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film review: Bad Education

I've seen Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education twice now so I suppose I should blog about it.

It is, in short, one of the best films I've seen in many months (since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). In it, Almodovar mixes in some Hitchcockian suspense with his usual large doses of camp and melodrama. It's a recipe that works well, in this film anyway.

It's a film about many things, cleverly weaved together, but the main plot is about a young director named Enrique (a sort-of stand-in for Almodovar, played by Fele Martinez) who encounters an old classmate named Ignacio (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) from grade-school days, with whom he had a boyhood romance. Ignacio gives Enrique a story which he wrote about their time in school together, focusing on an abusive priest. Enrique, suffering from director's block, is fascinated by the story and wants to film it. This is where the mystery begins, as the seeming true story, the script we would expect, starts to unravel.

There follow many character role reversals--victim becomes victimizer becomes victim, etc.--and a story line that loops back upon itself--reality becomes fiction becomes reality, etc.--along with plenty of pretty things to look at.

The cinematography is stunning, with quite a few interesting camera tricks and semi-animations (I was particularly impressed by the scene where the young protagonist, Ignatio, is sexually abused by Fr. Manolo. He resists and Fr. Manolo strikes him. Close-up on the angelic boy: a drop of blood slides down his forehead. Then his head splits along the path of the blood, like a stage opening up, and the next scene begins.)

In general, I found the visual design of the film to be one of the most vital things in the film. The opening credits, in particular, are worth the price of admission. (The web design for the film mimicks the film design, which is good, though they really should put up the opening credits along with the so-so movie trailer. The credits are better down). Only after seeing the film for the second time did I notice that not only is it a visual treat, but it also serves as a kind of visual overture, revealing key scenes and interactions that are key to the story, but which you wouldn't understand the first time).

I also very much liked the Bernard Herrmann-esque score (Herrmann did many of Hitchcock's scores), but what I suppose many viewers focus on is the break-out performance by Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays three different roles in the film. While he has not quite matched the multi-role performance of someone like Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, he has certainly showed himself to be a major talent. He's also the most gorgeous drag queen in the movies for some time.

Finally, what fascinated me about the film was its multi-media aspects. The text of the story Ignacio writes becomes a player in the film. The text emerges from the film, but then at certain points the film emerges from the text, in its conception, and in its visual design (there was one particular dissolve early on in the film where the characters and story fade in from the words of the page), all to highlight the precarious and contingent nature of reality, and the ubiquity of fiction.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/badeducation/intro.html

Posted by jeb at March 22, 2005 3:31 PM | TrackBack