Monday 22 August 2011

Hable con ella / Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)

Dario Grandinetti, Javier Camára and Leonor Watling
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Javier Camára, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores, Geraldine Chaplin.
Synopsis: Two men, a nurse (Camára) and a travel writer (Grandinetti), care for two comatose women (Watling and Flores). Through a series of flashbacks we discover how the women (a ballerina and a matador respectively) came to be in their comatose states, but also realise that their relationships with the men are not what they first appear to be.

A film that is both dark and unsettling but also nonetheless profoundly moving, especially in the later stages. On first viewing I don’t think that I ‘liked’ it, but it has grown on me over the years thanks in part to the two central performances from Camára and Grandinetti, but also because of Almodóvar’s refusal to judge his characters –it is now among my favourites of his films. A longer post on the film can be found here.