"Cuando yo entré por esa puerta,|era virgen...y tengo la impresión|de que ya no lo soy."
On ‘Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios’ the comic elements comes mainly from the absurdity, like the old screwball comedies, softening the transgressive nature of his work. As a narrative strategy, Almodóvar uses elements of melodrama and comedy, alternating the tragic and the comic, the functional form for his speech. The story is full of events, plot twists and revelations. Words are fast and give the characters emotional amplitude. The script has a sore authorial mark, minutely articulated plot, weird characters and a strong approach to various topics as betrayal, virginity or senility.
The first impact comes from the image. The strong colors as elements of the costumes, using mainly red in reference to passion, become plastic strategies that help make up the melodramatic/comic aesthetics. Colors are so vibrant that it seems indeed that the scenario was painted in ink, remembering the old coloring in Techinocolor. The almost palpable contact with the image lush, the costumes worked, the eloquent soundtrack, photography multicolored and almost blinding, the actors, and especially the actresses. It’s difficult to imagine an Almodóvar film in black & white. The mere visual contemplation already affects us with a flood of feelings and emotions and the well-chosen Spanish music also take an important role in construction of emotions, sensitivity and empathy.
Almodovar has no humility, his works are not born by chance, they are impactful born, born making a fuss, as if the picture was going to explode from the screen and soak in a prism of colors and sounds. Everything about him is excessive.
‘Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios’ gave him commercial success and critical approval, but his career was already long and mature. Here Almodovar reached the peak of his early farcical style and was ready to move on. Few directors are able to do that after such a huge step in their career, and not everyone understood the new direction he was looking for, along the nineties.
‘Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios’ points to the Almodóvar’s approach to intimate female world. The female figures of Almodóvar differ from models of representation of femininity, stereotypes of purity and lust, angel and demon, virginal beauty and destructive beauty. This women (such as Rossy de Palma, looking like a Picasso come to life), on the verge of a nervous breakdown, are less than beautiful, but he lavished them with the same kind of attention he now gives to Penelope Cruz.
Almodovar films have brought to light issues considered taboo, the most prominent being sexuality, various forms of love without judgment or prejudice. In the work of the controversial issues Almodóvar leave the social universe and go to the individual. Sexuality, drugs, religion: all this is addressed so as to focus on the impact on the life, personality and desires of the characters, not their social impact. The characters are essentially human, because humans have passion. They are not dragged through life, are not liabilities, they are life itself.
Almodovar’s universe is so unique that many consider him the Spanish Woody Allen. Their personality, tastes and themes may differ but the sense of being inside someone’s mind, the sense of having the strange sensation of viewing the world thru someone else’s eyes they provide us are very similar. They both have a satirical view of the human ambitions and frustrations, both are obsessed by religious themes being both atheists, they both move build their story in the gap between destiny and desire ( Deseo/Desire is the name of Almodovar’s production company), both understand women far better than the common man, both are deceptively idiosyncratic. Woody gets laughs from tragedies and Almodovar thinks they are just beautiful.
I was not able to write about ‘Mujeres…’ without entering inside the all Almodovar’s universe, his identity as an author is greater than any of his works. I think Almodovar never made a film about love, his work is his passion exposed through art.