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.
» Read the rest of the entry..
(4.5/5)
