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.
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7 comments:
I was sort of slow on the uptake with the anticipation.
I loved the bed fire. I loved how the chaos didn't really faze her. She was so consumed with her own Ivan mission that she wasn't all that concerned about the physical/emotional/mental collapse going on around her — sort of like how Antonio Banderas was so consumed with stealing kisses that he seemed oblivious to basically everything else. We all inhabit our own little worlds.
I love how the little toy flower sort of wilts in face of the fire. Don't know if that was supposed to seem phallic or not. I liked the imagery in terms of her relationship going up in smoke.
I thought there was a great buildup on the eventual Pepa-Ivan meetup, and I didn't anticipate how it would finally come to be. It was a short wait, but also the setup where Ivan was trying to evade Pepa and Lucia and Katherine was dodging Pepa. Although those near misses were frustrating, but in a good way.
And of course, waiting for the return of the mambo taxi.
And waiting to see Marisa wake up.
Good post!
Yeah, it was wonderful to watch Marisa sleep through all that.
I'm with you, DW, on the anticipation. The film starts with that B&W shot with Ivan giving one liners to all those women, then a form cut to Pepa in that Joan Crawford breakup scene she's dubbing. Really, that summed up her relationship with Ivan right there, and set up the movie for me.
That was Ivan’s longest scene wasn’t it? So like half his lines in the film were all those one liners at the start? You might, mistakenly, think the film is going to be about him. But after that scene, you know all you need to about him.
I hadn’t thought about the Crawford clip in this regard, but you are right. Some random bit of dubbing wouldn’t have worked.
George, you fancypants feminist! Your remark about the black and white Ivan shot is brilliant. I had totally forgotten that. That informs the whole film. If you didn't get an "A" in your Women in Film class, I'm going to pen a letter right now to your prof lobbying her for reconsideration.
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