After capping his scabrous, generational page-turning early films with the commercially friendlier international breakthru, WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN/’88, Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodóvar began codifying his signature OTT style, as if he preferred being an adjective, Almodóvaresque, rather than a filmmaker, It took about three films for him to shake it off (see THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET/’96*) and start putting out the enviable series of mature masterpieces that continue today. Meanwhile, we have these near parodies, not without their charms (did Antonio Banderas’s eyes ever look more caramel?; Victoria Abril ever more physically abandoned?), but what a tired tale he tells. It’s the old Women Want To Be Dominated tropes. Here with Banderas a mentally unstable orphan, just released from a criminal sanatarium (he apparently pity-fucked his way out) who meets-cute with Abril by beating her up after she tries to slam the door in his face. Hey!, he’s got control issues. A nice guy under the violence, they soon meet-cute again on a film set and while she doesn’t recall the man, she’ll eventually recall the fuck. (What is he doing down there?) Naturally, she succumbs post-kidnapping, that’s why he ties her up/ties her down, before these two (plus her sister) sing their way toward a happy future. Much of this is meant to play ironically or as farce, but it’s still a heavy lift for what are now stale Almodóvar stylistics he’s outgrown.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *Permission granted to skip directly to FLOWER OF MY SECRET and Almodóvar’s resurrection. And for the early work, still too little seen, try MATADOR/’86. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/flower-of-my-secret-1995.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/04/matador-1986.html
OR: Troubled guy/pretty girl kidnapping, served plain, William Wyler’s THE COLLECTOR/’65. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-collector-1965.html
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