Simply Perfect

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Fascinatingly complex nourish mystery. A film-maker is reunited with a boyhood lover, who wants to tell a dark story from their Catholic school days. But is the story true? And who's story is it really? Gael Garcia Bernal is terrific, and all the acting is very good. Gorgeously shot, with a great score. I wish I felt more emotionally, but my mind was always completely absorbed, even if my heart stayed a little cool. Maybe that's the nature of a film where everyone is hustling and using each other. (mild spoilers ahead)A bit obvious and self-conscious in a few spots, and pederastic Catholic priests is a cliché the film only partially transcends (although the humanity given to the priest makes it far more interesting), and a couple of the climactic twists feel less motivated than what comes before. But worth it for the 'Vertigo' like layers of reality that keep getting pulled back and forcing us to keep reassessing 'good', 'bad', 'art' and 'real.' Many critics consider this Almodovar's masterpiece – and I could see re-watching a third time and liking it even more, given the film's many layers.)

As a relatively impartial observer (not homophobic, not homosexual), I found this to be an outstandingly dull film. In truth, the acting isn't bad and the plot line is cleverly constructed but what is it about and do we really care? There's a vague reference to the pederasts of the Catholic Church in there which might have been interesting if fully explored but it says nothing about the relationship at all and simply focuses on a theme of misplaced love. It's not predictable either as the plot is nicely constructed around a film that has been inspired by the events in the pasts of the protagonists. Yet it says nothing, does nothing and continues at a leaden pace, neither intriguing nor entertaining. Much as I love my gay friends, it reflected what is for me at least the vacuity of the homosexual lifestyle...surely it can only be appreciated by gay people?!?!

Bad Education by Pedro Almodovar is a film that has a distinct love of films. The main character was Enrique Goded is a film director looking for a story for his next film when he is stopped by his first love, Ignacio, who gives him a script based on their childhood in a Catholic school. The script is visually shown throughout the film without getting too confusing or muddled in Their first moments together also take place in a movie theater. Despite the tricky plot the film doesn't get too complicated to follow although it does seem to get away from Almodovar a bit at the end. It starts out as a tragic love story in the and slowly becomes a film noir. There is even recognition of this when two of the characters exit a theater show film noirs and one of them comments "It's like they were talking about us." At this point of the film it turns into something else but not necessarily for the worst. Gael García Bernal's role is an intricate one. He plays several characters (one within another one) bravely and with distinction between one another. Although he is more of an antagonist than the protagonist, he is the one with the most screen time and carries the film. Fele Martínez (Enrique) also is fantastic, although he has little to work given as he has the less showy part.Almodovar uses interesting, elaborate transitions for certain scenes. Partcularly, they are used to guide the viewer into (and sometimes out of) the screenplay within the movie. And while the subject matter is of child molestation in the Catholic Church, it is of a particular story of this one man and this one priest. There is not much accusation of condescension. There also was no touching on homophobia (although one or two of the characters were in the closet). This may be Almodovar's way of making homosexuality conventional as heterosexuality in this film.

A meta-fictional construction; with one character writing a script that serves as a key to the past, which is then subsequently adapted by another character, creating a film that holds the secrets to the present. It is all blended together with the director's usual interest in characters that exist on the fringes of society - with artists, crooks, adulterers, lesbians, homosexuals and transvestites all interacting with a narrative of reminiscence that deals with the director's usual interests in illicit and obsessive love affairs, hopes and desires, secrets and lies - and all further embellished with the filmmaker's continuing reliance on films about film-making and the allure of the cinema itself. It is also a thriller, and a film that deals with the controversial blending of childhood, religion and sexuality; though all handled with a confidence and a subtly by Almodóvar that many of his more scathing critics may not necessarily expect.The drama focuses on the aftermath of such events, looking at how the ghosts of the past have shaped the course of these characters lives over the ensuing sixteen years, and more importantly, how the various unanswered questions that have plagued these protagonists will once again come under close scrutiny following a chance encounter that conspires to throw together elements of the past and the present, for what could be the very last time. Throughout the film, Almodóvar offers us many interesting twists and turns, while still managing to maintain our connection with the characters and the friendship that develops between the two protagonists to form the main bulk of the story. Once again, this relationship is a subtle one in comparison to many of Almodóvar's earlier films, such as Matador (1986) or Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), but nonetheless, it is still indicative of the director's style and flair; with the ironic visual compositions, bold, summery colour schemes, leaps within the narrative, characters within characters and the always delightful subversion of camp, melodramatic kitsch, into something altogether more moving.As ever with this particular combination of cold film-noir and feisty melodrama - used most notably in the director's earlier masterwork The Law of Desire (1987) - the background of the characters are used in a way that is entirely self-aware; fitting into the meta-textual tapestry that Almodóvar is able to weave so seamlessly, taking in elements of cinematic self-reference, memory and fiction, not to mention the contradicting elements of the real and the imagined. It works because the experiment is tied to a story that is interesting enough to support the bold leaps from comedy to drama, from warm nostalgia to cruel reality, and because the characters remain interesting and engaging throughout. Again, there is a certain self-aware quality to the portrayal of these main characters, as if they are somehow looking in on their own lives and documenting their fate as it appears (a familiar devise in all of Almodóvar's work), and yet, they remain sensitive, believable, intelligent and ultimately sympathetic.It is perhaps worth noting also that Bad Education (2004) is Almodóvar's first explicitly "gay film" since the aforementioned Law of Desire nearly twenty years earlier (though there were certainly elements of a homo-erotic subtext to the highly successful Talk to Her, 2002); with the return to these themes offering a nice change of pace from the female centric dramas and tales of obsessive male/female partnerships that acted as the central focus of his work throughout the 1990's. It is also notable for being a return or recreation of sorts to the late 70's/early 80's world of the Madrid art-scene that had flourished, post-Franco, and was home to none other than Almodóvar and his collaborators before the success of their first film, Pepi, Luci and Bom (1980). Like Almodovar, one of the characters here is a filmmaker that has found success in the underground, and combined with the recreation of the early gay-scene, with its attitudes and trends, we can begin to see this as a much more personal and important work within the Almodóvar filmography than we might have previously suspected.