Day 23: Talk To Her

"Nothing is simple. I'm a ballet mistress, and nothing is simple."

Pedro Almodovar's 2002 feature, "Talk To Her", is undoubtedly a masterpiece of tone. I'm referring to that aesthethic shiver that goes down your spine when you observe mise en scene at it's best. One of the difficulties of writing about Almodovar films is that his plots tend to read as very flat, or melodramatic, on paper."Talk To Her" falls into the melodramatic category, telling the story of two men who form an unusual friendship. Beningo, a long time admirer of Alicia( a dancer he watches from his apartment) takes care of her when she is involved a car accident. Marco is a journalist who has been assigned to profile Lydia, a female bull fighter. He soon falls for Lydia, and when she suffers a catastrophic injury, spends most of his days at the hospital watching over her. Both women are in a coma, and we are left to observe the two men bonding over women they barely know.



The plot is one you'd find on any basic soap opera, which is why the atmosphere is so important. The film feels like a series of vignettes,with a jumbled chronological order that would throw most films off the rails. Yet, it all flows so seamlessly, mostly due to Almodovars use of warm colors and location. With most of the film taking place in a hospital, a place where time seems to travel at a different speed, the films multiple flashbacks work magnificently.

Almodovar is known for having an acute sensitivity to the fairer sex, joining the ranks of Ingmar Bergman and Annie Hall. "Talk To Her" is one of his most feminine features, yet it maintains an uncomfortable coarseness. In one scene, Beningo takes the form of a character in a beautiful short film within the film, entitled "The Shrinking Man". The man shrinks to a truly miniscule size, much to the dismay of his lover. However, when they are in the bedroom, he uses his size to crawl inside her vagina to please her. He ultimately dies, and this takes on a whole meaning once we find out the horrific act this has symbolized in the real world. "The Shrinking Man" scene is one of the most surreal sequences I have ever seen in a film.

If you think there is something strange about two men falling in love with two women in a coma.......there is. The ultimate reveal, however, makes no moral judgments. It is a film about the difficulties in communication between men and women, the loneliness of unrequited love, and the implications of intimacy. "Talk To Her" succeeds brilliantly in taking a soap opera plot,and making it more human than we could ever imagine. It is a movie more intent on being felt than understood.