short film reviews, criticism, and occasional musing.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Talk to Her (2002, Spanish)

Volver put me on something of an Almodóvar kick, and Talk to Her is perhaps the most problematic of his films I’ve seen recently. I’d heard critics accuse it of being misogynistic, perhaps more so than his other movies, and considering that this claim was made about the man who directed Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! . . . it’s a pretty serious charge.

At first, I was troubled by Almodóvar’s presentation of female bodies, inert as they lie in irreversible comas, dressed in male drag as matadors, or carried limply around a stage as parts of dance performances. But even more difficult is the narrative romanticism – how is the audience supposed to accept the character of Benigno, a man in love with Alicia, a girl in a coma, and who he was essentially stalking before the accident that placed him in her care? What are we supposed to think about his supposed physical violation of her (if, indeed, it even happened), which he sees as a natural expression of their love? Almodóvar presents Benigno as a harmless naïf, and steers just clear of presenting the narrative through his eyes. Perhaps things would have been simpler if the director had dispensed with the centrality of Benigno’s friend, Marco, and more fully explored Benigno’s obsession with his lifeless girlfriend. As is, there is so much ambiguity surrounding Benigno’s emotions for this girl – he seems to want only what’s best for her, but he is also so entirely convinced that she is a conscious, reactive partner that his gentle delusion is almost creepier than had he been an obvious pervert.

Perhaps the comparison to Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is more apt than I’d first thought. Both films concern men who invent peculiar ideals for their lovers, and convince themselves that these women share their feelings. Talk to Her may be a somewhat more sober, mature exploration of this particular kind of obsessive love, but I think I prefer Tie Me Up! In the end, its lightness (along with the power of the female lead) renders the subject matter somewhat less disturbing.

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