Lauren JonesPedro Almod¢var films defy classification. Romance, crime, comedy, parody and kitsch: his films contain all these genres yet belong to none. They are profoundly artistic, reflecting gender and religion in modern, urban Spain. Yet they prioritize storytelling, remaining entertaining and accessible.
Almod¢var achieved mainstream American recognition with the 1999 Academy Award winner, “Todo sobre mi madre” (“All About My Mother”). Starting Sept. 15, the Tivoli Theater hosts a festival of Almod¢var films, offering you a chance to discover his past work on the big screen before his new film, “Volver,” debuts.
An autodidact, Almod¢var was born in rural La Mancha and lived in the underground social currents of Madrid during the oppression of the Franco regime. Amidst this transgressive scene of drugs, music and sex, he began making Super 8 movies. Influenced particularly by American comedies and the French New Wave, his work gained respect and he soon produced successful films that won international acclaim.
The common thread in Almod¢var’s films is desire. He employs a host of fascinations from his life and diverse techniques from genre to form a complex story that gives flesh to the abstract. To Almod¢var, desire is an emotional necessity, “something that’s both very hard and very human. [.] One of the tragedies of the human condition” is that, “in the interplay of desires, it’s rare that two desires meet and correspond.”
Remarkably, his films attain deep significance without any air of intellectual superiority or artifice. Never aspiring for a precise social commentary, he shows his audience raw and frequently disturbing facets of humanity and invites viewers to form their own conclusions.
This rawness has often led to controversy and the occasional labeling of his films as incendiary and exploitative. Given the influence of John Waters and Russ Meyer on his work, this is understandable, but unfair and inaccurate. His films do deviate from the orthodox, particularly in the themes of homosexuality, transexuality, blasphemy and the powerful female. But, his non-judgmental use of complex personages makes provocative cinema that inspires honest discussion of realistic topics. It stimulates in a positive way.
Nonetheless, he has faced frequent “unofficial” moral censorship. In the U.S., the MPAA has slapped many of his films with the dreaded X (now NC-17) rating, due to abnormal sexuality.
“I’m considered a scandalous phenomenon, almost a danger to the American people,” said Almod¢var. “I always get the impression I’m laying bare their contradictions. Without wanting to, my sense of freedom brings out the lack of freedom in American cinema. And the absence of prejudice in my characters only serves to show the enormous prejudice extant in America.”
This brings up a good reason for seeing his films at the Tivoli, and not renting them from a local chain that edits their films to be “family friendly.” If you are particularly poor, most of his recent films are available to rent, and his older work is on video in Olin. I recommend “Entre tinieblas” (“Dark Habits”) and “¨Qu‚ he hecho yo para merecer esto?” (“What Have I Done to Deserve This?”) as excellent representatives of his earlier work.
“Matador” (1985-6)
4/5
Following the farce “Laberinto de pasiones,” the symbolic dark comedy “Entre tinieblas,” and the somber neo-realist “¨Qu‚ he hecho.?”, Almod¢var constructed a simple fable with characters drawn “straight out of myth and legend” to embody sexual desire and death.
Angel (Antonio Banderas) is an emotionally troubled pupil of Diego Montes (Nacho Mart¡nez), a former matador who now runs a bullfighting school. Repressed by his Âber-Catholic mother and craving the masculinity of his mentor, Angel tries to rape his neighbor, Eva (Eva Cobo).
Eva does not press charges against Diego, so Diego falsely confesses to four recent serial killings in his unresolved guilt and desire for atonement. An intense relationship develops between Diego and Angel’s defense attorney, Julia (Carmen Maura). Diego and Julia find they share an intense, secret passion.
“Matador” is an oddity in the Almod¢var opus in its blatant composition of story around a central theme, rather than vice versa. For that reason, it is among my least favorite of his films. As a fable, “Matador” lacks the subtlety found in his other films and instead is heavy handed in its personification of death and sex. The blur between masculinity and femininity in Diego, Julia and Angel is particularly well written, as is the contrast between Angel’s conservative mother and Eva’s open-minded mother (the always enjoyable Chus Lampreave).
“La Ley del deseo” (“Law of Desire”) (1986)
5/5
One of Almod¢var’s best films, “La Ley del deseo,” was originally difficult to finance after the moral controversy of “Matador” (bullfighting is sacred in Spain, and suggestions of the inherent sensuality in its violence broke a national taboo). The provocative themes found in his new script didn’t help. However, the project eventually found funding, and the result was the first film where Almod¢var enjoyed complete artistic independence.
Pablo (Eusebio Poncela) is a film director in love with Juan (Miguel Molina), but the desire isn’t reciprocated. Still yearning for Juan, Pablo discovers a pseudo-replacement in Antonio (Antonio Banderas), a virgin to homosexual experience who quickly becomes obsessively enamored with Pablo. The characters, including Pablo’s brother Tino (Carmen Maura) who had his sex changed to become his father’s lover, fall together into messy intrigue as each person’s desires come into conflict.
“La Ley del deseo” develops Almod¢var’s continuing theme of desire more fully than any other film and does so with amazingly captivating performances. As you may have noticed, he tends to use the same cast of actors in each movie. This produces a familiarity with the characters, no matter how absurd or unconventional they are. Highlights of this film include the haunting use of Jacques Brel’s “Ne me quitte pas” and Jean Cocteau’s “La voix humaine,” and Carmen Maura’s stunning performance. It is notable that the film has a “natural” woman (Maura) playing a man changed into a woman, and a man changed into a woman (Bibi Andersen), playing a ‘”natural” woman.
“Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios” (“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”) (1987)
3.5/5
This is unfortunately Almod¢var’s final film with Carmen Maura. (They split after personal complications.) She returns in this short film to reprise the character type she played in “¨Qu‚ he hecho.?”, a sleeping-pill addicted woman living an exhaustible existence defined through servitude for others. In this case, the film is outright comedy, and her life is defined by her relationship with her lover. Ivan, a film-dubbing artist breaks up with Pepa (Maura), his coworker and mistress. Worse, he delivers the break-up via the answering machine. Furious, Pepa tries to regain control of the relationship and force a confrontation with Ivan.
Trying to rent out her apartment that is now full of bad memories, Pepa shockingly discovers Ivan has a son named Carlos (Antonio Banderas), born by Lucia (Julieta Serrano), Ivan’s former lover. Carlos and his fianc‚e (Rossy de Palma) are interested in renting the apartment from Pepa and discover her relation to Ivan. Adding Pepa’s friend Candela (Maria Barranco), who just found out her boyfriend is a Shiite terrorist, a pair of cops, a homicidal Lucia and a blender full off barbiturate-spiked gazpacho, a nervous breakdown seems inevitable for poor Pepa.
“Mujeres al borde.” is the most standard comedy by Almod¢var, and it is an absolute pleasure. This was the first of his films to gain a semi-wide audience in the U.S., particularly with its appeal as an intelligent “chick flick.” Along with “Todo sobre mi madre,” this is the most accessible film in the retrospective for someone that is unfamiliar with his style.
“Todo sobre mi madre” (“All About My Mother”) (1999)
5/5
A pregnant nun, a grieving mother, an aging actress and the transvestite that connects them all make up the colorful cast of characters that populate Almod¢var’s “All About My Mother.” The film was the director’s breakthrough in the United States and garnered him an Academy Award for best foreign film.
Manuela (Cecilia Roth) is a single mother working as a nurse to support her son Esteban (Eloy Azor¡n) who dreams of becoming a writer. On the night of her son’s birthday, Manuela takes him to see his favorite actress, Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes), but he is killed in a tragic car accident while waiting to get the star’s autograph. Thus begins Manuela’s search for Esteban’s father that leads her to Barcelona. There, she discovers that her ex-husband, also named Esteban, has become a transvestite, and meets Sister Rosa (Penelope Cruz) who is carrying his unborn child. The two women form a friendship that culminates in a very unlikely family.
The film is shot in vibrant colors, leaving the screen saturated in blood reds, turquoise blues and neon yellows. This technique employed by Almod¢var perfectly captures the vibrancy of Barcelona as well as provide the chaotic backdrop to the events unfolding on screen. Ultimately, “All About My Mother” is about family: the secrets, the pain and the past that bonds them together.
“La mala educaci¢n” (“Bad Education”) (2004)
3/5
When life begins to imitate fiction, which one is more believable? “Bad Education” begins with a script delivered to the famous director, Enrique Goded (Fele Mart¡nez). Titled “The Visit,” the script details events known only to one other person: Enrique’s childhood friend, Ignacio (Nacho P‚rez). Their experiences in a 1960s Catholic school for boys include a forbidden love affair and torment under Father Manolo (Daniel Gim‚nez Cacho), the school principal.
Now in present-day Spain, Enrique must unravel the mystery of the man who claims to be Ignacio and whose changing guises include Zahara, a transvestite showgirl, and Juan, a struggling actor. When the final layer is peeled away from this carefully styled film noir, what is revealed is both startling and tragic, leaving the audience with more unanswered questions. With sudden shifts in time and location, the audience is continually questioning what is real and what is being acted out. For example, what the audience takes for a memory is actually a stage in which actors are playing out a crucial scene from “The Visit.”
With autobiographical elements woven into his most complex film, “Bad Education” is also Almod¢var’s homage to growing up in Franco-era Spain where sexuality – much less homosexuality – was a subject neither talked about nor displayed openly. The repercussions are at the heart of the movie, with each character paying the price for previous actions and crimes, never able to fully atone for the bad educations of the past.
* Quotations taken from: Strauss, Fr‚d‚ric, ed. (Yves BaignŠres, tr.) Almod¢var on Almod¢var. Faber and Faber. Boston. 1996.
Friday, Sept. 15-Monday, Sept. 18
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (R) 2:30 p.m. on Sat./Sun.; 7:10 p.m. all days
All About My Mother (R) 4:45 and 9:20 p.m. all days
Tuesday, Sept. 19-Thursday, Sept. 21
Talk to Her (R) 4:45 and 9:20 p.m. all days
The Flower of My Secret (R) 7:10 p.m. all days
Friday, Sept. 22-Monday, Sept. 25
Law of Desire (NC-17) 4:45 and 9:20 p.m. all days
Matador (NC-17) 2:30 p.m. on Sat./Sun.; 7:10 p.m. all days
Tuesday, Sept. 26-Thursday, Sept. 28
Live Flesh (R) 4:45 and 9:20 p.m. all days
Bad Education (NC-17) 7:10 p.m. all days