Comatose Women in The Forest: Hable con ella / Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)

This post is a reworked version of a twenty-minute paper I gave at a conference (‘Bitch, Witch, Whore: Representations of Women in Word and Image’) at Newcastle University in 2006.

Warning: contains spoilers.

   When I was reading about Talk to Her I came across a self-interview (on his website) (2002a) where Almodóvar made reference to Leonor Watling as having been marvellous as Alicia, ‘that sleeping beauty’ (lower case), and that set me to thinking about literary references within the film. The film concerns two ‘couples’ –the first made up of a nurse (Benigno –Javier Cámara) and his patient (Alicia –Leonor Watling), and the second of a journalist (Marco –Dario Grandinetti) and his bullfighting girlfriend (Lydia –Rosario Flores). When Lydia ends up comatose as the result of a bullfight she is placed in the same hospital as Alicia and that is how the two men come to meet each other. Talk to Her is a film concerned with the telling of tales; the audience are rarely shown ‘events’ firsthand, as characters are engaged in a series of flashbacks and a ‘re-telling’ of events. In a departure for Almodóvar, who usually draws his visual and narrative references from the cinema, this film is a tapestry of literary allusions ranging from The Night of the Hunter to Romeo and Juliet to The Hours, with the result that Talk to Her itself can be read in terms of a modern day fairytale. The upbeat ending is also in keeping with Bruno Bettelheim’s reading of the fairy story as being ‘optimistic, no matter how terrifyingly serious some features of the story may be’ (1976: 37).

   While the film focuses on the two male protagonists (Benigno and Marco), this [post] will examine the woman with whom they both interact, Alicia. She is one of a series of comatose or silent women in the narrative, and is cared for in a clinic called ‘El Bosque’, or ‘The Forest’. Alicia is at the epicentre, although not always the subject, of a series of references to archetypal literary heroines such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Alice (in Wonderland). This [post] will argue that the combination of literary references and Almodóvar’s reputation as a ‘woman’s director’ means that there is more to the representation of the film’s women, who are comatose, voiceless, and lacking control over their own bodies, than is apparent at first glance. 

La ley del deseo / Law of Desire (Pedro Almodóvar, 1987)

Eusebio Poncela and Antonio Banderas

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Carmen Maura, Eusebio Poncela, Manuela Velasco.

Synopsis: A stalker (Banderas) enters the lives of director Pablo (Poncela) and his sister (formerly brother) Tina (Maura) with tragic consequences –a tale of love and obsession.

This is the first of Almodóvar’s films to be produced by the production company (El Deseo) that he founded with his brother Agustín, and therefore the first of his productions where he had full control over the project. In many ways it is a flipside to his previous film, Matador, insofar as both explore the nature of desire: in Matador desire was centred on sex (and murder) and in Law of Desire the focus is love (in many different guises). Nonetheless desire is shown to be just as obsessive (and dangerous) as in the earlier film as what Pablo (Poncela) views as a casual relationship is seen as rather more by Antonio (Banderas), whose ‘love’ is in turn both obsessive and extremely possessive. Although not without its humorous moments, it is a dark film. That said, I think we are given enough reason to hope that the family unit made up of Pablo, Tina (Maura) and Ada (Velasco) is strong enough to survive the (moving) finale. Maura’s performance is magnificent and she richly deserved the awards that came her way.

Matador (Pedro Almodóvar, 1985)

Assumpta Serna and Nacho Martínez

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar and Jesús Ferrero

Cast: Assumpta Serna, Nacho Martínez, Antonio Banderas, Carmen Maura, Eusebio Poncela, Eva Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Julieta Serrano.

Synopsis: Bullfighting, sex, and death. Sometimes all at once.

This is a bit of an odd one -and Almodóvar admits that he can understand why (to the viewer) the themes (death and destiny) may appear more important than the story (Strauss 2006: 53). The two most memorable scenes (at least, the ones that I remembered ten years after seeing the film for the first time) are the beginning and ending. In the first, we hear the retired bullfighter, Diego (Martínez), describing the perfect kill (in the bullring) to a class of students while we see (meanwhile) María (Serna) killing her lover by the method being described. The closing sequence brings together the same themes (and characters) in an elaborate 'death-as-the-ultimate-orgasm' finale. 

