Almodovar as freaky Auteur

Pedro Almodovar, or simply Almodovar as he likes to be presented - 'un film de Almodovar' and all that - is a Spanish film director whose films have disturbed audiences universally. Best known probably for Volver (2006), Broken Embraces (2009) and, most recently, The Skin I Live In (2011), I can't help watching one of his films without feeling assaulted in some way.

The most recurrent theme in his work is sexuality. And this is brutally presented through graphic scenes of rape, subversive gender roles, and surrealism.

Perhaps the most shocking representation of sex and sexuality in Almodovar film is displayed in Talk to Her (2002). A scene apparently central to the narrative, the 'shrinking lover' depicts a - no word of a lie - story about a couple whose relationship is challenged by the fact that she has shrunk him to the size of a smart phone. But in a twisted take on Honey I Shrunk The Kids, the story gets even more bizarre when he, well he... I think you should just watch the film and see for yourself.

Here's a picture, you can probably guess what happens next.

This is Almodovar putting across ideas of sexual tabboos and subverting the role of women and men through - yeah is he just being a pervert?

I don't think so. The silent film seems to parallel the main plotline of heterosexual male absorbtion with the inanimate female form. Its style echoes of film produced in the surrealist movement by the likes of Dali, and hints at Freudian concepts of the hedonistic id, and even the death drive (the whole returning to the womb concept). In the main plot of Talk To Her [SPOILER], a male nurse rapes his comatose client. Almodovar converts this to an underlying message of men's objectification of women through the male gaze. Putting this idea in such a format makes it seem repulsive, and the scene is a symbollic rape, perhaps alluding to male control over women in cinema.

This helpless women is graphically mutilated in surreal Dali film Un Chien Andalou (1929)

Alicia in Talk To Her is molested by her nurse while comatose.

You should see Almodovar's other movies.

On a lighter note, I was fortunate enough to visit the British Film Institute (BFI) headquarters in London last month on a trip with my college. The day was titled 'Almodovar as Auteur'.

Establishing Shot

Two Shot - see I was actually there! - with Laura, more dedicated film nerd.

It was an alright trip despite the fact it was on the sunniest day of the year so far, and we spent most of the time in a dark room learning about Almodovar. A speaker made it worse by ruining the deliberate twist of an ending for The Skin I Live In before any of us had watched it. Who does that? The BFI does that.