Starting as an experimental Super 8 filmmaker in the '70s, Pedro Almodóvar quickly became recognised as one of Spain's most original filmmakers. His distinctive and immediately recognisable aesthetic of sumptuous, disorienting, richness changed how both ideas of satire and of melodrama could be communicated on screen. His films use modernist techniques - but at their best, they feel like a roller coaster ride - dizzying in the extreme range of emotions they convey. At the same time, as his filmmaking evolved, Almodóvar's narrative concerns expanded, deepening his understanding of the human condition, and specifically of freedom and its limits, and of memory and its consolations.

James Miller explores the depth of philosophical and psychological meaning in the Almodóvar ouevre. More than beautiful, and sometimes, shocking displays of colour and energy, Almodóvar asks endless questions without answers about matters of the most profound human concern: the meaning of life, the value of love, the relationship of being and time.

James Miller is Professor of Politics and Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research in New York City, USA. Among his many books are Can Democracy Work? From Ancient Athens to Our World (2018); Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche (2011) and Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock'n'Roll (1999).