Talk To Her

[bix171]

As a writer, Pedro Almodovar has evolved from an off the wall scenarist with serious themes to a serious scenarist with off the wall themes and both styles have managed to complement him as a filmmaker. The screenplay for “Talk To Her”, with its effortless transition from entertaining character study in its first half to moving treatment of love in the second, is furthered by Almodovar’s exquisite, sensitive use of camera placement and lighting, allowing for a richness of emotion that sneaks up on you in a dazzling, heartfelt finale. The unusual (to say the least) plot is about two men who form a relationship while the women they love are both in comas; but Almodovar refuses to play it for laughs, instead using it to inquire about the male approach to both sexes, suggesting, in a myriad of ways both literary and cinematically, that there is very little to differentiate between them. Almodovar has always been an actor’s director and this is no exception, but the sublime performance by Javier Camara as the film’s central character, a male nurse who has taken the job just to be near the comatose dancer he loves, is especially inventive; long-faced, with a continual hangdog expression, Camara’s gentle appeal subtly grows on you as the film progresses so that when he commits an act you know is virtually unthinkable, he—and the director—are forgiven when they use it as a catalyst for the blossoming life affirmation at the end. While it’s hampered (only slightly) by some slow sections midway that threaten to lull the film to a halt, there’s a rhythm that the director establishes that makes the story flow seamlessly. “Talk To Her” certainly cements Almodovar’s reputation as a world-class filmmaker who seems nowhere near his peak. Highly recommended.

[oscar jubis]

On the Morality of Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her
By Oscar Jubis

Is a work of art diminished esthetically by ethical or moral flaws? It is a question pertinent to many films, including Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her (2002). In this Oscar-winning film, the protagonist has intercourse with the comatose woman he has been devotedly nursing for four years. Benign Benigno talks to the young accident victim Alicia as if she is still conscious. His acknowledgment of her personhood and subjectivity is admirable. Then he rapes her.

Almodovar visualizes this violation in a most unique manner. He does not compromise the viewer's sympathy for Benigno by actually showing the sordid, unsightly act. Instead, he invents a silent, rather comic, one-reeler involving a married couple. The husband drinks a potion that diminishes his stature to a couple of inches. When his wife is asleep, he crawls into her vagina. A close-up of the sleeping woman's face reveals an expression of ecstasy. Almodovar cuts to a close-up of Alicia's face, creating a direct association between the two women. The film-within-a-film is meant to stand for the rape of Alicia. Talk to Her draws a parallel between the married couple in the silent and Benigno and Alicia, whose only meeting consists of Alicia asking the intruding, stalking Benigno to get out of her house.

It is not simply that Benigno operates under the illusion that he and Alicia constitute a bona fide couple. Talk to Her itself seems to sanction this view by including the title "Benigno and Alicia" in the same manner and style as the title of the relationship between Benigno's friend Marco and the bullfighter Lydia. Moreover, the rape is romanticized and eroticized. Benigno is shown preparing Alicia for sex in a most ritualized manner. Alicia never looks as beautiful as she does after Benigno lovingly applies cosmetics to her face and styles her hair. At the moment of nonconsensual penetration, Almodovar's camera stares at the soothing sight of a lava lamp; a most inappropriate metaphor for such an ignominious act. All along, a tender passage in Alberto Iglesias's musical score plays in the background. To add insult to injury, Talk To Her proceeds to suggest that Alicia is better off as a consequence of the rape because it begets a series of events culminating in her coming out of the coma. The rape engenders her rebirth. It is like a kiss from a Prince Charming.

Talk to Her demonstrates Almodovar's ample skills as a film artist. I would argue that, as an ode to male friendship, it rivals some of the best works by Hollywood director Howard Hawks. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that what makes the film memorable and sui generis are the presentation of the rape and the treatment of its perpetrator. I also firmly believe that the answer to the question that opened this essay is affirmative, that one shall not divorce morality from esthetics or artistic quality. However, I remain somewhat conflicted as to whether Talk to Her is immoral or unethical.

Arguments can be made in defense of the portrayal of Benigno and presentation of the rape of Isabel based on the overall purpose they serve. For instance, Talk to Her exhorts the viewer to regard Benigno as the sum of everything we know about him rather than isolate his worst moment and judge him accordingly. Thus the film provides an eloquent illustration of how every human being is deserving of empathy and compassion. Then again, perhaps those values are already modeled with sufficient verve and clarity by the character of Marco. Noel Carroll convincingly proposes that the film serves as a tool for moral perfectionism. He argues that, by separating the negative set of verdicts we issue when morally condemning an act, its agent and its consequences, Talk to Her "encourages philosophical self-reflection upon the workings of our moral machinery in a way that is apt to refine and improve our powers of ethical judgment." And yet, one wonders if Almodovar could have accomplished such a worthy goal without calling into question the morality of his film.

