oscar jubis
01-21-2010, 10:21 AM
Broken Embraces and the Power of Images
By Oscar Jubis
Lena is the fourth character played by Penelope Cruz in the films of Pedro Almodovar. She is a woman who yearns to theatricalize herself. There are perhaps aspects of her personality and identity which have yet to find expression. To that end, she assumes the persona of the call-girl Severine, the name of the bourgeois wife in Luis Bunuel's Belle de Jour, who works as a daytime prostitute for similar reasons. Lena’s desire to become an actress and complete a film forces her to play a role she despises: live-in mistress to her wealthy boss Ernesto. Like Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman during the making of Stromboli, and countless directors and leading ladies, Lena and director Mateo fall in love on the set.
Almodovar's films, particularly his most recent ones, are multi-faceted and intricate, with many themes competing for attention. So is the case with Broken Embraces. One can make a case that the central theme of the film is the fluid and fragmentary nature of identity. One can easily write an essay about the importance of filial relationships in the film. However, the film speaks most insistently to me as a demonstration of the power of images and consequently, the power of movies.A power derived from the unique, intimate relationship between reality and the photographic image. My first recognition of this thematic thread involves the use of video as a surveillance tool. Ernesto enlists his son to spy on Lena and Mateo under the pretext of creating a documentary of the shoot. This is a camera that infringes and trespasses, perhaps a voyeuristic camera, since Lena and Mateo often seem ignorant of the fact that they are being watched.
After their affair is revealed, Lena and Mateo seek refuge in the island of Lanzarote. It is here where the power of images is cast under a most benign light. Lena and Mateo sit on the sofa in their beachfront apartment with arms around each other. They are watching a TV broadcast of Roberto Rossellini's Voyage to Italy. In this classic, a discontented couple, played by George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman, spend most of their Italian vacation apart until they are compelled by their insistent guide to make an excursion to the ruins of Pompeii. The guide promises a unique experience and delivers on it. The couple watch as plaster is poured through holes in the ground to give shape to the hollow space left by the bodies of those who perished during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. After the dirt around it is brushed off, the dried plaster has adopted the shape of a man and woman who died together in their sleep. The characters played by Sanders and Bergman are deeply moved by a couple who died 2000 years earlier. The intense shared experience incites their reconciliation.
Just like the Pompeian couple is immortalized through the use of plaster, celluloid and the tools of cinema have preserved Sanders and Bergman for posterity. Long after their death, the film images register both their absence and their presence to us. Lena is as moved by the film scene she is watching as Bergman and Sanders are affected by the absence and presence of the ancient couple. Seemingly conscious of her own mortality, anticipating perhaps her untimely death, Lena wishes to have an image that captures their romantic bliss. Mateo recognizes her wish without a word passing between them, sets the timer on his camera, and returns to her embrace.
There is another photographic image which carries substantial meaning in Broken Embraces. Mateo takes a photo of the seemingly deserted beach below from a lookout point. When he develops the roll of film, he realizes there was a couple embracing on the beach. The anonymous couple in the photograph serves as a symbol of Lena and Mateo's predicament as fugitives from the world they know. It represents their "us-against-the-world" stance and dramatizes their vulnerability as Lanzarote becomes their Pompeii. An auto accident blinds Mateo and kills Lena with the same suddenness as the molten lava killed Pompeians.
Fourteen years have passed in which Mateo has functioned under the name of Harry Caine. He finally faces the events of his past through the art of storytelling. Ernesto's son, who also has transformed himself into Ray X, insinuates himself back into Mateo's life. We learn that Judit, Mateo's former production manager and lover, betrayed him by revealing his whereabouts. And that Ernesto sent his son to Lanzarote to continue snooping on the couple. The tragic accident was captured on video. It shows that, seconds before the crash, Mateo and Lena shared a kiss. Mateo realizes that this is precisely how Lena would want to meet death and that their passion for each other has become immortalized by means of images. Mateo asks Diego to play the video in frame-by-frame mode. Shaken with emotion, he shuffles to the screen and places his hands on the pixilated pictures. Lena is absent from his life but, in the unique way that only film makes possible, she is also present in those frames and so is the love that binds them forever. Such is the power of images.
