Director Review: PEDRO ALMODOVAR

Pedro Almodovar is a master of dark comedy. His films are wrought with personal drama, human difficulty, addiction and self-destruction, but approach it so whimsically that no topic is overbearing. The dialogue between his characters reveals both his empathy for suffering and also his amusement at the circumstances that sometimes cause people to suffer. Visually most of his earlier films are have an unreal vibrancy. In later years he would ditch this to some degree, but he would also free up the camera to move about and play a more critical role in the scene. His movies are always beautiful, but in different ways.

I've seen four films by Pedro Almodovar. The first I watched was his first real breakthrough and critically acclaimed film WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. This is a highly stylized look at an actress, Pepa, dealing with a break up. Much of the humor comes from plotline twists and turns. I do feel although that some of the hilarity gets lost in the translation to some degree. It's hard for someone like myself, raised on and still mostly accustomed to Hollywood American film, to tell exactly when characters are being sarcastic, witty, or goofy. I want to watch this one again, because the parts that I was sure I was getting the intended mood, were brilliant. Aside from the vibrant color usage and some key visual symbols (a burning bed, an answering machine through a reflection) I would say that this movie is more about the story than painting beautiful frames. But I loved it.

Next I saw ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER. This is an incredibly sad, dramatic movie. A woman, Manuela, witnesses her son killed in a car crash, then learns through his journal that he felt his whole life like he was missing something from not knowing his father. Manuela decides to search for the father, a transvestite named Lola. In the meantime she become the personal assistant of the actress whose limo killed her son. A decade after WOMEN, this movie is heavy, but still maintains the same complicated story twists and witty lines as his earlier work. Less funny, and I enjoyed it less, but it might be a better movie.

After that I saw DARK HABITS. This is an earlier work and was suggested to me because I enjoyed WOMEN so much. This definitely has a lot of similarities, with a lot of funny banter and zany characters. A woman hides out at a convent after her friend dies of a drug overdose. This is no normal convent though. These nuns are nuts. Some take drugs. Some write strange pulp fiction novels. And they have a tiger. But all their dark habits can't stay hidden long when a new mother superior takes charge. Again not an excellent movie cinematographically, this is my favorite Almodovar because it's absolutely hilarious. And its religious implications of repression and self-destruction resound with me.

The most recent Almodovar film I've seen is his newest BROKEN EMBRACES. He's changed in this film from the film maker he was in the previous decades. This is a sharper movie cinematographically. Beautiful, dynamic shots (especially in bedroom scenes). Almodovar has traded in, by this point, the striking colors for a more realistic look, and he pulls it off very well. The central character, a writer who went blind a decade earlier, and his family begin to unveil secrets of the past after encountering an old, vengeful acquaintance. Themes of fatherhood, sexuality, honesty, and truth are studied through the stories told, but unfortunately it feels a bit rushed at parts and a little contrived. The numerous morals of the story start to trip over each other and at the end you feel a little muddled. Still a pretty good movie.

In closing, I want to see more Almodovar. That is all.