Review of Talk to Her (2002) by Ola G — 26 Jan 2016

During a performance of Café Müller, a dance-theatre piece by Pina Bausch, Benigno Martín (Javier Cámara) and Marco Zuluaga (Darío Grandinetti) cross paths, but the two men are no more than strangers. Still, Benigno notices that Marco cries. Marco is a journalist and travel writer, who happens to see a TV interview with Lydia González (Rosario Flores), a famous female matador. He thinks that an article on her would be interesting and, on the instructions of his editor, he contacts her in a bar, where she asks him to take her to her house. As they talk, she elaborates on the fact that she broke up with her boyfriend "el Niño de Valencia", another matador, something that has been all over the tabloids. As Marco confesses that he knows nothing of bullfighting and that he is a journalist, she becomes angry and leaves his car without saying a word. As he drives off, he hears a scream inside her house and stops; Lydia rushes off and climbs back into his car: she asks him to kill a snake that she found in her house. He does so and comes out of the house crying. With that new confidence established between them, they become friends and, later on, lovers. Marco attends a wedding in Toledo and is surprised to find Lydia there too, since she had said that she did not want to go. The wedding turns out to be that of Marco's former fiancée, Angela, who had the same phobia of snakes as Lydia; Marco was very much in love with Angela and had a very hard time getting over her (which was the reason for his constant crying over things he could not share with her). Lydia says that she has something important to say, but she prefers to wait until after the bullfight that afternoon; but she is gored and becomes comatose. Marco does not leave her side at the hospital and finally befriends Benigno, who recognizes him from the dance-theatre performance. Marco is told by the doctors that people in a coma never wake up and that, while there are miracle-stories of people who have come back, he should not keep his hopes high. Benigno is a personal nurse and caregiver for Alicia Roncero (Leonor Watling), a beautiful dance student, who lies in a coma, but Benigno sees her as alive; he talks his heart out to her, and brings her all kinds of dancing and silent black and white film mementos. As it turns out, Benigno had been obsessed with Alicia for a while, before she was in a coma, since his apartment is in front of the dance studio where she practiced every day. At first his obsession was only from a distance, since Benigno was taking care of his possessive mother, who seemed to be immobile. For that reason, he became a nurse and also a beautician. Free to move about after his mother dies, he finally picks up the courage to talk to Alicia, after she dropped her wallet on the street. As they walk together to her house, they talk about her discovery of silent black and white films and about dancing. When she walks into her building, Benigno notices that she lives in the house of Dr Roncero, who is a psychiatrist. Benigno makes an appointment to see the doctor and talks about his unresolved bereavement grief over his mother. But it is all a ruse to gain access to the apartment, where he steals a hair-clip from Alicia's room. That night, Alicia is run over by a car and becomes comatose. By mere chance, Benigno is assigned to Alicia, much to the surprise of her father. But since Benigno's services are the best, he hires him and a colleague permanently to tend for Alicia. Benigno also tells Dr. Roncero that he is homosexual, possibly so that Alicia's father won't suspect his love for her, or possibly so that he won't question Benigno's particular attachment to her. The lives of Benigno, Marco, Lydia and Alicia flows in all directions, past, present and future, dragging all of them towards an unsuspected destiny...

"Hable con Ella" became a huge success when it came out, and despite the fact that we have a plot line based on classic Almodóvar turf such as deeply dark desires and actions taken from those desires, the pace and production development is a bit "slow" and not "exploding" in a normal Almodóvar way with over the top dialogue and character studies. He focus on male loneliness and longing, which in one way is a topic we rarely see on the screen, or at least in this sort of format and shape and that has its value. Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti. Rosario Flores and Leonor Watling perform with true passion and dedication, and I do like the fact that Almodóvar adds bullfighting and the myth of the matador in the mix as he did in "Matador". I did like the silent movie with the shrinking man that "disappeared" into his girlfriend as well. Weirdly intriguing. But, personally I didn´t become as engaged in the film as obviously so many others have, and it never really gripped me emotionally despite disturbing and harsh topics. This is not Almodóvar´s best film if you ask me.