By Oscar Jubis
Lena is the fourth character played by Penelope Cruz in the films of Pedro Almodovar. She is a woman who yearns to theatricalize herself. There are perhaps aspects of her personality and identity which have yet to find expression. To that end, she assumes the persona of the call-girl Severine, the name of the bourgeois wife in Luis Bunuel's Belle de Jour, who works as a daytime prostitute for similar reasons. Lena’s desire to become an actress and complete a film forces her to play a role she despises: live-in mistress to her wealthy boss Ernesto. Like Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman during the making of Stromboli, and countless directors and leading ladies, Lena and director Mateo fall in love on the set.
Almodovar's films, particularly his most recent ones, are multi-faceted and intricate, with many themes competing for attention. So is the case with Broken Embraces. One can make a case that the central theme of the film is the fluid and fragmentary nature of identity. One can easily write an essay about the importance of filial relationships in the film. However, the film speaks most insistently to me as a demonstration of the power of images and consequently, the power of movies.A power derived from the unique, intimate relationship between reality and the photographic image. My first recognition of this thematic thread involves the use of video as a surveillance tool. Ernesto enlists his son to spy on Lena and Mateo under the pretext of creating a documentary of the shoot. This is a camera that infringes and trespasses, perhaps a voyeuristic camera, since Lena and Mateo often seem ignorant of the fact that they are being watched.
After their affair is revealed, Lena and Mateo seek refuge in the island of Lanzarote. It is here where the power of images is cast under a most benign light. Lena and Mateo sit on the sofa in their beachfront apartment with arms around each other. They are watching a TV broadcast of Roberto Rossellini's Voyage to Italy. In this classic, a discontented couple, played by George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman, spend most of their Italian vacation apart until they are compelled by their insistent guide to make an excursion to the ruins of Pompeii. The guide promises a unique experience and delivers on it. The couple watch as plaster is poured through holes in the ground to give shape to the hollow space left by the bodies of those who perished during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. After the dirt around it is brushed off, the dried plaster has adopted the shape of a man and woman who died together in their sleep. The characters played by Sanders and Bergman are deeply moved by a couple who died 2000 years earlier. The intense shared experience incites their reconciliation.
Just like the Pompeian couple is immortalized through the use of plaster, celluloid and the tools of cinema have preserved Sanders and Bergman for posterity. Long after their death, the film images register both their absence and their presence to us. Lena is as moved by the film scene she is watching as Bergman and Sanders are affected by the absence and presence of the ancient couple. Seemingly conscious of her own mortality, anticipating perhaps her untimely death, Lena wishes to have an image that captures their romantic bliss. Mateo recognizes her wish without a word passing between them, sets the timer on his camera, and returns to her embrace.
There is another photographic image which carries substantial meaning in Broken Embraces. Mateo takes a photo of the seemingly deserted beach below from a lookout point. When he develops the roll of film, he realizes there was a couple embracing on the beach. The anonymous couple in the photograph serves as a symbol of Lena and Mateo's predicament as fugitives from the world they know. It represents their "us-against-the-world" stance and dramatizes their vulnerability as Lanzarote becomes their Pompeii. An auto accident blinds Mateo and kills Lena with the same suddenness as the molten lava killed Pompeians.
Fourteen years have passed in which Mateo has functioned under the name of Harry Caine. He finally faces the events of his past through the art of storytelling. Ernesto's son, who also has transformed himself into Ray X, insinuates himself back into Mateo's life. We learn that Judit, Mateo's former production manager and lover, betrayed him by revealing his whereabouts. And that Ernesto sent his son to Lanzarote to continue snooping on the couple. The tragic accident was captured on video. It shows that, seconds before the crash, Mateo and Lena shared a kiss. Mateo realizes that this is precisely how Lena would want to meet death and that their passion for each other has become immortalized by means of images. Mateo asks Diego to play the video in frame-by-frame mode. Shaken with emotion, he shuffles to the screen and places his hands on the pixilated pictures. Lena is absent from his life but, in the unique way that only film makes possible, she is also present in those frames and so is the love that binds them forever. Such is the power of images.