Julieta

Ladies Of Spain

Julieta
2016 Spain
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
UK cinema release print.

Julieta is the latest movie directed by Spanish treasure Pedro Almodóvar and based on three short stories from Alice Munro’s collection Runaway. I’ve been told that many believe that this is a ‘return to form’ for Almodóvar and all I can say to that is... I’m not so sure he was ever really off form. Okay, so I didn’t like The Skin I Live In (reviewed by me here), and I didn’t see his last movie, I’m So Excited, either... but up until then I’d say I personally found him to be a great director and have liked maybe 75% of his total output. I remember being absolutely blown away by Broken Embraces, for example.

I mention Broken Embraces because, like that movie, Julieta is a good example of Almodóvar’s cinematic art showing signs of being fairly self referential but, thankfully, not yet a parody of himself, as yet. Although he did come close to that in some ways, perhaps, with one of his lead characters in Broken Embraces acting in that story's 'film within a film' parody of his early hit, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown. In Julieta, the references are much less blatant than that but.. they are there. For example, one character near the end of the movie refers to himself as acting as if he was in a Patricia Highsmith novel, someone who Almodóvar has often referred to as providing the template on which he’s based many a character on. Another example would be the character Julieta owning some music by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto who, of course, did the music for Almodóvar’s High Heels.

Julieta is a gripping tale of the title character played by Emma Suárez in half the film and bookending a younger version of her in flashback, played by Adriana Ugarte. It tells of her writing a letter to a daughter who walked out of her life 12 years earlier and so we get the story of her encounters with death and the dramas of, ultimately, a torn apart family. And, when people say this is a return to form for Almodóvar, perhaps they mean it’s a return to the kind of themes which were often found in his movies from around the mid 1990s and for most of the next ten years of his career. It’s almost like a rerun of some of those movies in thematic elements but, frankly, when we see a new superhero or zombie movie variant every other month, I’m not going to knock the director for returning to familiar territory... just like I wouldn’t knock Woody Allen for constantly returning to the kind of thematic content that he does best.

The story is one of the elements that would tell me, if I was watching this film unaware of who directed it, that it was an Almodóvar movie. The other give away is just how meticulous the mise-en-scene is for the first half an hour. Everything is rigidly defined and Almodóvar is all about playing with vertical sectioning of the screen here. He puts people into different segments of the screen and there’s even a wonderful shot where Darío Grandinetti is standing in Julieta’s apartment in close up at the intersection of two different walls, one masking the other, as though two flat, bright sections of colour are splitting down the middle of his skull... it’s amazing stuff. I did notice, though, that after the film starts moving into flashback territory, the style loosens up a little, with a more easy going, less rigid sense of spatial awareness taking over from the very blatantly controlled first section. I don’t know if this was a specific decision by Almodóvar to subconsciously say something about the confines of Julieta’s life after the tragedy at the centre of her drama comes to pass or whether this was just a coincidence but... something tells me this might have been a deliberate artistic decision.

The actors are all fantastic, of course, with everyone I’ve mentioned so far giving it their all and, for aged fans of Almodóvar’s work, there’s even a role for Rossy De Palma here. Also worth a mention are Daniel Grao as the love of Julieta’s life, Xoan, and a great turn by Inma Cuesta as local sculptor Ava (in reality, her fascinating work is all by artist Miquel Navarro). They are all aided by a script that really keeps you interested and sympathetic with the characters and a, really not bad, score by longtime Almodóvar composer Alberto Iglesias, which is once again mixed into the foreground like a 1950s Hollywood style accompaniament and seems a little out of kilter with he way most scores these days are mixed but, it works really well and the prominence and style he uses here has almost become an Almodóvar trademark in itself.

The one thing I do feel a little bit disappointed in was the ending. The film concludes at a point which feels like we are just about to get some answers as to why a certain thing has happened in the movie (see how careful I’m being about spoilers here people?) and, instead, Almodóvar just lets the credits role before we get the scene we want to see. Which is frustrating. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think I can see exactly why he’s used the ending he has but, even though it probably is the perfect conclusion for the movie, in all honesty, I would have loved to see the scene which two of the characters find themselves driving to at the end of the film.

That being said, Julieta is still a great little movie and a welcome change of pace from the ‘Hollywood bang-bang, crunch-crunch’ cinema which has been the main cinematic diet over the summer months. I had to make a journey into London to see this because my local Cineworld had decided not to show it but I’m glad I did because it’s nice to see something more meticulous and engaging at the pictures every now and again (or most of the time would be good, to be honest). It’s probably not the best by this director, to be fair, but it is up there with the ‘very good’ category as far as I’m concerned... which is a great deal better than a lot of other director’s ‘very good’ movies, to be fair. If you are into this celluloid artist’s work and have liked his movise in the past, then you probably won’t have any problems with this one. Another canvass in the portfolio of one of contemporary cinema’s great creators. Give it a go if it’s playing somewhere local to you.