¡Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? / What Have I Done to Deserve This? (Pedro Almodóvar, 1984)

Verónica Forqué and Carmen Maura

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Carmen Maura, Chus Lampreave, Verónica Forqué, Kiti Manver, Angel de Andrés López.

Synopsis: Gloria (Maura) is a prescription drug-addicted working mother struggling to make ends meet for her family.

'Almodóvar-does-social-realism' but with mordant black humour, children being sold to paedophile dentists to cover the bill, the Hitler diaries, death by hambone, and a little girl with telekinesis. Darkly funny and probably the first of Almodóvar’s films to show what Maura is really capable of.

Entre tinieblas / Dark Habits (Pedro Almodóvar, 1983)

Chus Lampreave, Carmen Maura and Marisa Paredes

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Julieta Serrano, Cristina Pascual, Marisa Paredes, Carmen Maura, Chus Lampreave

Synopsis: After her boyfriend's death-by-overdose, singer Yolanda Bel (Pascual) takes refuge from the police in the convent of the Humiliated Redeemers, run by a Mother Superior (Serrano) who is addicted to bolero music, heroin, and young women. 

My favourite of Almodóvar's early films by a long way. It represents a massive jump forward stylistically (it was the first of his films to have something approaching a normal budget) -everything in the mise-en-scène, from the framing to the colours to the small details in the sets, contains the kernel of what would become a recognisably 'Almodóvarian' style. In the introduction on the UK DVD, José Arroyo argues that this film is an anchor to the rest of Almodóvar's work and it is difficult to disagree. It's not just a matter of a recognisable visual style, or the beginning of what would become a kind of 'repertory company' for him (although it's wonderful to see them all together), or the first time that he uses bolero music to drive the emotion of a scene (side effect of doing an Almodóvarthon: the amount of bolero music on my ipod rises dramatically). It's something to do with the tone. He creates a melodrama (in certain sequences the combination of sound and image recalls the work of Douglas Sirk) with the attendant highs and lows of emotion: this is a tragedy, but it is often also exhilarating. 

If you haven't seen it, I really can't recommend it enough.

Laberinto de pasiones / Labyrinth of Passion (Pedro Almodóvar, 1982)

Imanol Arias and Fanny McNamara

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Cecilia Roth, Imanol Arias, Antonio Banderas, Marta Fernández-Muro, Helga Liné

Synopsis: Heirs to fallen Arab empires, nymphomaniacs, terrorists who track people through sense of smell, test-tube babies, incest, and squabbling band members.

Sexilia (Roth) and Riza Niro (Arias) are ostensibly the couple at the centre of the film, but the plot is a bit of a mess -there are simply too many characters and too much going on. Highlights: Imanol Arias joining a band and having a blast on stage; and a baby-faced Banderas as a gay terrorist who tracks people through his powerful sense of smell.

Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón / Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls on the heap (Pedro Almodóvar, 1980)

Alaska, Eva Siva and Carmen Maura

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Carmen Maura, Alaska, Eva Siva, Félix Rotaeta

Synopsis: When Pepi (Maura) is raped by a policeman (Rotaeta) she vows revenge -she ropes in her rock star friend Bom (Alaska) to help compromise (and liberate) the policeman's seemingly docile wife, Luci (Siva). 

This is not one of my favourite Almodóvar films, but despite its crudity (in form and content) it nonetheless has moments of infectious fun. Stylistically there is little to connect this to the director's later work, but his sense of humour (a combination of the outrageous and the mundane) is in evidence, and what would become the recurring theme of female friendship and solidarity is also apparent in the relationship between Luci and Bom.

Almodóvar Month begins…

So August has arrived, the countdown to the UK release (on the 26th) of La piel que habito / The Skin I Live In starts, and it’s Almodóvar Month here at Nobody Knows Anybody.

I haven’t managed to do quite what I wanted (in a previous post I said that I hoped to write about my ten favourite Almodóvar films), but I think I’ll actually manage to say something (however short) about all seventeen films and will write something about the eighteenth once I get to see it.

Here’s what will be appearing on the blog throughout August:

• I’ve written a paragraph on each of the films and those will be posted up in chronological order with basic credits and a synopsis.
• There will be an Almodóvar ‘book list’ in the style of the Spanish cinema ones I have posted previously.
• There will be a series of longer posts looking at specific films –including High Heels, Live Flesh, Talk to Her, and Volver. These won't be going up in chronological order because I'm still writing the High Heels one.
• There may also be some other things –for example, I’d quite like to write something about his film posters, but it depends on how much time I have.

