With ‘The Room Next Door,’ DP Eduard Grau Shot an Homage to Pedro Almodóvar Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

As a young man in Spain, cinematographer Eduard Grau grew up worshiping the films of Pedro Almodóvar — so when Almodóvar’s producers called Grau to let him know the director was interested in having him shoot his latest feature, his reaction was one of both excitement and terror. “It was very scary,” Grau told IndieWire. “Not only was he one of my heroes, but you are stepping into the shoes of some very legendary DPs who he has worked with before.”

Grau needn’t have worried — his vibrant, gorgeous work on “The Room Next Door,” Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, ranks with the best of cinematographers like José Luis Alcaine and Ángel Luis Fernández. Although the storyline, adapted from the novel “What Are You Going Through” by Sigrid Nunez, is a somber one — Julianne Moore moves in with her friend Tilda Swinton so she can be there when Swinton takes a euthanasia pill — Grau’s beautiful lighting and vivid color palette keep the film from ever becoming depressing.

To the contrary, “The Room Next Door” is a movie filled with life and an infectious love of filmmaking. Although Almodóvar is a cinephile who had many discussions with Grau about other movies and paintings (the film is filled with allusions to everything from Buster Keaton to John Huston’s “The Dead”), Grau says that for him, the primary influence was Almodóvar himself. “I wanted to be as loyal and honest to his filmography as I could,” Grau said. “I realized that the best way to approach it was to immerse myself in Pedro’s filmography and watch every single movie he’s ever done.”

Grau took notes on each of Almodóvar’s films and aspired to make a movie that would stand alongside them — essentially, he found himself shooting an homage to Pedro Almodóvar, directed by Almodóvar himself. One thing he noticed about Almodóvar’s work was the careful attention paid to actresses, a practice he emulated when shooting Moore and Swinton. The portraiture in “The Room Next Door” is exquisite, and it comes from a conversation Grau had with Almodóvar early on in prep.

“He said ‘I don’t want you to light normally, I want you to light so that the light comes from inside the characters,'” Grau said. Initially, Grau, who was intimidated by this first conversation with one of his idols, was confused and nervous, but eventually, he understood what Almodóvar was getting at. “His understanding of cinema comes from seeing the human face as a landscape. The actresses are at the center of the frame, and everything else is around these characters who he loves so much. What he’s hoping is that the warmth he feels for them will come out in the light.”

Grau found that his job was largely translating Almodóvar’s poetic declarations into technical terms, as the director was not interested in discussing things on a practical level. “He doesn’t like to talk extensively about cinematography,” Grau said. “The main concept was that he didn’t want it to be too dark, he wanted it full of life. He wants things to breathe and be full of color and humanity.” Grau quickly realized that the bold colors in Almodóvar’s movies are no accident, and that color is one area in which the director refuses to compromise.

“It’s a very serious subject, you cannot touch Pedro’s colors,” Grau said. “When they were grading the movie, Pedro was not happy about the red on a door. It didn’t look like the red he remembered. And he was so pissed off that he said, ‘You know what? Bring me the door. I want to see the door and compare it to this.’ He knows his colors, and he chooses them very carefully — you don’t fuck around with Pedro’s reds, yellows, and blues.”

Grau was surprised every day on the set, not just by Almodóvar’s visual choices but his way of working — as someone who hates getting up early, he would start his shooting days later than usual, and he also shot the movie in continuity. For Grau, shooting the story in chronological order meant that the movie reflected his own gradually growing comfort with Almodóvar’s process.

“The stakes of the movie grow and grow, and I felt I was in the same process of growing,” Grau said, adding that one of the great pleasures of shooting “The Room Next Door” was simply seeing the filmmaking family that Almodóvar has built around him over the course of decades. “Everyone knows each other so well, and there’s such a bond. It was very beautiful to be a part of that.”

“The Room Next Door” is in select theaters now.