Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
Broken Embraces
December 17th 2009 08:18
by Matt Shea
Given the dulcet flows of 2006’s Volver and that film’s subsequent success, it was easy to think Pedro Almodovar would return to such rich pastures for his new feature, Broken Embraces.
But what Broken Embraces drives home is that the Spanish filmmaker is beyond predictions and expectations. This is a strikingly different work. Where Volver was intimate and quietly focussed, Broken Embraces is broad, ambitious and playful. It plays out like a love letter to film, and as such references a clutch of other classics, some of them Almodovar’s own.
From the promotional materials you’d think it’s also a love letter to Penelope Cruz. Indeed, Cruz regularly fills D.O.P. Rodrigo Prieto’s beautiful forever-wide frames, her distinctive features stilled to repose, all the better to work their catnip qualities on a restless audience. But Cruz isn’t actually at the centre of Broken Embraces. That honour instead falls to Lluis Homar, whose blind screenwriter, Harry Caine, drives the film’s sprawling plot.
Harry is in fact a fiction of the character’s own creation: he used to be a film director named Mateo Blanco, and as Broken Embraces leaps back and forward through time, effortlessly spinning out reams of celluloid, we slowly come to discover what caused Harry’s blindness and the subsequent departmental shift.
Part of the flashbacks is Lena (Cruz), at first the secretary and then the mistress of wealthy industrialist, Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez), whose death is announced at the start and has an obvious effect on the reminiscent Harry. Martel is both devoutly pampering and pointedly jealous of his young partner, and when she seeks an acting job on Mateo Blanco’s latest film, the industrialist instantly becomes suspicious of Lena and the charming director.
There are a number of other strands running through Broken Embraces, all tied together in a fairly loose interpretation of a screenplay. And the two-hour running time is laden with both cryptic and overt symbolism, as well as a bunch of references to past classics of the silver screen.
In this sense the film is frequently flushed with its own intelligence, so it’s disappointing that the actual story being told is a little uninvolving. The ticks and tricks of the characters are superficially engaging, and frequently humorous, but there are times when their actions make little sense and their motivations remain overly murky.
The biggest problem is the love affair at the centre of Harry’s story: it’s never convincing at the character level and not given enough time to grow onscreen. And because it’s told through the medium of Harry’s movie-making profession you’re sometimes not sure if it was ever real at all. It leaves the film feeling oddly flat, despite the best efforts of the always impressive cast.
Still, a large part of Broken Embraces is dedicated to Almodovar’s love of making movies, and it’s through this avenue that the film delivers the most pleasure. A scene where Harry and his assistant, Diego (Tamar Novas), quickly sketch out the premise for a vampire flick is a fantastic example, the two writers egging each other on to find the most outrageous plot points for their B-picture idea.
It’s during these moments that Broken Embraces shines, and there’s enough filmmaking love going on both in front and behind the camera that it’s easy to let this flick wash over you. Still, it’s a shame that Almodovar didn’t conjur a more potent story in which to basket his clever ideas; it gives the film a feeling of overflowing into nothingness, leaving it a highly impressive but ever so slightly soulless enterprise.
I say: A love letter to film that should have perhaps shared more of that affection with its characters.
See it for: Almodovar's often hilarious depiction of the movie-making process.
*This image is from AllMoviePhoto
Given the dulcet flows of 2006’s Volver and that film’s subsequent success, it was easy to think Pedro Almodovar would return to such rich pastures for his new feature, Broken Embraces.
But what Broken Embraces drives home is that the Spanish filmmaker is beyond predictions and expectations. This is a strikingly different work. Where Volver was intimate and quietly focussed, Broken Embraces is broad, ambitious and playful. It plays out like a love letter to film, and as such references a clutch of other classics, some of them Almodovar’s own.
From the promotional materials you’d think it’s also a love letter to Penelope Cruz. Indeed, Cruz regularly fills D.O.P. Rodrigo Prieto’s beautiful forever-wide frames, her distinctive features stilled to repose, all the better to work their catnip qualities on a restless audience. But Cruz isn’t actually at the centre of Broken Embraces. That honour instead falls to Lluis Homar, whose blind screenwriter, Harry Caine, drives the film’s sprawling plot.
Harry is in fact a fiction of the character’s own creation: he used to be a film director named Mateo Blanco, and as Broken Embraces leaps back and forward through time, effortlessly spinning out reams of celluloid, we slowly come to discover what caused Harry’s blindness and the subsequent departmental shift.
Part of the flashbacks is Lena (Cruz), at first the secretary and then the mistress of wealthy industrialist, Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez), whose death is announced at the start and has an obvious effect on the reminiscent Harry. Martel is both devoutly pampering and pointedly jealous of his young partner, and when she seeks an acting job on Mateo Blanco’s latest film, the industrialist instantly becomes suspicious of Lena and the charming director.
There are a number of other strands running through Broken Embraces, all tied together in a fairly loose interpretation of a screenplay. And the two-hour running time is laden with both cryptic and overt symbolism, as well as a bunch of references to past classics of the silver screen.
In this sense the film is frequently flushed with its own intelligence, so it’s disappointing that the actual story being told is a little uninvolving. The ticks and tricks of the characters are superficially engaging, and frequently humorous, but there are times when their actions make little sense and their motivations remain overly murky.
The biggest problem is the love affair at the centre of Harry’s story: it’s never convincing at the character level and not given enough time to grow onscreen. And because it’s told through the medium of Harry’s movie-making profession you’re sometimes not sure if it was ever real at all. It leaves the film feeling oddly flat, despite the best efforts of the always impressive cast.
Still, a large part of Broken Embraces is dedicated to Almodovar’s love of making movies, and it’s through this avenue that the film delivers the most pleasure. A scene where Harry and his assistant, Diego (Tamar Novas), quickly sketch out the premise for a vampire flick is a fantastic example, the two writers egging each other on to find the most outrageous plot points for their B-picture idea.
It’s during these moments that Broken Embraces shines, and there’s enough filmmaking love going on both in front and behind the camera that it’s easy to let this flick wash over you. Still, it’s a shame that Almodovar didn’t conjur a more potent story in which to basket his clever ideas; it gives the film a feeling of overflowing into nothingness, leaving it a highly impressive but ever so slightly soulless enterprise.
I say: A love letter to film that should have perhaps shared more of that affection with its characters.
See it for: Almodovar's often hilarious depiction of the movie-making process.
*This image is from AllMoviePhoto
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