Like all the best directors, Almodovar works out problems in life through his films. Pain and Glory remains his most personal -- and hence best -- film to date. Almodovar strips his convoluted storytelling (which conceals more than reveals) to the bare minimum, displaying his lifelong concerns and obsessions with unprecedented nakedness. Like Citizen Kane, the film is at heart about discovering memory, and the key to protagonist, a version of Almodovar, is found in childhood.