TIFF ’09: Broken Embraces

Certainly not as emotionally engaging or as provocative as some of his previous films, Embraces is still an intriguing film, smartly scripted and still above average

Abrazos Ratos (Broken Embraces)

Directed by Pedro Almodovar

After Live Flesh, All About My Mother and Volver, director Pedro Almodóvar and his muse Penelope Cruz unite for a fourth time with Broken Embraces, a film about film-making.

Broken Embraces is a film within a film that jumps back and forth between past and present and evokes genres as far apart as noir and melodrama. Sugar coated on top are enough film references waiting to be spotted that is sure to put a smile on Quentin Tarantino’s face. Only Almodovar’s references are at times too easily recognizable, art imitating art, and in case you didn’t catch it the first time, he’s sure to have his characters name off each movie title for you. In one of the more interesting subplots, a young filmmaker stalks his stepmother (Penelope Cruz), hoping to expose her affair. His character is a caricature of Carl Boehm’s Peeping Tom, but for those of you who wouldn’t know, Cruz names the film aloud, taking away with it any sense of subtlety. The references become excessively tiresome. with a conversation on the Twilight phenomenon or a staircase fall similar to the one in Kiss of Death only missing the danger. Still, there are moments that work, such as a nod to Rossellini’s Journey to Italy, which is explicitly quoted in a montage with the camera floating to a haunting Cat Power tune.

The director’s previous films Law of Desire, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and All About My Mother are all, in some way, about cinema too. All About My Mother, for instance, is an artful conflation of All About Eve and A Streetcar Named Desire, but Broken Embraces is actually about film and the moviemaking process, which Almodóvar suggests is a metaphor for life itself. He even adds nods to Hitchcock, Godard, Buñuel’s Belle de Jour, Warhol’s paintings, 81/2 and his very own early style. The problem is he hammers in the message so much so that even the film within the film is an undisguised homage to Almódovar’s own Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Broken Embraces may evoke many cinematic styles but Almodovar doesn’t bring anything new to the table. At times it’s a melodrama that is missing the drama, a thriller that lacks suspense and a comedy that makes you only chuckle. Still, for a story of obsessive love, Almodovar delivers one message clearly: his love for cinema. The director challenges ideas such as the nature of film, creativity and the power of the moving image but working thus far with his his biggest budget and longest film, it at times becomes achingly dull, dragging along with it too many ideas that get lost in the journey.

Fans of the director’s work won’t be disappointed. All the elements of his previous films are present: raging jealousy, betrayal, murder, identity conflict, dark humor, etc. It’s clear he has a checklist and he even goes so far as to include a gay son who serves little to no purpose. The saving grace is Penelope Cruz, who electrifies every scene she’s in playing a trophy wife and actress who falls for the director Mateo Blanco (Lluis Homar) of her latest film. When her elderly husband discovers the affair, it sends him into an envious rage and unleashes a chain of events that leaves her dead and her lover Mateo blind.

The script moves fluidly back and forth in time with Jose Salcedo’s superb editing, which keeps the action flowing from 1992 to the present. The script does boast some of the witty, pointed dialogue Almodovar is known for and the labyrinthine plot is thick with twists and turns. Visually, the pic is a treat. Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography is breathtaking, from the landscapes to appointed interiors. Close-ups are regularly used, particularly of Cruz in various hairstyles, wardrobes and wigs (including the Hepburn hairdo).

Certainly not as emotionally engaging or as provocative as some of his previous films, Embraces is still an intriguing film, smartly scripted and still above average. Yet for the master film maker it can be a tad bit disappointing, seeming disconnected at times. The director settles for old tricks, less originality in lieu of something new to add to his filmography. For Almodóvar, to lose your sight is to lose your visions, or at least your grasp on them. Abrazos Rotos is enough simply for being an Almodóvar film, and despite its few shortcomings it’s an excellent contribution to his ongoing oeuvre.

Ricky D

Official UK Site