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Cannes 2009 'Broken Embraces': review
Penelope Cruz stars in 'Broken Embraces', the latest film from Spanish maestro, Pedro Almodóvar.
Pedro Almodóvar’s seventeenth film, which premieres in Cannes today, is his longest, most complicated and self-reflexive film to date. Rather than continuing the warm tone of ‘Volver’, ‘Los Abrazos Rotos’ (‘Broken Embraces’) goes back to the noir of 2004’s ‘Bad Education’, but takes the film fixation up a whole new level. Jumbling genres and fragmenting characters – in particular, Penélope Cruz’s Lena who has more identities than Jason Bourne, from an Audrey Hepburn-esque film star, to a femme fatale and a ‘Belle de Jour’-style call-girl – Almodóvar seems to be trying to cram everything he loves about the movies into ‘Broken Embraces’.It starts in present-day Madrid. Mateo Blanco (‘Bad Education’s’ Lluís Homar) is a filmmaker who’s been blind ever since a car accident on the island of Lanzarote that also claimed the life of his lover Lena. Since the tragedy, he’s been known only by his pen name Harry Caine, repressing his former self in order to live life to the full, looked after by his age-old friend Judit (‘Volver’s’ Blanca Portillo) and her son Diego (Tamar Novas, ‘The Sea Inside’).
All of this is cut through with flashbacks to Lena’s story, which begins in 1992 when she’s hoodwinked into marrying her wealthy stockbroker boss, Ernesto Martel – brilliantly played by Almodóvar newcomer José Luis Gómez, who keeps ruthlessness, benevolence and vulnerability expertly intermingling throughout – before meeting Mateo when she auditions for a part in his latest film.
But these are just the bare bones of an ambitiously labyrinthine plot. There’s also the mysterious Ray X (Rubén Ochandiano), who wants Harry to help him write a script to avenge his bullying father. There’s ‘Chicas y Maletas’ (‘Girls and Suitcases’), the film-within-a-film directed by Mateo, starring Lena and produced by Ernesto, which bears a striking similiarity to Almodóvar’s ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’, right down to the barbiturate-laced gazpacho scene. Then there’s the ‘Chicas y Maletas’ making-of; a staircase fall; a pile of torn-up photos; suppressed secrets; scripts about cosmetic-inventing vampires; Arthur Miller’s Down’s syndrome son; and cameos by a host of Almodóvar regulars.
It’s a tribute to Almodóvar’s careful scripting and the skills of Cruz and the rest of the cast that this intricate fusion of disparate elements hangs together as well as it does. It’s easy to forgive its improbabilities and misfires and just succumb to its artful flow of constantly resonating moments, which sends the brain ping-ponging in all directions.
But despite all the passion and tragedy, it doesn’t resonate like a ‘Talk to Her’ or a ‘Volver’. The title, for instance, connects to a cluster of dovetailing images and ideas – a ripped-up photo of Lena and Mateo, a scene from Rossellini’s ‘Voyage to Italy’, a couple embracing on the black volcanic sands of Lanzarote, Lena’s tragic fate – but they never coalesce.
It’s certainly Almodóvar’s most inward-looking film, and its roots, he’s said, lie in the migraines that have started to afflict him in recent years. It was while recovering from one in a darkened room that he conjured the character of a blind filmmaker. It sounds like a director imagining his worse nightmare, and as such, you might be forgiven for thinking ‘Broken Embraces’ is the product of a man isolated by fame and ill health taking refuge in his artistic past.
But for all its darkness and tragedy, it’s an optimistic film at heart: despite his afflictions Mateo/Harry continues his work and embraces life. One of the most moving scenes shows him answering to his Harry Caine identity for the first time on a beach surrounded by kites, surfers, children, lovers, dogs, life. There’s plenty of comedy here too, not least from Lola Dueñas’s (‘Volver’) lip-reader, who, hired when the making-of’s sound fails, reproduces Lena’s speech in monotone for Ernesto.