[Howard Schumann]

TALK TO HER (HABLE CON ELLA)

Directed by Pedro Almodovar (2002)

We see our lovers as we see films, through eyes that have a unique outlook and perspective based on our ideas about reality and the depth of our experience. Sometimes our love conforms to society's values, often it does not. In Pedro Almodovar's Talk To Her, two very different men visit comatose women in the hospital, and each form a bond with the women and each other. The love is part real, part fantasy, but does not fit our picture of what being "in love" is truly about. Indeed, Almodovar's women often seem like idealized objects of art.

Talk To Her is a series of interwoven character studies about the effects of loneliness that is often self-conscious. The film opens with a Pina Bausch dance piece called Café Muller. Two women, dressed only in a pink slip, run across a chair-littered stage with their eyes closed. A man, anticipating her every move, pushes the obstacles out of the way for her. Sitting in the audience is Marco, a man so touched by the performance that tears stream down his face. Next to him is Benigno, a stranger who nevertheless notices Marco's reaction. In fact, it means so much to him that when he returns to his job as a nurse caring for a young woman in a coma, he describes the scene to her. Benigno (Javier Camara) is a somewhat effeminate male nurse who has spent the last four years taking care of the beautiful Alicia (Leonor Watling), in a coma since an automobile accident.

Prior to that he spent his adolescence taking care of his sick mother. At 30, he is still a virgin and professes to be gay. Benigno, however, loves Alicia and spends his days and nights talking to her even though there is no evidence of response, a scenario seemingly borrowed from the 1998 film Dreamlife of Angels. Marco (Dario Grandinetti) is a travel writer who has recently ended a long-term relationship because of the woman's drug habit. He meets Spain's only female bullfighter Lydia (Rosario Flores) after watching her on a television interview. Lydia has also ended a relationship with a prominent bullfighter. When a bull inexplicably gores Lydia, she ends up in a coma in the same hospital as Benigno and Alicia. A friendship develops between the two men based on mutual need. Benigno notices Marco and advises him: "A woman's brain is a mystery, and in this state even more so.… Talk to her."

The four main characters are very different but compassionate in their own way as shown in flashbacks of their lives: the charming but obsessive nature of Benigno, the idealized beauty of Alicia, and the masculine sensitivity of both Marco and Lydia. Benigno is the central character in the film and is portrayed by Camara as innocent and charming, yet strange in his dark compulsions. Marco, in an outstanding performance by Grandinetti, projects a Clint Eastwood type image of a proud masculine individual but possessed of a deep humanity. Katerina Bilova (Geraldine Chaplin), Alicia's ballet teacher, is another fascinating Almodovar creation. She talks poetically about femininity emerging from masculinity and the earth giving way to the ethereal. Her interest in such physical transformations is indicative of the spiritual bent of the director.

The lives of the characters become intertwined in a way that is daring and unpredictable and their story brings us to a level of deep and personal involvement. Though this is the first film I've seen by this director, Almodovar's stock in trade seems to be to shock us into awareness of the outer limits of the human condition. The film presents the biggest challenge to the viewer when Benigno tells Alicia about a silent movie he's seen. It is Almodovar's own creation called The Shrinking Lover, ostensibly a takeoff on the 1957 classic The Incredible Shrinking Man. The story is about a man who keeps shrinking. He keeps trying to make love to a woman but gets so tiny he walks into the woman's vagina and disappears forever. In this sequence, there is a distance that separates men and women and a connection that brings them together.

The ensuing plot twists tests the viewer's ability to feel sympathy for Benigno who violates not only the own ethical standards he swore to uphold but the standards by which conduct is judged by society. The question is to what extent Almodovar's attempt to poeticize irresponsible behavior and make it seem innocent and charming heighten our spiritual sensibility, or make us blind to the implications of such acts. In taking us to the limits of what is ethical, plausible, or even physically possible, Almodovar asks for our love and compassion, not our judgment and, rather than a study of pathology, Talk To Her becomes a liberating dance of joy and friendship.

GRADE: B+