Anyway, hopefully there’ll be something for everyone (providing they like the films), and please feel free to chip in via the comments section with your thoughts about the various films –have I underestimated one? Or over-praised another? 

Agnosia (Eugenio Mira, 2010)

Director: Eugenio Mira

Screenwriter: Antonio Trashorras

Cast: Bárbara Goenaga, Eduardo Noriega, Félix Gómez, Martina Gedeck, Sergi Mateu, Jack Taylor

Trailer: short version (haven’t been able to find the subtitled full-length version) 

Availability: available to buy and rent in the UK.

Synopsis: Barcelona, 1899. Joana (Bárbara Goenaga) suffers from agnosia, a neuropsychological condition that affects her perception. Interested parties suspect that she is the only person who knows an industrial secret relating to her father’s business, and so a conspiracy evolves with the aim of obtaining the secret by deception. Two men, Carles (Eduardo Noriega), her fiancé, and Vicent (Félix Gómez), a servant, are her only form of protection. But can she trust them? And can she trust her own senses?

agnosia, n.

A condition in which people can see, but cannot recognise or interpret, visual stimuli; loss of perceptive power; loss of the power to recognise people or things seen.

Note: contains minor spoilers (although nothing that you couldn’t guess from the trailer).

More articles added to the Spanish cinema reading list

All of these articles come from issue 39 of Archivos de la filmoteca, the search for a copy of which became something of an unresolved Holy Grail-type quest during my PhD –the articles in this specific issue are repeatedly referenced in books and articles on Spanish cinema of the 1990s but it is really difficult to track down. I found this copy a few months ago through Abe Books but only bought it last month after deciding that my quest would not be complete until I actually had a copy (I’d been dithering because I no longer ‘need’ it). These are just the articles that look at some general issues in Spanish cinema of the period (although taking specific films as examples) –there are others in the issue that take specific films or filmmakers as the basis for the article, but I’m not adding those at the moment because I will eventually do a filmmaker / specific film list. The articles listed below have been added to Books on Spanish cinema, Parts One and Two. 

Benet, V.J. (2001) –‘El malestar del entretenimiento’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.40-53.

[Taken from the official abstract] This article looks at various film adaptations of Spanish novels, specifically those of Ray Loriga and José Ángel Mañas. The analysis examines the values and symbols reflected in these films, which differ significantly from films made during the Spanish transition to democracy. The article situates the relationship between these films and their literary sources within an economic perspective, taking leisure and entertainment as key cultural concepts.

Gámez Fuentes, M.J. (2001) –‘No todo sobre las madres: cine español y género de los noventa’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.68-85.

[Taken from the official abstract] This paper analyses the various images of motherhood through their configuration in ‘90s films such as El pájaro de la felicidad (1993), Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (1995), Solas (1999) and Todo sobre mi madre (1999). The different figures are considered as cultural products which articulate tensions contextualized at a particular historical moment: the consolidation of democracy in Spain. Through a detailed study of the maternal, such issues as job access, geographical origin and sexual identity are discussed within the framework of the private and public negotiations women are to be faced with in the new welfare state. The legacy of the dictatorial past is, undoubtedly, a question that also permeates the construction of female narratives -unfolded here in personal and historical complexity.

Quintana, Á. (2001) –‘El cine como realidad y el mundo como representación: algunos síntomas de los noventa’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.8-25.

[Taken from the official abstract] In contrast to traditional discussions of film and history, the author takes the concept of historicity to examine the relationship between thought, culture, and art at a specific moment in the history of cinema. As point of departure, the article takes the commonly cited crisis of reality in Spanish cinema of the 1990s, in particular three significant cultural phenomena: the identity crisis, excessive images of violence, and the transformation of the world into a gigantic Platonic cave. These phenomena are observed in the various models of Spanish film of the 1990s, where a new generation of filmmakers aim to situate their films within the cultural logic of postmodernity. The author affirms that representative figures in Spanish film are a symptom of the global crisis of the real that is affecting the world, dominated by a loss of faith in the media and the creation of new spatial and temporal dimensions in a virtual sphere.