Bad Education

Story of my life: Heavy-handed technique robs the heart from Almodóvar's Bad Education

By Jeannette Catsoulis

In interviews, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar has said that Bad Education is the film he has wanted to make for a very long time, stalled only by the extreme emotional difficulty of committing to such an autobiographical project. Sadly, this difficulty--or rather, Almodóvar's method of handling it--has resulted in a movie so defensively labyrinthine no emotion has survived.

Always a passionate, even hysterical director, Almodóvar usually distances himself from his narratives by using women in the front lines. This strategy reached its symbolic peak in 2002 with the glorious Talk to Her, whose male leads form a powerful bond over the comatose bodies of the women they care for. Bad Education has no prominent female characters, only a slippery transvestite named Zahara (Gael García Bernal), whose identity--and wardrobe and makeup--keep shifting. Zahara's elusiveness (and García Bernal's high-heeled beauty) alone could have fascinated us; but Almodóvar buries her in so much melodrama and confusing flashbacks she's never still long enough for us to worship.

The movie opens in 1980, in the office of Madrid filmmaker Enrique (Almodóvar stand-in Fele Martínez), who's desperately combing the tabloids for a new project. Into the office walks a young man (García Bernal) claiming to be Ignacio, Enrique's boyhood love from 15 years earlier when they were both in Catholic school. Ignacio presents Enrique with a story he's written called "The Visit," purportedly about their romance and the vengeful actions of a pedophile priest named Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho). Ignacio wants Enrique to film the story with himself as the star ("There's nothing less erotic than an actor looking for work," he flirts). He also wants to be known as Angel. Enrique is suspicious but unable to refuse; after all, what's sitting in front of him is a tabloid made flesh.

So far, so Almodóvar. The intersection of fact and fiction, sex and identity has always been his playground; but instead of releasing his story to the energy and vitality of high camp, Almodóvar squeezes it into a genre he loves but has little talent for: film noir. The blazing colors he favors are the visual antithesis of noir, his preferred motivations too good-hearted and pleasure-centered. Here, his technique--leaping from a primary narrative to a secondary (Enrique's film) and even a tertiary (extensive flashbacks which could be "real" or not)--only leaves us with at least three points of view and no point of reference. The stunning opening credits, scored by Alberto Iglesias in a loving homage to Bernard Herrmann's work on Psycho and Vertigo, fill you with expectation; but the movie never finds its tone, and its discordant dips into melodrama are more alienating than unsettling.

Bad Education earns its NC-17 with plenty of (tasteful) gay sex, but no real sexual politics. The dangers of being gay in Franco's Spain are carefully elided, and the most abusive act we see the priest perform is forcing young Ignacio to sing "Moon River." (Come to think of it, that's actually quite sadistic.) García Bernal is gorgeous, and Almodóvar shoots him as if he agrees, but we're never sure whose memories we're watching or which story is worth caring about. And while its maker tinkers with color and aspect ratio, barricading his emotions behind narrative tricks, the movie quietly withers. With Bad Education, Almodóvar may be closer than ever to his characters but he has never been further from his feelings.