After his two recent, superb films "All About My Mother" and "Talk to Her," in which Almodóvar showed clear signs of a maturing, deepening sensibility in his portrayal of both women and men, my expectations for his newest film were running high, too high as it turns out.
"Bad Education" is a confusing and disappointing mess of a film with just a handful of redeeming features. A major subtext concerns the traumatic far reach of sexual abuse of a young boy by a Catholic priest, hardly a trailblazing topic. Another theme has to do with the darker side of the film-making business: a director's creative block, an actor's overweaning ambition, and the deal they strike to mutually achieve success.
Beyond that we have a bewildering amoral agenda that embraces - in addition to pedophilia and sex for favors drug addiction, identity theft, blackmail, murder, and even fratricide, all paraded before us with nonchalance, with hardly a raised eyebrow of concern. Who can you like here? Certainly not Enrique (Fele Martinez), the coolly calculating filmmaker. Nor Ignacio (Francisco Boira), Enrique's boyhood lover and now a twisted transsexual junkie who will do anything to get his next fix.
Nor Manuel Berenguer (Lluis Homar), the self serving, manipulative, now defrocked priest the erstwhile Father Manolo - who years ago expelled Enrique from school so he could have the young Ignacio for himself. And certainly not Ignacio's brother Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal), the would-be film star who's the most crooked of the lot.
So who are the characters that embody Almodóvar's supposedly new found capacity to penetrate the character of men rather than merely constructing farcical, two dimensional caricatures of them to ridicule machismo? (I guess I'm addressing this question to critic David Denby, who wrote in The New Yorker magazine about Almodóvar's evident interest in deepening the portrayals of his men in both "Talk to Her" and "Bad Education.") We certainly do see intriguing, complex men in "Talk to Her," in the roles of Benigno (Javier Camera) and Marco (Dario Grandinetti). The softer and more mysterious side of these men shines through, and issues of male reticence, commitment and unconditional love percolate throughout. Are we to think of "Bad Education" as now showing us another, harsher aspect of manhood? We've seen that aspect in a thousand other movies.
In fact the most interesting characters in this film are the youngsters who play Ignacio (Nacho Pérez) and Enrique (Raúl García Forneiro) when they were schoolboys, and, most interesting of all, the younger Father Manolo (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), whose sexual longing and attendant shame are writ so clearly in his every expression. Too bad the film did not center more on these three at that time.
Credit Almodóvar for evoking some passion from the usually impassive Gael Garcia Bernal and for framing Bernal's gorgeous androgynous face perfectly by having him perform in drag as the entertainer Zahara. And the musical score is first rate. (In Spanish). My rating: 6.5/10 (low B). (Seen on 05/19/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.
"Bad Education" is a confusing and disappointing mess of a film with just a handful of redeeming features. A major subtext concerns the traumatic far reach of sexual abuse of a young boy by a Catholic priest, hardly a trailblazing topic. Another theme has to do with the darker side of the film-making business: a director's creative block, an actor's overweaning ambition, and the deal they strike to mutually achieve success.
Beyond that we have a bewildering amoral agenda that embraces - in addition to pedophilia and sex for favors drug addiction, identity theft, blackmail, murder, and even fratricide, all paraded before us with nonchalance, with hardly a raised eyebrow of concern. Who can you like here? Certainly not Enrique (Fele Martinez), the coolly calculating filmmaker. Nor Ignacio (Francisco Boira), Enrique's boyhood lover and now a twisted transsexual junkie who will do anything to get his next fix.
Nor Manuel Berenguer (Lluis Homar), the self serving, manipulative, now defrocked priest the erstwhile Father Manolo - who years ago expelled Enrique from school so he could have the young Ignacio for himself. And certainly not Ignacio's brother Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal), the would-be film star who's the most crooked of the lot.
So who are the characters that embody Almodóvar's supposedly new found capacity to penetrate the character of men rather than merely constructing farcical, two dimensional caricatures of them to ridicule machismo? (I guess I'm addressing this question to critic David Denby, who wrote in The New Yorker magazine about Almodóvar's evident interest in deepening the portrayals of his men in both "Talk to Her" and "Bad Education.") We certainly do see intriguing, complex men in "Talk to Her," in the roles of Benigno (Javier Camera) and Marco (Dario Grandinetti). The softer and more mysterious side of these men shines through, and issues of male reticence, commitment and unconditional love percolate throughout. Are we to think of "Bad Education" as now showing us another, harsher aspect of manhood? We've seen that aspect in a thousand other movies.
In fact the most interesting characters in this film are the youngsters who play Ignacio (Nacho Pérez) and Enrique (Raúl García Forneiro) when they were schoolboys, and, most interesting of all, the younger Father Manolo (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), whose sexual longing and attendant shame are writ so clearly in his every expression. Too bad the film did not center more on these three at that time.
Credit Almodóvar for evoking some passion from the usually impassive Gael Garcia Bernal and for framing Bernal's gorgeous androgynous face perfectly by having him perform in drag as the entertainer Zahara. And the musical score is first rate. (In Spanish). My rating: 6.5/10 (low B). (Seen on 05/19/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.