The Skin I Live In (aka La Piel Que Habito)

Skins Of The Father

The Skin I Live In (aka La Piel Que Habito)

2011 Spain

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

Screening at UK cinemas

There are no spoilers in this review as such. That’s because there’s not a heck of a lot I could give away and the one big twist in this movie (which in a way is the only spoiler I could give... the fact that this movie does indeed have a twist)... is quite a major thing and, itself, gets revealed about two thirds of the way through the movie. I didn’t figure out what it was myself until about 20 minutes before it was revealed during a series of flashback sequences and I blame my own assumptions and expectations from seeing the trailer and some publicity stills for not getting there way sooner (more on that in a moment) like most people would.

One thing I will say though is that I’m kinda glad, in a way, that I wasn’t aware of the nature of the twist before going to see the film because the subject matter holds no interest for me and I would have simply not bothered going to see this if I’d known. Which would have been a shame because I’ve found myself inadvertently following this director’s career since I first saw Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (aka Átame!) at the Lumiere cinema back in 1990. That was also the last film that Antonia Banderas worked on with his muse Almodóvar before “going international” and becoming something of a Big Hollywood Movie Star. His return to the Almodóvar brand, and it really is a brand at this point, is very welcome and although I had trouble with certain aspects of the movie, Banderas is his usual, brilliant self in this film.

Now when I saw the trailer for this movie and some of the beautiful stills from it, I immediately assumed this movie would be a dual homage to both Jess Franco’s 1961 movie The Awful Doctor Orloff and Georges Franju’s 1960 movie Eyes Without A Face... and I suppose in some ways it’s lineage could certainly be traced back there. However, the film lacks the post-modernistic referencing I get from most movies these days... that is to say, Almodóvar’s homage in this particular instance was a lot more subtle than I thought it would be... I think I’ve become brainwashed by the blatant eclecticism of lots of modern American movies to appreciate the low-key homage that is going on here. Almodóvar quite rightly serves the story first and foremost... and not the collective geekiness of people like myself.

The pre-publicity also got me thinking that the movie would be serving as a continuation of the long tradition of masked heroes and anti-heroes established in early 1900s French pulp literature and it’s influence... you know, Eric from Phantom of the Opera, Fantômas... maybe even a little of the Italian Diabolik thrown in for good measure. Not to mention characters such as Kriminal and Satanik! Alas, although certain elements of the style of the imagery from these does find it’s way into this movie, this is in no way intentional (I believe) and is just another symptom of the visual devices used to service the story... which, of course, is exactly what it should be.

Now Almodóvar is a bit hit and miss for me but, in recent years, he’s been far more hit than miss and I have to say that the trailer didn’t sell this as being your typical Almodóvar movie (if there’s such a thing as a typical Almodóvar movie... and I think there is). Certainly, for a while there after the film started, it didn’t quite seem to be what I would associate with Almodóvar, outside from the characteristic clean and bright visual style, of course. But as the film snakes along at a fairly cracking pace, you begin to recognise the key Almodóvar trademarks like the extended flashback sequences and the way they change your perceptions of the characters you’ve been living with for the last three quarters of an hour. It seems, after all, that we are on typical Almodóvar territory after all and I was almost disappointed at this turn of events in some ways but I really don’t know what I’m complaining about.

It’s certainly not boring and the colours and cinematography are absolutely cracking. There’s some absolutely brilliant stuff of Banderas giving a presentation at the start of the film via a computer where that particular light source (given a little help from the on-set lighting no doubt) gives him a severe case of sinister, old school 1930s Universal Horror lighting and this, combined with Antonia Banderas’ riveting performance, harking back to a long line of “mad scientists” of the motion pictures over the last 100 or more years, will certainly hold you in rapt and contemplative attention. All the performances in this movie, in fact, are of the usual high standard you would expect from the players in this director’s works... and that’s a big positive reason for giving this one some of your time.

A negative I had is that the musical cue so prominent in the theatrical trailer, and which gave the images on screen such a sinister and off-beat feel, only materialises briefly to score a small part of one sequence. It is not typical of the rest of Iglesias’ score throughout the movie which, although serviceable, was not really as stand out as I was expecting it to be... at least not within the context of supporting the film itself at any rate. I’m not sure how it will play outside of the film as a stand alone work.

My conclusion to this experiment is, thus, simple. The Skin I Live In is a double revenge movie. I’m not going to say why or how but you’ll realise why it is about halfway through seeing it. It has elegantly framed, clean shots with nice, bright colours and is leisurely edited, as you would expect from this director. I was personally left a little empty and uninspired by it and I think that was, more than anything, due to the impossible expectations I’d put on it. I can’t do anything, however, than recommend this fine movie to anyone who’s interested in it. Definitely worth a watch if Almodóvar is one of your directors of choice.