Review of Broken Embraces (2009) by Thuy V — 27 Dec 2009

Broken Embraces is like a mash up of Almodovar's entire career. On the surface, its plot echoes Bad Education and features a film within a film and much of the plot revolves around the making of said film.

That movie just happens to be Women on the Verge... It also features perhaps his most blatantly fetishistic presentation of Cruz (stunning, at one point, in a blond wig). It is as if he is rummaging through his own drawers.

Throw into this mix references to several Hitchcock motifs and Powell's Peeping Tom and you have some interesting ingredients. Almodovar has become more and more fascinated with the stories we tell ourselves and how those stories inform our reality.

But recording something hides as much of the truth as it reveals. This is the duality that plays out in the film. One of its more potent moments features a blind man trying to recapture his past by touching an image on a television screen; romantic yet tragically futile.

All that being said, however, Pedro seems tired. Almodovar has reached a point in his career where he is so technically proficient as an image maker and story teller that he cannot make a truly bad film.

But, by the end of the film, it is hard not to feel like he has little left to say regarding these themes. Perhaps this is a period on the end of this section of his career. I hope so. Pedro, bring on Tarantula.

We're ready.