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| Femme
fatale: Bernal in Bad Education. |
Let’s
Play Make-Believe
By
Ann Morrow
Bad
Education
Directed
by Pedro Almodóvar
In Bad Education, the moving and dankly compelling
new film from Pedro Almodóvar, the masterful script adheres
to the conventions of film noir, but that’s the only conventional
thing about it. The secret crime here, the one that poisons
the characters’ lives through the decades like radiation,
is child molestation. The perpetrator is a priest at a boy’s
school, but he’s portrayed with more complexity than a mere
monster. And the boy, Ignacio, a 10-year-old with the voice
of an angel, is not presented as a victim—though by the saddening
climax, we realize how deeply he’s been damaged. Ignacio’s
violation informs every scene, but the film is more about
conflicting layers of identity and reality, and how a person’s
soul can get trapped within them. In one of its most powerful
scenes, the predatory Father Monolo (Daniel Gimenez Cacho)
commands Ignacio to sing a song he’s written in which he compares
himself to a gardener who nurtures blossoming flowers. As
we can see by Monolo’s rapt expression, he really believes
this delusional vision of himself.
Bad
Education opens about 20 years later, when the grown Ignacio
(Gael García Bernal), an actor, arrives at the office of Enrique
(Fela Martínez), an up-and- coming filmmaker. Desperate for
an idea for his next script, Enrique is ripping out articles
from the tabloids in search of inspiration. He doesn’t recognize
Ignacio, although in boyhood they were best friends and lovers.
When Enrique tells him he doesn’t have a film to cast, Ignacio
gives him a manuscript he wrote called The Visit. “One
part is based on my childhood, and one part isn’t,” he says.
The film’s element of mystery lies in which is which, but
eventually, Ignacio’s life will catch up to his fiction.
As Enrique reads the story, it comes to life on the screen
in a series of flashbacks. Ignacio’s alter ego is Zahara (Bernal),
a junkie drag queen who hustles a drunken young man only to
discover that he is Enrique, her childhood sweetheart. Fascinated,
the real Enrique decides to film the story; Ignacio, who insists
on being called by his stage name of Angel, wants to play
Zahara. But Enrique wants him to play Enrique, arguing that
he is too manly for Zahara. They reach a tense agreement that
unravels as The Visit continues to unfold. The plot
not only thickens, it replicates: Each layer reveals another
layer, with characters being played by different actors at
different times. Yet because of the film’s clarity of purpose,
it’s easy to follow. (Whether or not Enrique is a stand-in
for Almodóvar isn’t of much import, especially since all the
characters are escaping into make-believe, whether shooting
a film or writing a story or performing in drag.)
The director’s use of easily recognized settings—beautifully
run-down places such as the ancient school and a shabby theater—helps
to keep the narrative on track, and since this is Almodóvar,
the frayed edges of Spain are goosed with neon color, most
noticeably Zahara’s slinky, lime-green dress. Bad Education
also exhibits the strongest gay sensibility Almodóvar has
shown so far. The acts of hustling are brazenly seamy, and
both hunky Bernal and willowy Martinez are shown to erotic
advantage. Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries) has become
a sensation—and he lives up to the hype with his showy yet
exquisitely nuanced portrayal of the imaginary Zahara—yet
Martinez, as the reticent Enrique, proves to be his equal
in screen presence.
Almodóvar lets his presence be known, too, with his visual
flamboyance. During a soccer game at the school, the priests
kick their robes into the air like wings, an unnerving image
considering their oppression of the boys. But after the discreet
treatment of Ignacio’s molestation, the director intrudes
on the aftermath by tearing a screen image of the boy’s bleeding
face in half, jarringly calling to mind the opening scene
of Enrique tearing pages in a tabloi
Then again, the tabloid story—about a woman who commits suicide
by embracing a crocodile that devours her alive—can be seen
as a symbolic one. For Ignacio and those around him, the past
is like a crocodile.
You
Belong Together
Hitch
Directed
by Andy Tennant
Finally, a movie in which Will Smith gets to be a romantic,
albeit funny, lead. No longer chasing robots, or fleeing from
animated, Godfather-esque sharks, Smith is Alex Hitchens,
the eponymous character in Andy Tennant’s Hitch, who
as New York City’s “date doctor,” helps poor everyguys make
it from date one to date three with the seemingly unattainable
gals of their dreams. While the previews play up the ha-ha
factor of Hitch’s own disasters when it comes to courting
the lovely gossip columnist Sara Melas (Eva Mendes), the movie
is not so much a series of pratfalls as it is an intelligent,
warm, romantic comedy.
In classic Doris Day-Rock Hudson fashion, Sara falls for Hitch,
despite the fact that (a) she’s gun-shy when it comes to relationships
and (b) she’s working double duty to investigate the “urban
myth” of the date doctor. You know it’s only a matter of time
before she realizes that Hitch is, in fact, her subject, and
that when this happens, it’ll be messy and spell certain doom
for the couple. This time, at least, it’s worth watching.
Not only does the Hitch-Sara setup implode, but so too does
that of an appealing couple Hitch has worked with, nebbish
accountant Albert Brennaman (Kevin James) and glam philanthropist
Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta). One of the very appealing things
about this film is just how much we root for all these characters,
including Sara’s sad-eyed friend Casey (Julie Ann Emery).
This is a rare story in which the characters not only have
work lives, albeit pretty exciting ones, but committed friendships.
In fact, it is Sara’s friendship to Casey that accidentally
leads to the film’s climactic (yet necessary, from a romantic-comedy
point of view) misunderstanding.
Smith and Mendes work extremely well together, especially
during their “meet cute” scene in which they tell each other
what they would be saying if they were really checking
each other out. The romantic tension is palpable, and even
the most jaded viewer can’t help but smile. It should be noted
that Hitch makes it quite clear, in an early encounter with
a piggy metrosexual, that he does not pimp his clients, nor
does he work for cads. Somehow, because it’s Will Smith, the
viewer finds it believable that all of this engaging consultant’s
clients would, of course, be clean-minded chaps. Valletta
is refreshingly natural, easily mocking her supermodel image
with a believable down-homeness—even revealing a goofy streak.
The scene-stealer, however, is James, who makes the leap from
small screen to big in a way that has been likened to the
great Jackie Gleason. It’s not just the girth, but the seemingly
incongruous physical grace, as well as the exquisite timing
and vocal inflections. By now, nearly everybody with access
to movie previews has seen James doing his “black” dance moves,
but the actor gives his character much, much more than “cuddly
fat guy” attributes. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but
I mean it: I’d happily plunk down $10 to see chapter two,
in which Hitch and Albert settle down to being settled down.
—Laura
Leon
|
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