Rarely have modern movies felt this dangerous and horny and unusual, from its premise of a guilt-ridden (one might say pathologically Catholic) wannabe bullfighter who claims to have killed four people after committing to a sexual assault and the murder mystery that unfolds as the detective and his lawyer try to find out what really happened, to the Bullfighter Maestro (seriously, this and that one episode of Seinfeld are the only times it's ok to call someone that title) who finds a sort of kinky connection to the lawyer woman over a fascination with death, to the bullfighter's mother who seems like a Soap Opera character on steroids who practically wishes her son eternal damnation. It shouldn't all work, and it gets a bit unwieldy story-wise near the end, but it's kind of a Trash classic that all fits.
Even a seemingly simple scene where two characters happen upon a movie theater playing the 1946 Selznick production Duel in the Sun (as you do in Spain in the mid 1980s) and stand transfixed for a few minutes at the ending feels raw and charged somehow. This goes without saying the sex and murder scenes are explicit AF - and the opening of the film, where a character masturbates furiously to some of those terribly gory images that would give your grandmother a stroke, shows Almodovar knows hoe to set the tone just so - and even close-ups of male bulges feel unique.
But what makes this still so special and delightfully unhinged is what this filmmaker puts into it: vibrant often red color (for the bulls, duh), violence, rabidly intense sexual desire, repression, mania, and one of the only times (if only) I can think of in cinema where a rape scene becomes almost amusing in how pathetic it shows its would-be assaulter in the act (even the sudden rain midway through mocks him). And yet he is still working in the framework of a genre piece, a Whodunnit. Remarkable stuff that more or less holds up, which includes terrific Banderas and compelling Serna performances, and Martinez as uh Spanish Jeremy Irons(?)
Even a seemingly simple scene where two characters happen upon a movie theater playing the 1946 Selznick production Duel in the Sun (as you do in Spain in the mid 1980s) and stand transfixed for a few minutes at the ending feels raw and charged somehow. This goes without saying the sex and murder scenes are explicit AF - and the opening of the film, where a character masturbates furiously to some of those terribly gory images that would give your grandmother a stroke, shows Almodovar knows hoe to set the tone just so - and even close-ups of male bulges feel unique.
But what makes this still so special and delightfully unhinged is what this filmmaker puts into it: vibrant often red color (for the bulls, duh), violence, rabidly intense sexual desire, repression, mania, and one of the only times (if only) I can think of in cinema where a rape scene becomes almost amusing in how pathetic it shows its would-be assaulter in the act (even the sudden rain midway through mocks him). And yet he is still working in the framework of a genre piece, a Whodunnit. Remarkable stuff that more or less holds up, which includes terrific Banderas and compelling Serna performances, and Martinez as uh Spanish Jeremy Irons(?)