Broken Embraces (Los Abratos Rotos)

I finally saw Almodovar's latest Cannes favorite, Broken Embraces, this past Sunday, but thus far haven't been willing to let it loose from the spin cycle in my head. However, now that Penelope Cruz's face in that gorgeous platinum pinup wig is popping up more and more all over town, I want to set the record straight: this is not Penelope's movie. This movie belongs to a one Blanca Portillo (pictured above). Even though the obvious main character of the movie is the filmmaker turned blind writer Harry Caine (Almodovar's first heterosexual male lead?), it is Caine's assistant and companion, Judit, played by Portillo, who is really the heart and soul of this surprisingly straightforward and subtle masterpiece. (Well, straightforward and subtle for Almodovar. I guess scenes like the hanging-from-a-clothing-rack oral sex scene in High Heels and the fantastically ridiculous shrinking man scene from Talk to Her have caused me to always anticipate something over-the-top from the Spanish maestro. I only wish I could give you links to these videos.)

Reviewers have said that this is a film about films, but I think it's more general than that. After a very illuminating discussion with C. (who always says what I can't seem to say), I believe the movie is about art and artistic integrity. What happens to an artist when his greatest tool and greatest muse are taken from him? What happens to an artist when his art is seized and bastardized? He is no longer himself; he is changed. To cripple an artist, one must not stop at destroying his life, one must cripple his art. These are the ideas at the heart of Broken Embraces, and it is artistic integrity that is at stake for Harry Caine, not just his life, his work, his loved ones, or his eyesight. In fact, I think the movie valiantly defends integrity in all forms, forcing the characters to prove their loyalties and their own value not just to those around them, but more importantly to themselves. Harry's assistant, Judit, is a prime example of this as she struggles with jealousy, motherhood, loyalty, and buried memories, all from the shadows of the men she supports and adores. She is not an artist, but she is committed to Harry's art, and to that integrity that proves to be so difficult to maintain. She is profoundly human, and painful, and Portillo lets her shine as the paradoxical heroine; pivotal, yet restricted to the sidelines. Like the ultimate appreciator of art, she feels just as passionately, but is without the same kind of release.

Lluis Hamar is also excellent as Caine. He is incredibly natural for an Almodovar actor, masculine and stoic, yet brimming with passion. And don't fret, Penelope is there, too, as a beautiful, aspiring actress. But her character is very mysterious. It's as if she is behind a veil; her character is never fully fleshed out, living only in snippets of the past. She is a curious enigma, much like the film her character stars in. Yes, this movie also features the classic film-within-the-film that Almodovar loves, but with a very mature and interesting twist: the film inside the film is unfinished, broken, like the "broken embraces" of Caine and his lover represented in torn photographs locked in Caine's closet. Yet this scattered quality of the inner story somehow helps make the outside framework more complete. It's a wonderful hodgepodge.

Anyway, I really liked this movie. I have to admit that it didn't really move me as much as my favorite Almodovar installments, like Talk To Her, but I still give it two high heels up!