2002, Spain
Drama, Romance
Director Pedro Almodóvar (All About My Mother) has choreographed a beautiful story of intertwining characters, both literally and figuratively. This awards-lavished film begins with a ballet representing the underlying force of this tale, whose meaning is not apparent until the characters have fully played their parts. The ballet becomes an omniscient character, providing simplistic summaries to very complex situations.
The ballet motif is further infused in this film through the professions of the two leading ladies, a ballerina and a bullfighter. Both are skilled and disciplined dancers in their own fields, following strict regiments for the sake of their career. The leading men, however, are driven purely by their passions for the women. Not only throughout their courtships, but also through the desperate choices of their careers in order to be near to their loved ones.
Javier Cámara is excellent as the obsessed nurse Benigno, who feels perfectly content to forever care for the ballerina in a coma, Alicia (Leonor Watling). He had previously spoken only a few anxious words with her, and now shares his every thought. Dario Grandinetti portrays an emotionally weary Marco, who finds himself in the same hospital after his bullfighter girlfriend Lydia has also been put into a state of a coma. Marco, however, can only freely communicate with her through dreams, and finds himself drawn to the constantly-conversing Benigno. Rosario Flores is strong and commanding as Lydia, with cracks of human weakness.
As the ballerina's former instructor is describing an upcoming ballet to her comatose student, she narrates a scene wherein "the male emerges from the female." Nothing could be further from the truth with Almodóvar's male characters, whose lives are completely dependent on the need to care for these women. Man's undying devotion to his beloved is further illustrated through a whimsical silent film-within-a-film.
The only special feature on this DVD is a insightful and interesting commentary track by Almodóvar and actress Geraldine Chaplin (available with English subtitles). There are also a few trailers for other Columbian films, and the film appears in anamorphic widescreen.