The Spanish director said he created two protagonists around the original work, one of whom was "very strong in the face of death and the other very afraid of death" and revealed that he transferred his own discomfort with death onto the latter. .

“When I see there’s a story to tell, I just keep writing,” he said. “I didn’t read any more books because once you decide on the story you want to tell, you have to stick to what the story tells you.”

The Room Next Door begins with Ingrid (Moore), a best-selling author with a passion for the subject of death, visiting her old friend Martha (Swinton), a veteran war correspondent, in the hospital. , has been undergoing cancer treatment. The single former colleagues, who lived in Manhattan, quickly rekindled their friendship, telling each other stories of the past decades and hanging out in the park chatting about long-dead artists like Dora Carrington and Virginia... Woolf, they both happened to die by suicide.

By the time Martha's health deteriorates, they have become fully integrated into each other's lives, leading to the unusual proposition at the heart of the film: Martha asks Ingrid to accompany her to a house with large windows in the woods and sleep there In the next room, waiting for the day her friend takes the pill and never wakes up.

Once Ingrid agrees, the film plays like a remake of director Ingmar Bergman's 1966 psychosexual masterpiece Persona, which follows the toxic relationship that develops between the actor and the nurse who cares for her at a seaside cottage. In Bergman's black-and-white thriller, the ailing actor becomes increasingly hostile to her caregiver's constant musings, while the connection between Almodovar's protagonists develops as Ingrid listens to Masha think about life. Become closer to death. During their final days in their sun-drenched home—Bergman’s blonde is filled with fear—the screenwriters found reassurance in their characters, both as dying women and as friends, and The memory of her friends will keep her alive.

"I was aware of Bergman because he's one of the (filmmakers) I really like. But as a director and as a person, I'm the antithesis of Bergman," Almodovar said of this As a Swedish director, Bergman was mentioned in the Spanish director's works, including the 1991 melodrama "Heels."

"That cruelty is part of Bergman's virtuosity - you can even see it expressed when he talks about himself - and I admire that. But I wanted the opposite," he said. "I wanted a movie about death, about two friends, but not a dark movie."

As Almodovar explains, his goal was to explore themes like assisted suicide and the afterlife in a film full of energy, color and light. He does, however, riff on some of the more haunting visual elements, such as overlapping faces and ghostly silhouettes, that Bergman used to depict the empathy between his Persona protagonists, in addition to the psychological In addition to their love, they are also engaged in a slightly more real relationship. intertwined.

In Almodovar's hands, these fantastical elements, along with a score by one of the director's long-time collaborators, Alberto Iglesias, develop a distinctly platonic relationship between women awaiting a rendezvous with death. of romance.

"For me, the story is ultimately a love story. But I wanted a love story without the body parts because I think body parts are always problematic," when asked about Ingrid and Masha's relationship 's romantic qualities and Nunez's reaction to the film, Almodóvar said. "I want a very strong and deep friendship because it's better and simpler than physical love. It's the best thing you can offer another person."

However, he does believe that in his latest film, "there's a feeling of two women falling in love," citing the tender glances the characters exchange, and the lingering kiss on the cheek, as reminiscent of Persona. a key scene in . "

“In the end, they loved each other — completely,” he said of Ingrid and Martha.

For decades, Almodovar defined Spanish cinema with sexually explicit films such as 1989's "Tie Me Up!" Time Me Down!,” which was reportedly rated NC-17. But in recent years, he has moved away from showing physical intimacy, focusing instead on expressions of love outside of physical contact—even when two between people who desperately desire each other, as in 2023's "Strange Ways to Live." He also turns his attention to less sexually charged taboos, in "Juliet," "Pain and Glory," "Parallel Mothers." and The Room Next Door explores aging, death, grief and reincarnation.

The 75-year-old director, a self-described atheist, half-jokingly attributes this new phase of his filmmaking career to becoming more "serious" over time and, more seriously, to when it comes to It involves understanding transcendent greatness. "There was something about death that I just didn't understand and I couldn't accept it," he said.

But his films are neither callous nor ignorant in their treatment of death, but offer a humanistic view of the intrinsic relationship between life and death. "The Room Next Door" is a hopeful, imperfect film, perhaps his most compassionate work to date, that explores not only what it means to be by someone's side at the end, but what a person has the right to do if they can. Decide when you will die. .

"When life can only bring you pain, I think we have that right. This movie is about that," Almodóvar said, describing Masha's choice to end her life as a "sign of vitality."

"As a human being, you have the right to live as freely as possible," he added. “You are the master of your life, but you are also the master of your death.”