Merely seconds before Pride Month once again drifts away into the sunset and clouds of popper smoke, Pedro Almodóvar has arrived with a gift. No, it wasn’t physical — it was more. In dialogue with IndieWire, the director reminisced on the 2005 queer Western Oscar winner Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger as sexy cowboys. Basically, according to Almodóvar, the film wasn’t horny enough. “The relation between these two guys is animalistic,†Almodóvar told the site. “It was a physical relationship. The punch of the movie comes when they have to separate, and Heath Ledger discovers that he can’t think about leaving. That’s a strong discovery. But until that moment, it is animalistic, and for me it was impossible to have that in the movie because it was a Hollywood movie. You could not have these two guys fucking all the time.â€
Now, Almodóvar is righting wrongs with his own Western, Strange Way of Life, starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. “It could be like my answer to Brokeback Mountain,†Almodóvar said. Despite the “what-if†doggy-style scene we never got, things actually worked out for the best: If Jake Gyllenhaal realized he was gay in 2005, then “All Too Well (10-Minute Version)†might not exist.