|
The Dalínian "prolonged orgasm" is Pedro Almodóvar's format and tenor, from onanistic opening to climactic consummation. The famous torero (Nacho Martínez) has been forced into retirement after getting gored in the arena, now he jerks off to misogynistic thrillers (reds fill his TV screen, courtesy of Mario Bava and Jesús Franco) and teaches "the art of killing, the art of dying" to young pupils. His most eager student is a virginal clairvoyant (Antonio Banderas) whose mother (Julieta Serrano) wears Opus Dei garter belts and blesses the flan at dinner. The lad attempts to rape the supermodel next door (Eva Cobos) to prove his machismo, fumbling that he confesses to the murders whose vibrations he's been picking up during dizzy spells. The maestro meanwhile is more interested in his defense attorney (Assumpta Serna), whose praying-mantis boudoir manners make her his ideal Liebestod partner. L'amour et la mort, "part of the game." Oshima's "corrida of love" is literalized for Almodóvar's own study of unchained desire, his Spain is a garden lush with roses and poisoned mushrooms and buried corpses. (Another vision posits the country as a fashion show divided "between the envious and the intolerant," where the auteur turns up as an outré couturier who incorporates a junkie's puke into his designs.) Volatile extravagance reigns—if a character confronts her lover, she must do so in a flowing, shoulderless gown and tear-stained makeup. Vertigo and eclipse, hairpin-dagger and loaded gun. Ahead of Histoire(s) du Cinéma, the bloodied embrace of Vidor's Duel in the Sun in flickering, magnified celluloid. It all ends on the matador's spread cape for these "irrational creatures slave to their instincts," contemplated with delirium and punished with happiness. With Eusebio Poncela, Carmen Maura, Chus Lampreave, and Bibi Andersen.
--- Fernando F. Croce |