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Out of Diderot and Sirk (Thunder on the Hill), a most serene consideration of sin. Hard times at the Community of Humble Redeemers, La Marquesa's funding is no more, the prostitutes and junkies who used to seek refuge are sorely missed. Swathed in black and white and saddled with penitent monikers, the nuns enjoy their kinks: Bongo-slapping Sister Damned (Carmen Maura) cuddles a pet tiger while Sister Sewer Rat (Chus Lampreave) secretly pens saucy literature admired by Gabriel García Márquez. Acidhead murderess Sister Manure (Marisa Paredes) takes self-mortification quite seriously, prone to smashing glass and walking on shards. ("Not again! I cleaned the floor this morning...") The abbess (Julieta Serrano) keeps pictures of Monroe and Bardot and Welch in her study, "las grandes pecadoras de este siglo." When a singer on the run (Cristina Sánchez Pascual) enters with red dress under the trenchcoat, Mother Superior convinces her to stay by sharing her heroin supply. "May God bless that kind of hallucination." Pedro Almodóvar in the convent, a blasphemous irreverence cooled by melancholia—where Buñuel's priests are advertisers for the unnatural suppression of desire, here the padre (Manuel Zarzo) at his most immoral savors a smoke while extolling Cecil Beaton's fabulous My Fair Lady costumes. High camera angles, duets to Lucho Gatica, a missionary side theme. "The church has evolved in all aspects except that of images" (cp. Fellini's Roma), ornate robes in gold and silver and purple provide the answer. The love declared at the confessional blooms at the close, the one kept in the closet leads the painted bird to fly the coop. Changing times at the market ("Miraculous pies made from the body of Christ!"), end of the fiesta. The Catholic labyrinth of Bad Education marks a haunted return. With Mary Curillo, Lina Canalejas, Will More, Cecilia Roth, and Berta Riaza.
--- Fernando F. Croce |