Hypnotic Broken Embraces another Almodóvar Triumph
Harry Caine (Lluís Homar) doesn’t want to dwell in the past. The blind writer has put his former life as renowned Spanish director Mateo Blanco into the trash bin, choosing to live out his days working under his noir pseudonym cranking out screenplays with the aid of his former production manager Judit’s (Blanca Portillo) energetic son Diego (Tamar Novas).
Penélope Cruz and Lluís Homar in Sony Pictures Classics' Broken Embraces
After a mysterious man calling himself Ray X (Rubén Ochandiano) arrives at his door trying to urge Harry to assist him on a new project, old wounds buried for 14 years suddenly come bursting to the surface. Soon a tragic love affair is revealed, auteur Mateo loving his last leading lady Lena (Penélope Cruz) so passionately her mysterious and tragic death reduced him to a rubble he’s never been able to recover from. Past suddenly collides with the present, the catharsis of storytelling revealing wounds so deep the passage of so much time has only now just begun to try and heal them.
I firmly believe Pedro Almodóvar is the director of this past decade. From Talk to Her to Bad Education to Volver his movies have shown a passionate idiosyncrasy I can’t begin to describe. He moves between genres with beguiling ease, the level of emotion at the center of all his works so monumental their collective effect is downright awe inspiring.
While his latest effort Broken Embraces isn’t his best effort, it’s still so gosh darn fantastic and wonderful I imagine I’m going to be watching it nearly as much as each of those aforementioned modern classics. Spiraling from comedy to romance to thriller to melodrama to tragedy with ease, Almodóvar’s confidence behind the camera knows no bounds, my eyes fixated from start to finish on just how Harry, Ernesto, Judit and, yes, Lena’s stories would all find a redemptive resolution.
Redemption. That’s what I think this entry in the Almodóvar canon is all about. The people depicted have each been broken in some way, all seeing tragedy in one form or another keeping them from achieving the sense of peace all are looking for. Their struggle can only end if they open their eyes to the past, even the blind having to see in order for goodness and grace to replace revulsion and self-loathing.
Whether it does or it does not I will not say, and as this is an Almodóvar film to say things could go in a multitude of directions is pretty much a forgone conclusion. The filmmaker kept me continually off balance, my laughs having to find their way through a shower of tears all while the unyielding tension of the central mystery kept my insides twisting into tighter and tighter knots. I was in constant fear that undying love would be ripped to shreds like a photograph of lovers embracing on a secluded seashore, the cloud of a guilty conscience making salvation as impossible as sinking a hole-in-one on a 600-foot par five.
Unlike Talk to Her and Bad Education, I will say the director’s weave through time and space isn’t quite as seamless as it has been in the past. I’d also say that revelations involving Judit and Ray X aren’t near as surprising or as mysterious as I kind of wanted them to be. I also have a little bit of a problem with the mechanics leading to Harry’s ultimate revealing to Diego of his past, the turn of events providing the young man with a health scare feeling like they’d have been at home in a random episode of “Gossip Girl” more then they do here.
Ultimately I find these things to be minor annoyances. Cruz continues her magnetic resurgence begun when the filmmaker returned to her for the second time with Volver, her captivating performance a finely multilayered marvel full of wonder. Homar is equally good, while José Luis Gómez oozes a sinister yet heartrending menace as a mysterious millionaire who lets his own longing and lust get the better of him.
I don’t know what else there is to say. Ever since 1997’s Live Flesh it is almost as if Almodóvar can do no wrong, his work this decade so beyond reproach calling it magnificent would be a gross understatement. Broken Embraces, inconsequential flaws and all, continues this trend, and walking out of the theatre the only thing I wanted more than to see this movie again was to discover just what this fantabulous director has up his sleeve next.
Film Rating: êêê1/2 (out of 4)
