#34 We just watched this on Netflix streaming: Talk to her

The Film: Talk to her

One of the youtube comments under Talk to her‘s trailer says, “No one does it like Pedro Almodóvar”. A funny comment if you ask me because I’m not sure I know what “it” is. I also don’t know exactly if the comment was describing greatness or difference. Maybe both?

Talk to her is a defining film for Almodóvar. Not in his career, but in what kind of filmmaker he is. Almodovar’s films revolve around plots that are, frankly speaking, totally ridiculous. So much so they’d seem unlikely on Days of our lives.

Talk to her follows two men’s lives as each man becomes obsessed with a woman in a coma. One woman was a matador who received a traumatic injury from a bull. The other a ballerina, I can’t remember how she got hurt.

Regardless, the movie is somewhat of a masterpiece and I’ll try my best to explain why: It is a successful attempt at exploring the more feminine emotions of men and how men deal with loneliness and self-identity.

Why to watch it: Pedro Almodóvar’s audacity.

There is a segment in this movie so audacious I thought it could only come from the dreams of Charles Bukowski. I won’t ruin it here, but it is the most surreal sexual fantasy I’ve ever seen. I mention the segment not because of its sexual absurdity, but to highlight that despite its absurdity, it manages to be an evocative statement about male sexuality. What that statement is I’m not positive about, but it isn’t just a John Waters anarchistic moment. It sums up Almodovar to me because his great talent is making emotional statements about human beings through material that is seemingly impenetrable.

Pay attention to this: Themes of gender and identity.

I’m not suggesting that Almodóvar’s movies are thematically stale, but many, if not all of them, are wrapped together in style, themes, and emotions. They should be watched together and in marathons. Independently, they’ll seem like beautifully sh0t, absurdist odes to traditional Hollywood which contain evocative statements about identity, sexual gender, and family.

All that sounds shamefully academic, but Almodóvar is the type of filmmaker you need a film theory brain trust for. He is a filmmaker whose goal is pay homage to the films he loves, but also discuss ideas and emotions that he is obsessed with. If Quentin Tarantino, John Waters, and Ingmar Bergman all meshed into one person, their films might be something similar to Almodovar’s.

Openly gay much of his life, Almodovoar probably found solice in women. Many of his films obsess about women supporting each other in times of need, bonding together, caring for each other, and being emotionally intimate. This is not Sex in the City either. His characters face real tragedy and real life. Men watching his films might discover that these behaviors can, and are, had by men as well. That is kind of what Talk to her is about…I think.

-Collin.