High Heels

I knew this one would be an uncharacteristically straight drama going in, but I was surprised by the trite evolution of the story, ending in a twist I swear I’ve seen five or six times already. That aside, it is still a compelling story of maternal sacrifice and filial loyalty, disguised for years by human selfishness and pride, and brought to the fore again only by — what else? — lust, murder, and mayhem. (Even so, he did this more satisfyingly in Volver.) It is not without its Almodovar flourishes, but on the whole it is pretty serious, brought to life by performances from a couple fabulous Almo ladies.

Kika

Ehh, another sort of lame one. Somehow he just loses me between Women on the Verge and Flower of My Secret. Anyway, I usually adore his shifting genre play, but the dramatic and permanent 180 at the halfway mark from outrageous sex farce to dead-serious murder mystery didn’t work. By sex farce I suppose I really mean an hour-long fuck-fest, leaving little room for story development or humor (I think the intention was to leave the viewer saying ‘He can even make rape funny!,’ which he may have done in Pepi et al, but not here; I don’t think I laughed once in the whole film). I mean, rape, incest, murder… I expect these things in Almodovar (and love them: in Almodovar). But I also expect them to be more entertainingly and cunningly constructed.

Aha, one IMDb reviewer put it perfectly, and more succinctly: “That is where Kika fails: It is full of content but lacking delivery.” Yep. And that’s usually what he does so well, fusing the two!

¡Átame!

He’s doing his regular Almo thing here, and the point isn’t lost on me: heterosexual romance is no less crazy than the other less mainstream configurations he explored throughout the 80s… and to anyone who’s come this far with Almo, this film is thematically of a piece with everything that came before. It’s just not… as good a film. Anyway, if its subject matter is horrifying to me in any way it’s this: in several specific moments and in its overall theme, this has got to be an homage to Minnie and Moskowitz, and it has tainted one of the great loves of my cinematic life! Wow, M&M was a revelation to me on first viewing, forcing me to reconsider my own judgmental nature, to decide someone would really have to be as annoying and persistent as Seymour Moskowitz to force the Minnie in me into love. And here Banderas is just an exaggeration of that, literally tying his Minnie up until she caves in… Yes, it’s so much more twisted than I ever would admit it was, so thank you for that, Pedro. After all that I’ve managed not to say a single thing about the film, because it actually gave me very little in comparison to his others, so as much as anything I suppose that’s why I say it’s just not as good…

Seduced & Abandoned

Germi’s follow-up to Divorce, Italian Style is really every bit as hilarious, scathing, and filled to the brim with a dazzling, chaotic variety of techniques. No one and nothing in Sicilian society is safe from his wrath — which maintains a loving attitude toward its subjects, without becoming condescending or indulgent. And one laughs uproariously until he stops the ride abruptly and lets sink in the depressing reality (if indeed it falls short of outright horror) of the laws, customs and gender roles he has been lampooning. Brilliant.

Bad Education

Up front, so no one gets the wrong idea: this is an exceptionally good movie. But I feel about it just what I thought I’d feel about his four or five most recent films (the transcendent emotional experience that was All About My Mother surprised me): they’re perfect; I admire them; I cannot love them. Pedro spent ten years putting this film together, and somehow it shows in the final product. It’s a complicated, carefully constructed, perfectly realized narrative. It is impressive how naturally he weaves threads of reality, fiction and memory, and achieves as many as five distinct, shifting characters in one person. But it’s coldly impressive, because somehow you see the gears turning. It feels practiced. It’s too precise. I do prefer his earlier films: wilder, less glossy, with spiralling narratives that nearly lose all sense until he finally reigns his threads in with a brilliant conclusion. Bad Education is perfect — and that may be its flaw.

The Promise

More horrors! If this film has anything serious to say, it’s a hysterical invective against Catholicism and men, and haven’t Spaniards already done these things to death, more playfully, more subtly? We’re literally conflating men with Satan here in this absurd tale of a slightly crazy woman who achieves liberation in a roundabout way and becomes the Patron Saint of Oppressed Women (you think I’m joking) by killing off bastards of men (ie, every man). Awful!

Ay, Carmela!

Happily, I did watch one very good film last night, though it’s hard to think who I might recommend this to. Joining the likes of To Be or Not to Be, The Last Metro, and hell, even Mrs Henderson Presents, it is clear that I like my war films best as framed within the theatrical world. Plenty of light comedy, dance numbers, and sensitivity (stopping just short of sentimentality), I actually love this sort of thing, against my better judgment.

Between Heaven & Earth

Fetuses are omniscient and — because of world hunger, genocide, and humans testing the limits of their scientific power — they decide to stop being born. It is up to one woman to convince the race of fetuses that living is worthwhile! Yes, this is exactly as stupid as it sounds. Actually, it sounds like a premise ripe for a DeVito/Schwarzenegger comedy. Unfortunately, it is a dead-serious apologetic for the Human Condition.

How to Be a Woman and Not Die in the Attempt

Humorless, regressive thing about a woman who has it all but can’t get her husband home for dinner on time. Steals liberally from great post-feminist (I hate that term, but here it applies) comedies like Nine to Five and Women on the Verge which succeed in creating loopy, insecure heroines who remain independent and true to themselves. This is the sort of film that offends me (as opposed to Pepi et al) — and as I was actually disappointed in Diane Keaton for doing a role like hers in Because I Said So, I cannot countenance Carmen in this. “I’m fat and old.” Shut up. Some of these ladies stand for something and I can’t bear watching a slim knockoff of an Almodovar Loca descend this far.

Pepi, Luci, Bom

By far Pedro’s funniest, in terms of actual outbursts of laughter if not appreciably sophisticated comedy. No doubt about it, the humor is puerile and the film is uncinematic, but the unique viewpoint of an incipient artist is absolutely on display here in, of course, a self-funded first venture. I really wish Ponte panties existed…