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If you like films with a twist you will love this I was glued to the tv so clever
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
From the start this film sets up an enigma. What is the relationship between the suave surgeon (Banderas) and the patient Vera, who lives in a room in his isolated mansion, wears a flesh-coloured body-stocking, and engages in yoga, intermittently observed through a glass wall. The enigma persists, the possibilities shifting through more than half the film, and the end, or endings, are unexpected and startling. It's got great watchability, especially on a good-sized screen with high definition, thanks to quite amazing cinematography that focuses on texture - the textures of skin, of textiles, of objects, of plants and - most marvellously - of glass and mirrors and walls. How to render the visual quality of water in a glass, or of flowers in a vase, or of skin and eyes - those were the great challenges for painters from classical times. Here the challenges are taken up by cinema, which like painting works with the relation between light and surfaces and colours. The sheer look of this film is rarely less than extraordinary. The plot is - as usual when Almodovar is on form - bizarre, even fantastical. It's to say the very least exotic, and certainly not about everyday life, not about you and me. It's paced and played for tension, with great assurance, as it unfolds in a visual space where all the surfaces are distinct and heightened. Almodovar gave Banderas his first roles and they were at once wild and varied, ranging from innocent to obsessive, sometimes playing goof, sometimes playing super-sensitive. Here Banderas plays poise - like Cary Grant - so finely you can't but wonder how and when will it break? Overall this isn't one of Almodovar's most outstanding ventures, not in his tip-top league like "Law of Desire", or "Talk to Her" or "Bad Education". Perhaps because it's so altogether perfect, so totally contained. But it's almost there, and marks a huge return to form after the recent debacle that was "Broken Embraces". At times it's like a refusal of the best of his past - the hose scene from "Law of Desire" reappears, but it's no longer extravagant or joyful, the singer observed at a party (previously, Gaetano Veloso in "Talk to Her") comes back, but this time the scene is relatively and deliberately charmless. It's as if he's re-examining those magic moments under a different lens, sharply and coolly, not with the same gorgeousness. The lens here is icy. Reversing himself so as to move forwards has been ongoing in Almodovar's films, and it's why he's uneven, but also because he's daring. My take on this one is that - perhaps as is "Kika" - it's a minor rather than a major master-piece, and like "Kika" (which brought editing to a new technical high) its so technically adroit it stands up well to watching and re-watching. It's for sure the work of someone who doesn't ever stand still, but reworks what he already does, and invents new ways to look at and see the world.Read full review
Haunted by past tragedies and obsessed with beauty and his dream of creating a perfect synthetic skin, a manic plastic surgeon enters forbidden territory. Gobsmacking Spanish drama, directed by Pedro Almodovar, stars Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya.
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Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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