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Absurdist ebullience, slap-happy dysfunction, Pedro Almodóvar exploring the tone. Madrid is a cramped domestic high-rise surrounded by mysterious adventures, the heroine (Carmen Maura) strolls past a movie shoot in the city square to scrub the floors of a Kendo dojo, soon later she's beckoned into a shower stall for a quickie with one of the sword-thrusters. The loutish husband (Ángel de Andrés López) once forged Hitler's diaries, now he drives cabs while warbling Zarah Leander tunes. One teenage son (Juan Martínez) is already a seasoned smack pusher, the barely pubescent other (Miguel Ángel Herranz) is cheerfully adopted by a pederastic dentist, meanwhile the stingy abuela (Chus Lampreave) is hooked on sweets and fizzy drinks and yearns for the provincial values of Granada. A frazzled life bolstered by pep pills and the occasional sniff of glue, just a working woman in the maelstrom of candy-colored disintegration. Kleptomaniacs, exhibitionists, Spanish-German relations, soused aristocratic writers eager to steal working-class ideas, "nothing impresses me anymore." The happiest character is the bubbly hooker next door (Verónica Forqué), who dreams of Las Vegas and must make do with an old tree branch when a client calls for a whip. ("Some normal, elegant, sophisticated sadism" is what is needed, "like in French films.") Death by ham bone and kitchen sink, blood on the lizard named Dinero and help from the pint-sized telekinetic moppet, so it goes with the merry dissolution of the family structure. 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle, Where's Poppa?, Sauve qui peut (la vie)... For Almodóvar not a tragic end but an enchanted new beginning, perfect for the country where Ibsen and Balzac are called romantics and Lang's The Big Heat is turned into a coffee commercial. With Luis Hostalot, Gonzalo Suárez, Kiti Mánver, Amparo Soler Leal, Cecilia Roth, and Katia Loritz.
--- Fernando F. Croce |