what is essentially his first Western. Fittingly, it’s subversive of the genre by acknowledging its standard features, but now infused with the lust and gay identity that form such a key part of Almodóvar’s work.

Opening with landscapes worthy of John Ford, the story begins with Silva (Pedro Pascal) riding into a desert town. It has been 25 years since he last saw Sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke), who was also his lover. The two men sit down, talk and soon end up in bed together. But after an intense reunion, it becomes clear that this is not a case of lovers trying to rekindle a romance. Silva’s real reason for coming to see Jake is because the latter has put out a warrant on Joe (George Steane), Silva’s son. Jake is now presented with the option of either giving in to the potential of happiness with Silva, or carrying out his duties as a lawman. The ensuing standoff between both men begins as a debate of wills, but can easily escalate into gunplay. 

As a short, “Strange Way of Life” feels like a good, compact serving of Almodóvar’s signature flourishes. The director has been vocal about this being a response to films such as “Brokeback Mountain,” the groundbreaking 2005 Western about two cowboys falling in love in 1960s America. But that was about men in the 20th century, away from the frontier world Almodóvar is playing with. “Strange Way of Life” features the director’s taste for steamy conversations that build into personal revelations, while still nodding at classics with a cheerfully distorting eye. There’s a great flashback to Jake and Silva’s younger days as gunslingers, in a scene modeled after a moment in Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” where the movie’s outlaws cavort with Mexican women while shooting open wine barrels. In Almodóvar’s take, the women are put aside while the cowboys begin intensely making out awash in the wine. It’s a fantastic moment where Almodóvar’s voice combines with classic American iconography.

In the same tradition of great directors like Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese, Almodóvar has a tight group of collaborators who return to work with him in any format. Cinematographer José Luis Alcaine, who has given the director’s work those great melodramatic colors in films like “The Skin I Live In” and “Volver,” holds back to capture the dry ruggedness of a western terrain. Composer Alberto Iglesias plays around with the sweeping sounds we associate with composers such as Ennio Morricone. None of it is imitation but artists getting to play around in a different genre. Though, “Strange Way of Life” still continues the narrative growth in Almodóvar’s recent output, as he still explores high-octane desire but with more introspection. His last two features, “Pain and Glory” and “Parallel Mothers,” were masterful works of biography and Spain’s reckonings with the legacy of its civil war. “The Human Voice” felt like a detour back into his feverish melodramas, but “Strange Way of Life” is a more reflective mini-thriller.

There is ache in this short and the eternal, haunting question of what ifs that linger over those relationships in our lives that couldn’t survive. Jake’s determination to capture the young Joe embodies the pull between what we desire and what our station in life demands. Viewers may find such denser themes difficult to take in if they approach this short expecting a typical Western. Almodóvar has never been a typical director and watching him rework this genre, with intense performances from Hawke and Pascal, who are masculine and vulnerable at the same time, is a great lesson in the very art of directing. Bullets are indeed let loose and hard men ride into stunning horizons, but Almodóvar uses such blasts of pure Americana to explore universal human drives. It’s a small serving from a director we always hope returns with more soon.

“Strange Way of Life” releases Oct. 6 in select theaters.