Starring: Javier Camara, Dario Grandinetti
Director: and written by Pedro Almodovar
Rated: MA15+
(Spanish with English subtitles)
FOR some time, Pedro Almodovar has been Spain’s most important director.
Since winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2000 with All About My Mother, he has become the most famous as well.
Technically his films have a number of trade marks – stunning cinematography, creative camera angles, detailed observation of small events and the prominence given to one or two musical performances within the film. In these stories hospitals regularly appear, there is usually a TV show or live theatre within the film, the liturgy, piety and devotion of the Church is never far from the action, and the mother-child relationship is a central cause of the problems. Talk to Her maintains these traditions.
Benigno (Javier Camara) is dysfunctionally devoted to his mother’s care. We never see her and only briefly hear her voice, but she dominates the story. When she dies he becomes obsessed with Alicia (Leonor Watling), a ballet student at the academy across the road from his apartment. A car accident leaves Alicia in a coma.
Benigno becomes her devoted nurse in a specialist clinic. Following a bullfight the matador Lydia (Rosario Flores) is admitted to the same clinic in a similar state.
Benigno encourages Lydia’s boyfriend Marco (Grandinetti) to tell Lydia all about his feelings and the plans he has for their future. Marco does not think Benigno is in touch with reality. He’s not.
When Alicia becomes pregnant, Benigno is charged with her rape. Marco is the only friend Benigno has left in the world.
Because Almodovar writes almost all his own screenplays, I can only conclude that his relationship with his own mother must be anything but straightforward.
Talk To Her is a study in how a son can be left so socially and emotionally scarred by his inappropriate attachment to his mother that he replicates the need to be needed with other unattainable women.
In Talk To Her the outcome is tragic because Benigno wants to be consumed by the women in his life. One sex scene which portrays this desire, will greatly offend some viewers.
It’s hard to work out if Talk To Her is simply a psychological drama or if it’s meant to be an allegory of a wider social dilemma. As technically accomplished as it is, it has a hint of a boy jumping up and down on the spot demanding attention.
As one of those who might want to listen to Almodovar, I wish he would talk to us in plainer terms because the maternal melodrama is wearing thin.
