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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
BROKEN EMBRACES
The screenplay juts back and forth between two overlapping triangles of betrayal and revenge, both centered on a screenwriter who now goes by the penname of Harry Cain (Lluís Homar). Fourteen years earlier and before he lost his eyesight, he went by the name of Mateo, a film director whose career came to an abrupt end. At the time, he was directing a comedy featuring the debut of starlet Lena—the mistress of a rich industrialist and the principal backer of Mateo’s film. Given that there’s one major character missing from the contemporary story line, there’s a strong hint of impending tragedy. In just one of the many tip-offs to film lore, Cruz, as a hard-luck secretary-turned-film starlet, is made over a la Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, big ears and all. During Lena’s make-up tests, she dons a platinum blond wig, looking a little bit like Marilyn and a lot like Vertigo’s Kim Novak, especially with her thick, dark eyebrows. (Then again, almost any movie where a Svengali-like director molds his young Trilby has tinges of that Hitchcock thriller.) Then there’s the dress. Adorned in gold and onyx jewelry, Lena, primping in front of the mirror for the much older industrialist, wears a mid-’90s black Versace dress with gold-chain embroidery flattering an already incredible figure. That this scene is brief only adds to the effect of wanting to see more of her, and Almodóvar delivers, later dressing Cruz in a simple but elegant flaming red dress, with high heels to match. Lola Dueñas (Volver) is among the who’s-who of the director’s repertoire of actors who make (sometimes fleeting) appearances. Though in only two scenes, Dueñas, as an impersonal lip reader, has two memorably prickly scenes, and newcomer Tamar Novas, as Harry’s right-hand man, has the clean-cut, puppy-dog handsomeness of a young Antonio Banderas. Even if it’s been years or decades since you’ve seen Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, you’re bound to remember many of the plot details, like the spiked gazpacho, in a scene literally remade here with the same color-coded set. (There will be more scenes of the film-within-film in the DVD edition.) Almodóvar enthuses Broken Embraces with the love of movies and moviemaking. This is the type of film where, when Lena falls in love at first sight with Mateo, the moment’s captured in a close-up as her head turns in slow motion. (And it does feel like the world stops, briefly.) When she and Mateo later surreptitiously meet at night for “rehearsal,” their coupling is silhouetted in the front window for all the world to see. (Haven’t everyone seen enough movies to know that you never stand near a window with your secret lover?) Almodóvar admits in an interview, “I feel it’s the first time I’ve made such an express declaration of love to cinema; not with a specific sequence, but with a whole film.” He doesn’t lay on any extra shtick—there’s no absurdist subplot to be found. With the ever-present sense of voyeurism, the director has been referred to as “Hitchcock with nudity,” but comparing him to Sirk with sex would be more accurate, at least with this film. Though it has a thoroughly contemporary sensibility (gratuitous nudity and all), the film has the moderate pace that is very much like a Sirk film. Thus, though it’s about two hours long, it does feel longer, with enough time for the audience to connect the dots long before the characters do. Much like
in Volver and Bad Education, Broken Embraces’s
first half, the elaborate set-up, is more compelling than the second.
One can’t help feel that the director takes a shortcut, tying all the
loose strings together through convenient exposition, not unlike a detective
in an Agatha Christie mystery. That it is delivered by Blanca Portillo
as Judit, Harry/Mateo’s steadfast manager, saves the resolution from
becoming robotic. In some ways, the patient and guilt-ridden Judit is
the regret-filled spirit of the film. (She holds the key to not one but
two mysteries.) And as she continually takes shots of vodka and loosens
up her tongue, she manages to almost steal the film.
DVD Extras:
Cruz has often
been referred to as Almodóvar’s muse, but actually it’s the other way in
the “Pedro Directs Penélope” segment. During a rehearsal, the director
feeds Cruz a running interior monologue for her character’s inner-voice
(hey, whatever works). His off-the-cuffs ramblings are just as
entertaining as
what eventually makes it into the film. In contrast, the interview with
Cruz, who gives good chat, won’t really provide news if you have seen or
heard her on talk shows promoting this film or Volver. And
Almodóvar delivers a second time. As he promised last year, the DVD of
this film includes a longer, coarser film-within-the film, “The
Cannibalistic Councilor” featuring Carmen Machi as a self-professed
“slut in the conservative party,” snorting a mountain of coke.
Kent Turner
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With this,
his 19th feature film, Pedro Almodóvar practically acknowledges that
Broken Embraces is a mid-career work. As usual, there are the
encyclopedic references to the usual suspects—Hitchcock and especially
the glossy melodramas of Douglas Sirk—as well as to his own career.
Almodóvar has created an involving mystery, centered on perhaps his most
sympathetic character so far, Lena (Penélope Cruz, who’s given the
deluxe goddess treatment). She plays a devoted daughter who will do
anything to save her father dying from cancer. The equivalent of a
pulpy page-turner, Broken Embraces is Almodóvar’s most successful
melding of high style and compelling drama since Talk to Her.