Pedro Almodovar’s filmography is so impressive that to come across a work that doesn’t leave you with at least a mirth-induced bellyache is surprising, shocking even. Almodovar labours over his comedy like others do their drama or tension, but in High Heels the gaudy highjinks end up feeling, well, laboured.

The premise for this 1991 feature is simple. Becky Del Paramo (Marisa Paredes) and her daughter, Rebecca (Victoria Abril) share a long, troubled relationship. Becky is a torch-song singer returning from Mexico to her native Madrid for the first time in over 20 years. Rebecca, a television newscaster, hasn’t seen her mother in all that time, and as a result mistrusts and resents her, best illustrated by an ill-conceived marriage to Manuel (Feodor Atkine) – Becky’s ex-lover.

Manuel’s murder kicks off the film’s central machinations, but it turns out to be the most uninteresting element of the film. It doesn’t help that Rebecca is an unconvincing newswoman, and Becky even less so as a hugely popular singing star. Not enough is done to illustrate the frayed early relationship between the two women to allow the subsequent death to have the sort of effect it should.

High Heels turns out to be a lot more interesting in its subplots and sidelines, a fact almost bashfully admitted by Almodovar given the amount of time he spends on them. The most engaging of these elements is Femme Lethal (Miguel Bose – godson of Pablo Picasso, would you believe), a good friend of Rebecca, as well as the cross dressing impersonator of Becky. Femme Lethal is a dynamic presence onstage, so much so that he’s probably more convincing than Becky (Bose’s history in the Spanish music industry probably doesn’t hurt – or help, depending on your perspective). Femme Lethal will turn out to play a bigger part later in the story, but not in a way you completely suspect – at least Almodovar would like to think you don’t.

The whole affair comes off as a patchwork of ideas, like the writer-director was flaking unused stickies from his wall and stringing them together to make the plot of a film. Still, while an Almodovar bad day is arresting, it’s probably the equivalent of apricot pie for lesser filmmakers. And despite the ramshackle nature of the film, there are elements that will make it pay for some people.

Abril is one of them, the star of the previous year’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! underlining an adorable screen presence despite the weaker elements of her character. Bose is good also in the main supporting role, his mild hamming providing some of the film’s funnier moments. And indeed, it’s nice to know that despite all the lunacy Almodovar’s allowed to get to the screen – from superfluous characters to WTF? song-and-dance sequences – the Spanish maestro will always know how to tickle the funny bone. Elsewhere, probably too good for the film is a brilliant, smoky jazz soundtrack, courtesy of Ryuichi Sakamoto.

In hindsight, High Heels emerged during a transitional period of Almodovar’s career that many might consider a slump. Later in the 90s the filmmaker would truly begin to deliver on the promise he’d earlier illustrated to international audiences with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. As it is, High Heels is nothing more than a mildly pleasant diversion or, if you’re operating on the Almodovar scale, a frustrating disposal of 109 minutes.


I say: A flat and often disinterested film – one for Almodovar completists only.

See it for: Victoria Abril and Miguel Bose both do their best to entertain.

From Berlin last week came the sad news of the passing of Bruno S. He was 78. For many 20/20 Filmsight readers, Bruno S.’s name would barely register, but the man is a firm favourite round these parts, having starred in the Werner Herzog films The Enigma of Kasper Hauser and Stroszek. The illegitimate son of a prostitute and beaten so badly as a child that he was deaf for a time, S. spent most of his years between the ages of three and 26 inside mental institutions. A gruelling upbringing, it was one that eventually produced a man of intense focus and narrow social skills. Herzog had a great deal of admiration for S., fascinated that his experiences didn’t shape some sort of monstrous sociopath, but a quietly inquisitive individual of steady gaze and almost saintly virtue. If you’ve seen either Hauser or Stroszek, you’ll know what Herzog is talking about. If you haven’t, then perhaps you should take a look at either Cib’s review of the former or my write-up of the latter, and then get on down to the video store. RIP Bruno.

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