Word: var
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...name, he says, because the real Mateo died with Lena. But now he learns of the death of Ernesto (José Luis Gómez), a wealthy businessman who financed Lena's entrance into movies and whom Mateo blames for her death. For the next two hours, Almodóvar suavely juggles the events...
...Embraces isn't one of the master's all-time greats (it's a notch or two below All About My Mother and Talk to Her), but it's still complex, vivacious and emotionally resonant. Since the gynocentric Mother and Volver, and the guy-nocentric Bad Education, Almodóvar has returned to the plot structure of the noirish Live Flesh: the toxic romantic geometry of a triangle love story. In the world of telenovela melodrama that has long appealed to Almodóvar, jealousy must be twisted into violence at the top of a winding staircase, while lust collides...
Star Quality Broken Embraces could be the title of nearly any Almodóvar film. His people are infirm creatures looking for a little hug that can be therapeutic or redemptive. The paraplegic cop played by Javier Bardem in Live Flesh doesn't shrug off sexual desire just because he's confined to a wheelchair. Almodóvar suffuses his new film with this notion of the crippled seeking help; nearly every plot point pivots on someone's infirmity. The message is clear: we are all invalids who want to walk, if the fates allow, into each other's arms...
...mood and tone here are less bustling than in earlier Almodóvars. This time his energy went into the dense plot scheme, with its duplication of characters and family dynamics. One thing hasn't changed: the director's skill at bringing out the star quality of his performers. Homar, a Spanish stage veteran, handsomely shoulders the weight of the film. As for Cruz, in her fourth Almodóvar film, she's never been more luminous, serious or sexy. Her Lena is woman enough to justify one man's need to possess or destroy her and another's desire...
...like Jack and Bobby Kennedy - are robbed of life but also of aging and decay. They are frozen at the apex of their beauty, power and promise. So lovers like Mateo, and movie lovers like the rest of us, have that perfect vision as a perpetual keepsake. Almodóvar knows it too: a dead love never dies...