|
TALK TO HER (HABLE CON ELLA) ¡¡
The curtain is pulled back to reveal a spectacle. Among the spectators, two men are sitting together by chance. They don¡¯t know each other. They are Benigno (a young nurse) and Marco (a writer in his early forties). On the stage, filled with wooden chairs and tables, two women, their eyes closed, are moving to the music. The piece is so moving that Marco starts to cry. Months later, the two men meet again at a private clinic where Benigno works. Lydia, Marco¡¯s girlfriend and a bullfighter by profession, has been gored and is in a coma. It so happens that Benigno is looking after another woman in a coma, Alicia, a young ballet student. During this period of suspended time between the walls of the clinic, the lives of the four characters will flow in all directions, past, present and future, dragging all of them towards an unsuspected destiny. Reviews Put Simply, the Best Film of the Year, a Pure and Perfect Masterpiece. This film is a masterpiece simply because its author, through film after film, has evolved into a master of storytelling in the modern sense of the word, as well as a master of cinema. It is extremely rare to see a film that so perfectly sucks you into its center, like a massive twister, and holds you there, only to release you at the film's end. After seeing this film, you will no longer view the relationships and communications between people, or simply "life" as you once did. Almodovar has always worked the medium of cinema itself. The power it has on an audience, as well as the content of his films. His work has made him perfect the technique so that his film make a difference, in the way that communication between people can make a difference, up to the point of bringing back "life," in such a way as the movie suggests. Of course Almodovar's first films were already different in tone and subject matter, shaking off conventional methods of filmmaking. And "All About My Mother" was a brilliant film. However, none have even come even close to the perfection of "Talk to Her." Almodovar¡¯s maturity is felt all over, in form and content, and is incredibly communicative. We feel so much more intelligent upon leaving the theater. So much so, that we actually wish he was our "life" teacher; life would be easier to endure and much more interesting. This is in fact the premise of the film - life itself is hard and almost always brings with it loneliness and inevitably, death. To conjure up these terrible feelings, we invest ourselves (or try to) in the feelings of love, and passion. Yet, none of these temporary remedies comes without scars, and these scars are hard to heal. The film starts out with our two male lead characters as lonely individuals. Marco, because he has just broken up with his girlfriend with whom he is still in love, in order for her to overcome a drug addiction ¨C the greatest and selfless gift there is. He sees on TV, an interview with a woman bullfighter (rare to find), who seems more lonely and desperate than him, having recently ended her passionate love story with her famous bullfighter boyfriend. He himself interviews her, not because she is a bullfighter, but rather, because she is lonely. Benigno, our second male character, has been lonely since his mother passed away. He had been taking care of her all of his adult life. Bathing her, feeding her, manicuring her nails, etc., striving to keep her beauty, as well as her mental capacity strong and alive. All this without ever leaving her side; another selfless gift. To combat his loneliness after his mother's death, he falls in love with a young ballerina he happens to notice outside his window one day. She is learning at a school dance across the street. He falls in love with the movements of her body. Fate then takes a turn when our bullfighter, is gored by a bull, and our young ballerina is struck by a car. Both are in a coma. Benigno, having taken care of his mother for so long, has become a nurse intensive care patients at a specialized clinic, and is hired by the ballerina's father to care for her round the clock. Not only does Benigno care for his love interest physically, rubbing, massaging and caressing her body, but he also converses with her as if she were listening. Marco however, is much more realistic and pragmatic. As desperate as he is, he thinks that Benigno is crazy, and cannot really see himself talking to his girlfriend, who is now clinically brain dead. Of course Benigno is crazy. Crazy or passionately in love? Sometimes the line is very thin. And yes, Marco is also passionately in love, but he cannot "talk to her." Benigno will save his girlfriend and Marco will lose his. As you can imagine, it is much more complicated than that, and here again, life and fate will prevent both men from living out their passion. Still, throughout this in-cre-di-ble experience, they will learn about life¡as will we. Now that we understand that the film is primarily about loneliness, we must also take into serious consideration the main remedy to this terrible affliction of our modern world, which is communication. Communication with the body as much as with the mind, communication of the