NYFF ’16: Julieta

We stereotypically think of Spaniards as the hot-blooded types and Canadians as being rather unassuming and vanilla, but fishing is important to both nations. That might not sound like much of a shared bond, but it allows Pedro Almodóvar to transpose Alice Munro’s three interconnected short stories “Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence” from Canada to Spain. In the process, he gives the Sirkian stories a Hitchcockian tinge, not unlike his 2011 film The Skin I Live In, in which the story collection Runaway briefly appears, Easter Egg-like. Not merely poised the verge of a nervous breakdown, the title character will often teeter over the brink in Almodóvar’s Julieta (trailer here), which screens during the 54^th New York Film Festival.

Julieta Arcos’s flashbacks will start when she chances across a friend of her long lost grown daughter Antía, who off-handedly mentions running into the missing woman on the streets of Madrid. Just when Arcos had agreed to leave town with her eternally patient gentleman friend, she finds reason to stay and carry on her fruitless search. With the help of a little wine, Arcos drifts back to when she first met Antía’s father Xoan as a fellow passenger on a romantic but somewhat tragic sleeper train.

Obviously, there were sparks, but Xoan’s comatose first wife made long-term commitment rather awkward. Nonetheless, Arcos will eventually seek out the commercial fisherman, fatefully arriving a day after the inconvenient spouse’s funeral. The heat is still there, but Julieta will also meet Ava, Xoan’s platonic best friend, except possibly with benefits. Lingering questions regarding their relationship will lead to tragedy, which in turn contributes to Antía’s extreme decision to sever all ties to her mother.

Although not a thriller per se, Almodóvar deliberately emphasizes all the mysterious elements, like the deliberately missing person, an unfortunate death on the tracks, and all the romantically noir elements of strangers meeting on a train. Even Adriana Ugarte hairstyle as the young commuting Juliet looks inspired by Melanie Griffith in Body Double. Clearly composer Alberto Iglesias got the memo, because he definitely tries to channel Bernard Hermann.

Frankly, the richness and sure-handedness of Almodóvar’s visual style is just of pleasure to behold. He and cinematographer Jean-Claude Larrieu give the film a vibrant color-noir look, in the tradition of Marnie. Yet, the grounded credibility of the linked narrative makes the third story alienation quite disturbing.

As the younger Julieta, Ugarte rocks her 1980s dew and generally dominates the screen with a dangerous mix of seductiveness and naivety. As the older Arcos, Emma Suárez is vividly and viscerally guilt-ridden and neurotic, but also rather stately and distinguished. Yet, both will implode quite spectacularly, as befits Almodóvarian heroines.

Despite its “women’s fiction” source material, Julieta is definitely more closely akin to Almodóvar’s Skin and Broken Embraces. Yet of the three said films, this is arguably the most accomplished. Darkly glossy, Julieta should well satisfy Almodóvar’s admirers and serve as an effective introductive to his themes and motifs for new viewers. Highly recommended, Julieta screens again tomorrow night (10/16) during the 2016 NYFF, with a return trip already booked for late December.

NYFF ’11: The Skin I Live In

Call it facial determinism. In Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Face of Another, a new “life-mask” countenance fundamentally alters the personality of a scarred businessman. With his latest film, Pedro Almodóvar addresses similar themes of appearance and identity, but dramatically raises the stakes for his experimental subject in The Skin I Live In (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York, following Wednesday ‘s gala screening at the 49th New York Film Festival.

Dr. Robert Ledgard gave his mysterious “patient” Vera the face of his late wife, who was severely burned and disfigured in a fateful car crash. As a result, Marilia, his motherly housekeeper, worries the plastic surgeon is developing an unhealthy emotional attachment to his unwilling test-case. As flashbacks explain the chain of events that brought Vera to his isolated villa, we learn just how twisted their potential relationship would be.

