Fearless

I just wanted to tell you all that I walked by Kim's desk while she was at the news meeting, and sitting in plain sight is a videotape in a clear case marked "EXOTICA" in all caps.

Wow — in advance

I watched "Exotica" last night. Ricky, you have some splainin' to do!

(For those who don't know, DW's real name is Ricky, but he is not a Cuban band leader.)

French connection

I was astounded to learn that Jean Cocteau was involved in the making of Almodovar's film. (I am sort of a Cocteau fan by marriage — I had a big thing in college for Raymond Radiguet, Cocteau's genius boy lover who wrote two French masterpieces and died at age 20).

Here's an interesting excerpt about the Cocteau play that inspired "Women." The whole thing is here.

Jean Cocteau's one-act play, La Voix humaine [The Human Voice], consists entirely of a monologue by a woman engaged in a final phone conversation with her lover. Alone in her room, she desperately clings to the telephone as her only link to the man who has left her for someone else. Although this agonizing portrait of abandonment and despair bears little resemblance to Almodovar's multi-charactered comedic romp through the streets of Madrid in Mujeres al horde de un ataque de nervios [Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown], Cocteau's play has been named as the source of inspiration for that film. In various interviews Almodovar has explained that his original intention had been to adapt the play to the screen, but due to its brevity, he needed to expand the material to feature film length. This led him to devise a story of the forty-eight hours leading up to the phone call.

How times change

The first time I saw this movie I hadn't the foggiest idea what a "Shiite terrorist" was.

The ending

To avoid putting any spoilers out here, I'll post in the first comment.

And now for the men ...

Ivan. Mambo taxi driver. Ana's biker babe?

1) Flawed? (Too obvious?)
2) Likable?

Language and sensibility

cl alluded to the language barrier. It's something I really considered with this film, more so than with other foreign movies, because it's so stylized; I was wondering whether they had a really particular or stylized way of talking that got lost in translation. Did anyone else have that feeling?

I remember reading a long time ago — in The Nation, I think, when I still subscribed — a film reviewer who described Pedro Almodovar this way: Imagine if Woody Allen had grown up gay in General Franco's Spain. That makes a certain amount of sense to me. Anyone else see it?

Pacing and plot

Starting with when Carlos, Marisa and Candela invade Pepa's apartment, I'd give this movie a 9 or 10. Before that, I think the beginning is pretty confusing (with or without the language barrier) ... especially the very start: Credits, Pepa, dream sequence, Ivan in studio, Pepa. Did anyone else experience this or any other difficulty following the plot?

Anticipation

Much of the comedy in the film involves anticipation. And sometimes we are made to wait for it. When Pepa dumps her pills into the gazpacho, you know that mischief is afoot. But it takes a bit before we know who is going to drink the stuff. Likewise, we know that her apartment is to be shown when she set the bed on fire, but we don’t expect quite as many, and as varied, visitors as she gets. So by the time she tells the mambo taxi driver that he should have some eye drops, we can anticipate at least one more taxi scene.

I love the bed fire, by the way. You would expect a woman setting her bed on fire to be acting out a symbolic rage against the man in her life. But Pepa does it out of negligence in the act of impulsively trying to improve her life by quitting smoking. And for a moment she is childishly captivated by the flames—until she starts choking.

cinematography

I think "Women" has a lot of gorgeously shot scenes. Among my favorite are the tightening shots of Pepa pacing through the apartment, particularly the one where the camera focuses in on her feet moving back and forth across the floor. Did this or any other shots stand out for you?

The women of "Women on the Verge"

We have our heroine, Pepa, and a hodgepodge of slightly nutty women:

Candela (the amiga), Marisa (sleeping fiance), Lucia (Ivan's vengeful ex), Paulina (la "feminista"), plus a Jehovah's witness, angry biker Ana and a nutty receptionist.

Pick any and all women to discuss. Are they:

1) Flawed?

2) Likable?

Just a Few Naked Ladies

After Christy's fine start I thought I would give you something in English, but, alas, without a mambo taxi and spiked gazpacho. Maybe the naked ladies will make up for the loss.

This cover art is a poor way to advertise the film. It looks like it is going to travel a well rutted road through hack B-moviedom. Instead it finds a beautifully strange wilderness. So here is our next movie, a moody exploration by Atom Egoyan.

Next time ...

My apologies, everybody. Recommended for the next cinematic selection: Ensure that the movie is out on DVD (because many rental places, like Blockbuster, have stopped renting VHS), and also check that it's on Netflix. "Women" is not on DVD, so I think some people still haven't seen it. My library copy is en route to the McDs right now.

Christy's pick

I feel a little overwhelmed, selecting the first Cinema Chatter film pick, and I hope that a foreign movie won't turn off prospective members. But "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" is one of my favorite comedies. And my deciding factor was the buzz about director Pedro Almodóvar's upcoming film, "Volver."

I hope you, too, will enjoy heroic women, chickens, a mambo taxi, a well-deserved bitch-slap and a fumbling Antonio Banderas.

What to drink during the movie: Gazpacho.

For Starters

Some of us have decided to start a film discussion group. The more participants the merrier, so if you want to be a member or just lurk and occasionally comment, feel free. As fars as guidelines, we'll have to see how things go, but the consensus seems to be that we should shoot for a movie every two weeks, to be chosen by members in alphabetical order of their names. Christy gets the honor of the first pick, so look for her choice to be posted here soon. Any film is fair game. It might help to have a Netflix account (you can get a basic one for $5 a month). This is meant to be fun and low stress (and educational, for people like me who don't know much about film). If you have friends who would be interested in joining, feel free to invite them.