Smells Like An Exquisite Postmodern Bouquet

Directed By: Pedro Almodovar
Main Cast: Penélope Cruz. Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo

Almodovar’s latest combines the dangers of erotic obsession with the unreliability of memory in a wholly believable film about one woman’s struggle to be with the man she loves for love’s sake.

DVD Release Date: 1st February 2010

Lovingly told with many nods to the director’s own past, Broken Embraces recounts the tragic tale of Lena (Cruz) and the compromises she feels obliged to make in order to secure her father’s comfort in his dying days. Offered financial support for this endeavour by her wealthy employer, she becomes his mistress. He in turn agrees to finance the film that she desperately wants to appear in. She and the director Mateo (Homar) begin a torrid affair that ends in tragedy. A nod to the fact that true love is fleeting, like a moment from a classic film.

Like a skilfully woven tapestry, Almodovar adds the businessman’s gay son, documenting Lena’s film and her love affair; the secret love that editor Judit (Portillo) bears for Mateo and the touching relationship that Mateo has with Judit’s son. Just when it looks in danger of teetering into mawkishness, cameos from the director’s own past films in the shape of Chus Lampreave and Rossy De Palma in the film within the film, Chicas Y Maletas.

Cruz and Homar are completely engaging as the star-crossed lovers, essential, if one is to believe the machiavellian intrigue that surrounds their illicit liaison. Cruz in particular is luminous in the central complex role; by turns self-indulgent and self-sacrificing. Her performance is mirrored by Portillo’s self-effacement as Judit, not the star, not as beautiful yet in her own way devoted to Mateo and his filmmaking. It’s refreshing to see women portrayed as contradictory and complex in this way.

Mateo, in his blind alter-ego Harry Caine, finds a way to deal with the trauma of Lena’s loss and still pick up beautiful young women who offer to help him across the street. Without a trace of self-pity he deals with the loss of Lena, the deliberate mangling of his film by the businessman in an act of revenge and finally agrees to take the businessman’s son seriously and hear, if not see, the final moments he spent with Lena. An act which confirms that closure is possible when the truth is finally known.

Cutting between the present day and 1994, as an audience we are complicit with the whole notion that memory is tricky. We know things that the characters in the film do not. Yet Mateo does not even have that luxury. He must trust the words of the people he loves to tell him what he needs to know. Not just the image itself but the meaning of the image, which of course is subject to multiple interpretations, unless of course, you are one of the subjects on view.

As visually gorgeous as any of Almodovar’s films, not a scene is wasted or superfluous. As evocative of the agony of love as it is of the agony of bereavement, it is a deeply human film that avoids the clichés of melodrama.