Though billed as Almodóvar’s horror movie, Skin really constitutes a continuation of his noir-esque period begun with his previous film, the underappreciated Broken Embraces. Indeed, it is structured around a big twist, which makes it challenging to discuss its themes and motifs without getting spoilery. Frankly, just a few details are probably sufficient to give the game away. However, it is probably safe to say Ledgard nurses some serious grievances, while initial appearances are deliberately deceptive.

Though also undeniably restrained compared to the films that made Almodóvar’s reputation, Broken Embraces had a slow-burning undercurrent of dark passion. By contrast, Skin is a decidedly chilly film. Overtly voyeuristic, Almodóvar avoids delving beneath the surface of his characters, consciously concentrating his focus on the surface level instead. Still, he adeptly uses the Hitchcockian cinematic vocabulary as well as the claustrophobic setting to create a fairly creepy genre film.

Although he never truly unleashes his inner mad doctor, Antonio Banderas is certainly a severe presence as Dr. Ledgard. However, Elena Anaya is quite remarkable as the suicidal Vera, convincingly handling her character revelations, which are considerable. A tricky role to approach, she fully commits to it, providing the film’s only emotional center.

Skin is an intriguing film, but were it not for the vulnerability and immediacy of Anaya’s work, we would simply feel as though we were being played, rather than pulled inexorably into a dark morality drama. While the implications of Almodóvar’s screenplay (adapted from Thierry Jonquet’s novel Mygale), will stay with viewers, his execution will most likely leave them cold. A mixed bag, Skin is largely distinguished by Anaya’s performance. For Almodóvar fans, it screens twice this Wednesday (10/12) as a gala selection of the 2011 NYFF. Though only standby tickets are still available, it also opens theatrically this Friday (10/14) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Almodovar’s Broken Embraces

It seems a renaissance of sorts is brewing for Pedro Almodóvar’s breakout film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Rumor has it a book musical adaptation is on the fast-track to Broadway. Almodóvar also resurrects Verge as the recognizable film within his new film, the noirish drama Broken Embraces (trailer here), which opens in New York this Friday.

Harry Caine could easily be a character in a Cornell Woolrich novel. That is because Harry Caine does not really exist. He was once the famous director Mateo Blanco, who wrote scripts under the Caine pseudonym. When a traumatic accident led to his blindness, Blanco the director essentially died, with Caine the screenwriter assuming his place.

Caine might be blind, but he still has an eye for beautiful women and though he can no longer direct, he still has an appreciation for cinema, frequently listening to art-house classics with Diego, the son of his agent Judit Garcia. Not one to dwell on the past, Caine rebuffs the interview requests of Ray X, an aspiring documentarian and the son of an old acquaintance. However, as Caine finds himself nursing Diego back to health following an incident with a laced drink, he starts to open up to younger man, telling his story in a series of flashbacks.

Mateo Blanco was the writer and director of Girls and Suitcases. It starred Lena Rivero, the mistress of industrialist Ernesto Martel (Ray X’s father), who financed the picture. Garcia, who had once had a fling with Blanco, was his trusted production manager. Basically, it was a classic film noir situation, virtually guaranteed to breed jealousy and betrayal.

Not coincidentally, Suitcases bears a strong resemblance to Verge, except it is awful, deliberately assembled with Blanco’s worst takes by a vengeful Martel. It is an oddly amusing exercise in self-referential gamesmanship, but only one of many cinematic pastiches in Broken. For instance, Almodóvar also frequently nods to the post-war Italian neo-realists, like Rossellini, whose Viaggio in Italia moves the furtive lovers to tears as they watch it in each others arms. In fact, Broken’s key art appears to be modeled after the classic posters of post-war Italian cinema.

Dark and lush, Rodrigo Prieto’s ominously gauzy cinematography is arguably more reminiscent of Hitchcock’s color films of the 1950’s and 1960’s then 1940’s noir. Though Broken often has a noir vibe, whenever the film approaches genuine film noir territory, Almodóvar deliberately pulls back, undercutting the thriller aspects. Aside from a few key scenes, the violence of Broken is emotional rather than physical in nature. Yet, it is suffused with a strange romanticism for cinema. Indeed, the moving image, be it classic films or videotape of his fateful accident, might well be more powerful than real life for Caine—representing constant and enduring forces inexorably shaping his life.