images as much as of the words. The film opens and closes with two pieces by the great Pina Bausch (no dialogue), which move Marco to tears. In the first piece, two women, their eyes closed, move around so quickly on a stage piled with chairs and tables, that a man has to remove them from their path in an instant, in order for them to not trip - a beautiful metaphor. Even with their eyes closed, there is an intense life force in these women. Just as our two females more than probably had an intense life force within them, even while they were in a coma. Just as there is an intense life force and emotion in the little piece of silent film Almodovar created, and which is intertwined with the main story. Here, a shrunken man discovers little by little that he can easily get inside his girlfriend's vagina and give her pleasure. Once again, a gift of oneself. The way that communication can make a difference in the life of others, the gift of oneself can definitely change lives ¨C another metaphor. In other words, Almodovar points his finger at us, telling us: "you have the power, use it!" No matter what the story (there are several ¨C including one which unfolds as the film ends; a wonderful attempt to break conventions once again), the power of communication associated with the gift of oneself will change life. This is what Almodovar masterfully shows us. "Talk to Her" is definitely the best film of the year, so much so, that it is alone in its league. If there is any kind of justice, "Talk to Her" would receive not only the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, but also all the other awards given esteemed filmmakers, as a way for us to "communicate" to Almodovar our gratitude of having given himself up, to save us from loneliness or boredom. Phil Ed. The director "For me, the films I see become part of my own experiences, and I use them as such. There¡¯s no intention of paying homage to their directors or of imitating them. They¡¯re elements which are absorbed into the script and become part of it. "Telling films" is something that has to do with my biography. And I¡¯m not talking about a film forum or the typical discussion about cinema (I hate those). I remember that when I was little I would tell films to my sisters, films that we¡¯d seen together. I¡¯d get carried away by the memory and while I was telling them I¡¯d reinvent them. Really, I was making my own adaptation, and my sisters preferred my inaccurate, delirious versions to the original film. I remember that during those hours when time slowed down (sitting in the patio while they sewed, or gathered around the table with the brazier underneath), they would say: Pedro, tell us the film we saw yesterday... Marco also tells the two women in the film on two very different occasions that he¡¯s lonely. In both cases, neither Benigno nor Marco gets melodramatic about it, they¡¯re simply stating a fact. Loneliness is something which all the characters in the film have in common. Alicia and Lydia are lonely too. And Katerina, the ballet mistress. And Alicia¡¯s father, although it¡¯s likely that after a while he¡¯ll have an affair with the receptionist in his consultancy. And the nurse played by Mariola Fuentes, secretly in love with her fellow worker Benigno. And the housekeeper in Benigno¡¯s building. Even the only unpleasant character, the despicable interviewer played by Loles Le¨®n, ends up alone on the set, talking to the camera because Lydia (quite rightly) has stormed off in the middle of the interview. And the bull is left alone in the huge ring when Lydia is taken to the infirmary, fatally injured... ¡ "Loneliness, I guess" is another possible title for this film... I¡¯ve always believed in words, even when you¡¯ve got no voice... or no one to talk to¡ "Talk to Her" tells a private, romantic, secret story, peppered with independent, spectacular units. I¡¯m referring, as well as to the bull fights and the inclusion of "Shrinking Lover," to the collaboration and presence of Caetano Veloso, who sings "Cucurrucuc¨² paloma" live, to Pina Bausch, the choreographer of "Caf¨¦ M¨¹ller" and "Masurca Fogo," the pieces with which the film begins and ends¡ When I finished writing "Talk to Her" and looked at Pina¡¯s face again, with her eyes closed, and at how she was dressed in a flimsy slip, her arms and hands outstretched, surrounded by obstacles (wooden tables and chairs), I had no doubt that it was the image which best represented the limbo in which my story¡¯s protagonists lived. Two women in a coma who, despite their apparent passivity, provoke the same solace, the same tension, passion, jealousy, desire and disillusion in men as if they were upright, eyes wide open and talking a mile a minute... "Masurca Fogo" begins with the sadness of the absent Benigno (the sighs) and unites the surviving couple (Marco and Alicia) through a shared bucolic emotion: several couples are dancing in the country to the rhythm of a Cabo Verde mazurca, also accompanied by the sound of a little waterfall which flows miraculously from the grass in all its splendor. If I had asked for it specifically I couldn¡¯t have got anything better. Pina Bausch had unknowingly created the best doors through which to enter and leave "Talk to Her."