Bad Education (2004)

Writer/director Pedro Almodóvar's dark, sexy Hitchcock homage is his best work since his Oscar-winning All About My Mother, and deepened by a sun-dappled sadness. Handsome, enigmatic Ángel (Gael García Bernal) arrives at the Spanish movie offices of director Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) and happily proclaims that he's actually Enrique's long-lost school chum Ignacio--an announcement that is both less than convincing and more than it seems. A novice actor, Ángel pitches a semi-autobiographical screenplay in which he's determined to star, a revenge-laden reflection of the doomed love he and Enrique shared as boys before a pedophile priest cruelly intervened. The script, and the lost days it recalls, carefully unfurls into a series of brooding movies-within-movies and memories-inside-memories, which allow the sensual, multiple-role-playing Bernal to give the performance of his young career--among other things, he makes a stunningly convincing drag queen--and Almodóvar the opportunity to movingly suggest that people will pay any price to ensure that their stories are told. --Steve Wiecking Amazon.com

a touching, complex story with great performances from the entire cast

A poignant, cinematically-breathtaking film with a plot so convoluted, I'm going to have to rewatch the movie just to see where all the storylines intersect and converge. Gael García Bernal is sexy, charming, and lethal in his layered performance of Ángel, Juan, and Zahara. This is my introduction to Pedro Almodovar and I am pleased to report that I'm intrigued enough to watch the rest of his filmography. August 28, 2008

Bravo!

That was perhaps one of the most well written, well directed foreign films I've seen in the past few years! There were a lot of graphic sex scenes but they were very tastefully directed. The writing and the plot were original and intriguing. Bravo, Pedro Almodóvar! May 18, 2008

Visually Striking and Audaciously Acted But Ultimately Hollow Inside

Pedro Almodóvar's individualistic filmmaking style is on full display in this florid 2004 melodrama, but oddly, the heart that propelled the wonderful Talk to Her (Hable con Ella) seems to be missing. What results is a rather disappointing addition to the otherwise humanistic Almodóvar canon, a classic case of style over substance. The convoluted plot begins in the present with an apparent flashback about an episode in the past, then presents that story as a film within the film, and finally the two parallel stories become a hybrid that seems to pay tribute to forties Hollywood film noir.

The focal character is Enrique, a young and successful director who is searching for inspiration for his next production. He receives a visit from an old school friend, Ignacio, who provides it with a short story he brings with him called "The Visit". Based on their childhood, it involves Ignacio being sexually abused by a priest at the school they attended together. Indeed, he permitted the abuse in order to get Enrique out of some trouble. Lurid melodrama, as only Almodóvar can serve up, ensues, and an imagined reunion occurs between the abusive priest and the two childhood friends and first-loves. Spinning off Enrique's film-set, the director deftly switches narrative voices to make the abuser the victim, and the moral ambiguity of the central characters becomes heightened. Despite the audacious creativity behind the change in perspective and some strong acting, the problem with this approach is that one ends up not feeling much sympathy for any character in the film.

In a dramatic turnabout from his comparatively stoic Ché Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries, Gael Garcia Bernal effectively goes for the audacious in playing Juan/Angel, the homme fatal and struggling, petulant actor, as well as the blonde, sultry Zahara, a transvestite and cabaret singer. But even his efforts are not enough to offset the endless layering of the stories and imagined histories that continue to redirect the story ad nauseum. It's too bad since the basic story feels like Almodóvar's most autobiographical film, moving as it does from a Catholic school in 1960s Spain to liberated 1980s Madrid, a period and setting with which the director is personally intimate. He also seems to be making a statement about recent scandals in the Catholic Church where they have willingly turned a blind eye to crimes of abuse against helpless children.

Ultimately, the movie is about his love of depicting erotic role-playing more than anything else and how reality and fiction merge. You will see traces of Hitchcock's Vertigo and Marnie and Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity in the labyrinthine of identities taken on by the characters. The film, nonetheless, falls short of these classics as Almodóvar takes on more than he is willing to commit emotionally leaving the viewer with a rather cold feeling at the end. Granted it has all of the director's omnipresent visual flair, including the striking opening titles and the Bernard Herrmann-like music (courtesy of Alberto Iglesias), this is a disappointment for all the talent involved. The 2005 DVD has quite a few extras starting with an informative and very engaging commentary track from Almodóvar. Two deleted scenes (without subtitles) are included, a total of five minutes, as well as a minute-long behind-the-scenes montage and footage from the red carpet at the AFI Film Festival. There is also an extensive photo gallery and several trailers for the film. March 28, 2008

a nonintellectual opine

I purchased this for two reasons, Almoldovar and Gael Garcia Bernal. It depicts the harsh reality of ignorance within religious insitutions. Almoldovar does this very well. I struggle with the movie only because it's just not a happy/go lucky day at the movies. Gael Garcia Bernal is very good in his part, but it's a young man who has been abused and thrown away by an institution he trusted. Just sad, but pretty much speaks to the modern disgusting role that the American Catholic church has played in the lives of young molestation victims. February 19, 2008

The Medium Kills the Message

Ignacio and Enrique have a boyish crush on each other and their feelings are discovered by the priest at their boarding school. Enrique is expelled and the boys don't see each other until almost twenty years pass. Ignacio (Gael García Bernal), who is a struggling actor in a fourth-rate troupe, brings a manuscript to Enrique (Fele Martínez).Enrique is a movie director in Madrid who is looking for his next project. The manuscript tells the story of the boys' friendship in school and what happened to Ignacio(he became a drag queen and a thief).
But it turns out that Ignacio is not Ignacio and that the movie we're seeing is really the movie that's being made and the priest who expells Enrique is also molesting Ignacio and. . . .

We have in this plot, the makings of a complex drama of identity and loss.
The movie falls far short of the promise of the plot. Almoldovar's lighting is depressingly flat and his cinematography one step up from industrial. The effect is to make the characters themselves flat and to rob the actors of their power of expression-the effect is a bit like puppet theatre but without the charm.

Almoldovar was at his best when the edge of witty dialogue cut through the dull conventions of his filmmaking and even provided a contrast to it. In this film, he's attempting to work with action and a multi-leveled plot and the style he uses works against him.

[...] January 22, 2008

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