Unlike the dramatically extroverted Verge, Broken is a more self-consciously intellectual film. Yet, Lluis Homar is quite riveting as Caine/Blanco, finding intriguing nuances throughout each stage of his character’s development. In a sense, Penelope Cruz is also perfectly cast as Lena, an austere beauty who remains something of a cipher throughout the film.

Broken is a moody love-letter to cinema. While it might come across as a bit cold in comparison to some of Almodóvar’s more hot-blooded films, it is ultimately a very satisfying twist on the portrait-of-the-filmmaker-as-a-suffering-artist subgenre of art film. It opens tomorrow at the Lincoln Plaza and Sunshine Cinemas.

NYFF ’09: Broken Embraces

It seems a renaissance of sorts is underway for Pedro Almodóvar’s breakout film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Rumor has it a book musical adaptation is on the fast-track to Broadway. Almodóvar also resurrects Verge as the recognizable film within his new film, the noirish drama Broken Embraces (trailer here), which closes the 2009 New York Film Festival tomorrow night.

Harry Caine could easily be a character in a Cornell Woolrich novel. That is because Harry Caine does not really exist. He was once the famous director Mateo Blanco, who wrote scripts under the Caine pseudonym. When a traumatic accident led to his blindness, Blanco the director essentially died, with Caine the screenwriter assuming his place.

Caine might be blind, but he still has an eye for women and though he can no longer direct, he still has an appreciation for cinema, frequently listening to art-house classics with Diego, the son of his agent Judit Garcia. Not one to dwell on the past, Caine rebuffs the interview requests of Ray X, an aspiring documentarian and the son of an old acquaintance. However, as Caine finds himself nursing Diego back to health following an incident with a laced drink, he starts to open up to younger man, telling his story in flashback form.

Mateo Blanco was the writer and director of Girls and Suitcases. It starred Lena Rivero, the mistress of industrialist Ernesto Martel, who financed the picture. Garcia, who had once had a fling with Blanco, was his trusted production manager. Basically, it was a classic film noir situation, virtually guaranteed to breed jealousy and betrayal.

Not coincidentally, Suitcases bears a strong resemblance to Verge, except it is awful, deliberately assembled with Blanco’s worst takes by a vengeful Martel. It is an oddly amusing exercise in self-referential gamesmanship, but only one of many cinematic pastiches in Broken. Rodrigo Prieto’s ominously gauzy cinematography is arguably more reminiscent of Hitchcock’s color films of the 1950’s and 1960’s then 1940’s noir.

Almodóvar also frequently nods to the post-war Italian neo-realists, like Rossellini, whose Viaggio in Italia moves the furtive lovers to tears as they watch it in each others arms. In fact, Broken’s key art appears to be modeled after the classic posters of post-war Italian cinema.

Though Broken often has a noir vibe, whenever the film approaches genuine film noir territory, Almodóvar deliberately pulls back, undercutting the thriller aspects. Aside from a few key scenes, the violence of Broken is emotional rather than physical in nature. Yet, it is suffused with a strange romanticism for cinema. Indeed, the moving image, be it classic films or videotape of his fateful accident, may well be more powerful than real life for Caine—a constant and enduring force inexorably shaping his life.

Unlike the dramatically extroverted Verge, Broken is a more self-consciously intellectual film. Yet, Lluis Homar is quite riveting as Caine/Blanco, finding intriguing nuances throughout each stage of his character’s development. In a sense, Penelope Cruz is also perfectly cast as Lena, an austere beauty who remains something of a cipher throughout the film.

Broken is a dark, lush love-letter to cinema. While it might come across as a bit cold in comparison to some of Almodóvar’s more hot-blooded films, it is ultimately a very satisfying twist on the portrait-of-the-filmmaker-as-a-suffering-artist subgenre of art film. It closes this year’s NYFF on Sunday (10/11).