¡ .... Benigno¡¯s life has been spent around a bed. There was always a woman in the bed. First it was his mother, then Alicia. His mother installed herself in bed (and never left it again) when she still wasn¡¯t ill¡ He guided her on her walks inside the house. He bathed her, dried her, dressed her, did her make-up, fixed her hair and settled her in bed as if she were on a throne. And after that, he¡¯d look at her. Despite all his care, his mother died twenty years later. The short walks around the sitting room weren¡¯t enough for her heart¡ Benigno opened his little eyes, filled with amazement at his mother¡¯s words. He went over to the window, pulled back the net curtain which had gone out of fashion over twenty years ago and for that reason now seemed modern, and looked out at the street. He ran his eye over the buildings opposite, he looked at the Decadance Ballet Academy diagonally across from his house, to the left. Placed there by fate so that he could contemplate it at his ease. That was the first day he saw Alicia dance. She was an adolescent with very white skin who swayed in time to a soundless music (he couldn¡¯t hear it). After delighting in contemplating her face, her long neck, her shoulders, her breasts which were firmly outlined beneath her lycra top, Benigno thought that he wanted that adolescent for himself, and he admired his mother for her foresight¡ Marco is the "man who cries," a good title for a film if only Sally Potter hadn¡¯t thought of it first. Marco is Argentinean, sentimental and mysterious, sick with nostalgia, a traveler, a wandering journalist, a travel guide writer. In the 90s, he meets Angela, who is still under age, for whom he feels instant passion. Shortly after, he discovers that the girl has got problems with heroin and soon they sink into a hell of aggression and lies¡ It¡¯s a very sad story. There¡¯s nothing worse than leaving someone you still love. That wound is never cured, or it takes ten years¡ When he meets Lydia she has just put an end to a love affair which is still beating strongly in her heart. Neither one knows the other¡¯s secret, nevertheless the mystery draws them together, like creatures of the same species¡ ... Lydia¡¯s father was a "banderillero," but he dreamed of becoming a bullfighter. He reared his daughter as if she were a man so that she would achieve what he couldn¡¯t. The girl inherited his same yearnings. But the bullfighting world is very chauvinistic. After the death of her father, her great and only support, Lydia had to face the prejudice and scorn of the professional bullfighters on her own. Many refused to fight alongside her, for the mere fact of being a woman. That was when the matador called "El Niño de Valencia" offered not just to share billing with her but to accompany her wherever necessary afterwards. They fell in love. This newsworthy romance, rather than her skill, kept Lydia in the limelight and she was able to fight regularly¡ In a suicidal fit and given the lack of opportunities to fight, Lydia decided to fight six bulls, on her own. Unaware of the danger, or running to meet it, she longed for "El Niño" to be in the bullring as a spectator, so that at least he¡¯d feel guilty if one of the bulls should charge straight into her¡ In the film Lydia is killed by the bull of bad conscience. When someone loves two people (in the end Lydia goes back to the bullfighter when she¡¯s still with Marco) that doesn¡¯t mean the pleasure is doubled, only the problems are. Lydia hates lying to Marco. When she finally decides to tell him everything she doesn¡¯t have the chance... And with that sense of unease she goes out into the ring¡ When Benigno sees her dance for the first time (from the window opposite) he doesn¡¯t hear the music. Alicia seems to be absorbed in an interior melody. That absorption will continue for years, on the bed in the "El Bosque" Clinic, a two-story building which looks like a detached house and in which Benigno is the model nurse¡ The narrative follows a broken line which mustn¡¯t be noticed. That was the most difficult thing in this never-ending shoot. I¡¯m used to mixing tones, genres, universes, but I¡¯d never played so much with time, a few kitsch (and Hitchcockian) flashbacks in "Labyrinth of Passion," but not much else¡ Broken time and a mixture of various narrative units work better when the action is more mental or interior, or happens in another dimension, as in David Lynch¡¯s films; in this kind of fantastic neo-realism, or naturalism of the absurd in which I move, plot ruptures can mean a jolt for the spectator who had become fond of a character and a story, and then I pull at him, I drag him away and force him to follow another character and another story¡ For content, I tend more and more towards emotions, and for the container, transparency¡ For me "Talk to Her" is (pardon the sentimentality) the embrace I¡¯d like to give to all the spectators, sinking against the breast of each one of them as Lydia sinks against Marco¡¯s back, at the party. And embraces must be warm, and the light that illuminates them must also be warm." Pedro Almodovar
|