Throughout this mini-marathon, we’ve been sort of jumping around within Almodovar’s filmography without any clear cut route in mind. We (meaning my girlfriend and myself) have just been going where the heart leads. We’ve revisited some of his more recent work and also gone further back to his beginnings (although some of those pictures are difficult to get a hold of [legally]). While none of Almodovar’s work is terribly dark or sinister, a lot of his pictures as of recent have sort of delved into the darker side of humanity. True that most of it is fairly light and breezy, at times even humorous, but still relatively tragic and often sad and even depressing. So we decided it was time to visit the comedic side of Almodovar’s work with his first truly internationally acclaimed picture, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios; better known to American audiences as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Voice actress Pepa is involved with a married man, Iván, of whom she constantly daydreams and lusts after. In a convoluted series of events that will catch up with our protagonists later on in the film, Pepa traces his movements and discovers that he’s involved with another, quite out of her head lover, with whom he has a grown up son, Carlos. Carlos and his overbearing fiancée arrive at Pepa’s apartment with the intention of subletting the place, unawares that their potential landlord is one of his father’s many lovers. Meanwhile, Pepa’s close friend, Candela drops by the apartment in a panic, claiming she’s on the run from the police who believe she’s mixed up in some sort of terrorist plot and needs a place to hideout. Essentially through a series of missteps, improbable coincidence and misunderstandings, these characters all comedically bounce off one another until all hell proverbially breaks loose.

I have to fully admit that I had to basically reword the above synopsis of the film from other sources as for the most part, I had no idea what was going on in the first twenty-five minutes or so of the movie. When I say no idea, I man just that: Not. A. Clue. I’m still not sure that the synopsis I’ve provided is correct to the detail. Characters were running around calling other characters on the phone, leaving messages, arguing with one another without proper introductions and being generally frantic with their quick tongues; bordering on chaotic. So many characters are introduced so quickly it was hard to tell who was who, who was speaking about whom and to what extent. Though the complicated web of relationship connections between the characters was tough to follow, it was nevertheless intriguing and still fun in a quirky sort of way. Not to mention that for at least this author, all Almodovar films (so far) are just pleasing to look at anyway – which I’ll get to later.

It’s your basic sink or swim plot premise. But as movies often do, the story simplifies itself as it goes along and the lingering questions about what exactly was happening slowly dissipates. The narrative, rather quickly actually, was able to unweave some of its tangled group of characters and tighten up the loose ends of an unnecessarily confusing plot that were dangling everywhere. Once all of the main protagonists have finally come together in the same locale, everything was made clearer in fairly rapid succession.

While certainly a screwball comedy, I never found anything to be all that funny; at least not in a laugh-out-loud sort of way. Once the plot was unscrambled in my brain, this was more of a quirky character intrigue that might have a person furrowing their brow in amusement at a character’s behavior. As the picture barrels onward, the situations become increasingly absurd which does give way to some delightful head shaking at the bewildering scenarios. Some of the imagery here is smirkingly ridiculous and one can’t help but continue watching, wondering where this farce will go next. Can it possibly get more ridiculous? Yes; yes it can.

Admittedly there might be some loss of comedy in translation, but while a lot of the imagery and situations are outrageously fun to observe and are comedic, very little of the actual dialogue is funny. The delivery is often quick-witted enough or delivered at such a rapid rate that by default it becomes laughable, but the writing isn’t anywhere near as jocular as it could, or should, be. Rather, it’s simply used to further complicate matters (in a good way) and egg on the protagonists to continue their preposterous endeavors.

It’s almost needless to mention anymore but as always, Almodovar’s color composition and eye for detail and choreography, even at these earlier stages of the game are still enormously entertaining to observe. Some might say that this auteur of auteurs is so distinct that he’s almost a caricature of himself at this point. And while I see that argument, nevertheless it can still be a fun (and quite majestic in its own way) game to spot all of the subtle, and not so subtle, nuances of Almodovar’s particular brand of visual prowess. It’s a pinwheel of carefully chosen colors which are displayed obviously in almost every shot. From the obviously outlandish costumes to the color of a mere stapler in the background, everything is so deliberate in its precision of every camera angle and character choreography, for someone who makes their priority in film watching the visuals, it’s hard not to look on this display with amazement.

While certainly not my favorite of this marathon, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown has loads of things going for it which makes it a joy to watch. From the spectacular opening credits display (which are a series of shots combining what essentially look like pulpy, trash novel covers juxtaposed with Marshal Field’s catalog covers of the 1950s) to the outlandish climactic sequence, though not uproariously funny, still succeeds in simply being full of joyous entertainment. Almodovar’s first international success also ends up being a relatively minor success in this RowThree marathon as well.