Review of Broken Embraces (2009) by Amheretojudge — 23 Oct 2019

Penelope carries rage, vulnerability, humility, humour and pain in just those two eyes, maybe that's why they are always looking down.

Broken Embraces The writer and director Pedro Almodovar's Shakespearean tragedy is extremelyPenelope carries rage, vulnerability, humility, humour and pain in just those two eyes, maybe that's why they are always looking down.

Broken Embraces.

The writer and director Pedro Almodovar's Shakespearean tragedy is extremely Shakespearean. There is unnerving phase of practicality that you cannot escape. And for that reason it is also a horror for me. There is mythology, there is narration, there are characters whispered about like some holy myth, they yearn for peace and prosperity, yet they are always drowned in their own sin. These things, the old style storytelling is fabricated so smoothly and properly coated in the hip and happening drums that you forget amidst all the rock band, DJ music and fashionable clothing, that they are actually kings and queens.

The filmmaking and the celebrity is an excuse for crowning them as royalty. Their servant or call it a slave or a loyal spy, these paws are poking the rulers. What you get now, is of course, old mentality. That is not to say that it isn't timely. It's just that these characters then, not aware or ready or in habitant to listen or match others' perspective, fails to comprehend with them. Hence, coming back to the Shakespeare theory. There is a lot of Shakespeare in the film, for there is a lot of presumptuous thinking.

You can see them make mistakes and plan mistakes resulting into us, the viewers, bite our nails, pull our hair and nod our head in denial. That's just good drama. That is a good film. Broken Embraces never fixes itself. It isn't meant to. The film juggles around plenty of relationships yet none of those aren't frowned upon by either us or the characters. What you then steer towards is character building. The broken is not the equation, not the character, not the zest to live and hope for. It is just that barricade between your self-created theories and the truth. That ugly incorrectly-motivated truth.