Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke star in “Strange Way of Life”, a gay western that will have its premiere at Cannes Film Festival. The news were shared by the film’s director, Pedro Almodóvar, while on an appearance on Dua Lipa’s “At Your Service” podcast.
Per EFE, the film follows "a rancher named Silva who crosses the desert that separates him from the town of Bitter Creek on horseback. His purpose is to visit Sheriff Jake, with whom 25 years earlier he worked as a hired gunman. The encounter takes an unexpected turn when Silva confesses that the reason for his trip is not just the memory of their old friendship.” The film was shot in Almeria, Spain.
When speaking about the film with Dua Lipa, Almodóvar talked about the western genre and how he used it to explore queerness and masculinity. “It’s about masculinity in a deep sense, because the Western is a male genre,” he said. “What I can tell you about the film is that it has a lot of the elements of the Western — it has the gunslinger, it has the ranch, it has the sheriff — but what it has that most Westerns don’t have is the kind of dialogue that I don’t think a Western film has ever captured between two men. And now I think I’m telling you a little bit too much.”
The film was shot in English, with the title inspired by a fado, which is a style of Portuguese song, written and interpreted by Amália Rodrigues.
Almodóvar has a long history with Cannes. The director has won two awards for his films “All About My Mother” and “Volver,” winning Best Director and Best Screenplay, respectively.