The sense is of an ageing director taking stock: exploring his cinematic roots, imagining his future and working through it all to emerge counting his blessings at the end. It’s something reflected in the way those trademark Almodóvar bright colours come leaping out from the shadowy backgrounds in Rodrigo Prieto’s exquisite cinematography. ‘Broken Embraces’ is indeed a film where joy comes lurching out of the darkness to steel you, lift you, to make you realise that no matter how bad things get, there’s always something to enjoy. There’s always cinema.
Author: Nick Funnell
User comments on this story
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- victor said...
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The story is not at all compelling. As usual with Almodovar, the film is laden with too many
coincidences. Overall it lacks something at its heart - perhaps the love between the two central characters could've been demonstrated more deeply. The main male lead is not a character we have sufficient sympahty or empathy for. Making films about making films is always a sign that a director is short on ideas. Having said that, parts of the film are stylistically well done. The end is so flimsy. For me the experience left me feeling unsatisfied. The film almost works. Posted on Feb 22 2010 08:52 - Report as inappropriate
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- Julie said...
- The ending was the best....The visual was excellent, but the Narcisism of the Director's focus on the beauty of Penelope and not the acting, was a huge empty mistake...Finally I had to open the my cell phone to see what time it was! Posted on Jan 24 2010 02:17
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- martin turner said...
- Great film. Who ripped up the photos, when and why ? Posted on Jan 07 2010 23:27
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- Gerta said...
- I am also looking forward to see it in Chicago. PG if you get any information on where and when it's playing, please let me know. Posted on Dec 10 2009 02:37
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- Perlayo Gonzalez said...
- Anybody knows when this film will be released in Chicago, IL? Posted on Dec 01 2009 01:18
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- Adeline said...
- An Almodovar fan, I've been curious what he'd do after "bad Education" - I liked the idea of him moving on and his filmmaking evolving into something new, as all his old ideas about world of women, feminity etc. were thoroughly exploited... This movie disappointed me, painfully so. It's boring, emotionless... For the first time I watched it I fell asleep! For the second time I watched it I understood why... Artificial, boring, empty, a recycle of ideas. Except for Blanca Portillo, acting sucks. Bitter disappointment. Posted on Oct 31 2009 22:53
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- Michael Lebor said...
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NB. Not all of the acting was bad - 3 or 4 of the characters were good.
It was as if the director had shot the film, run away to an island and the editor (who was left to cut the film on his own) was bribed to use all the bad takes...
Please correct me if I'm missing the point but the cliche count was astronomical, was that the point of the film? Posted on Oct 22 2009 21:44 - Report as inappropriate
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- Michael Lebor said...
- All that pretentious waffle may be true but the acting was terrible, the script was laughable (apart from where it was supposed to be funny) and I am definitely never ever watching another film by this boring repetitive man. Trite, cliched, boring. Please give money to an up and coming Spanish director who isn't stuck in the past and may actually make a film worth watching instead of wasting huge budgets on this idiot. On a positive note - Lanzarote is stunning and the helicopter shot flying over the road was easily the best part of the film, oh and the seat I was sitting in was quite comfortable. Posted on Oct 22 2009 21:38
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- usman khawaja said...
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LOOKS LIKE ALMODOVAR has not lost his touch at all -i love all his movies but i really enjoyed kika .matador -volver ,women on verge -which show the fierce violent side of the feminine spirit with a wicked humour which is challenging our ideas of what constitutes the normal -in almodovars best works the paranormal mixes with normal as in virtual reality to creat a subconcious mystery which emerges both as a buoyant metaphor for the frail sex but also show their infinite resilience in a fragile manner where the human fear of mortality is replaced with a joy of existence even if it just a momentary feeling that is fleeting through our subconcious itself ,
i suppose that is what might be defined as great art as in almodovars timeless modern parables which are truly not restricted by any form itself , Posted on Mar 22 2009 13:02 - Report as inappropriate
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