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COUNTERCULTURE
DAN R. EASTON
suite 250
Atlanta. Georgia 30341
Phone: (404) 457-0087
Review
Women on the Verge of a
Nervous Breakdown
Women on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown. It is perhaps the wittiest title
the Spanish writer-director Pedro
Almodovar has given any of his films, and
is certainly the most ironic one. For the
women in Almodovar's newest film have far
greater reserves of strength on which to
draw than even they imagine. And their
capacity for change reflects the nature of
modem-day Madrid, where, in the era of
post-Franco liberalism, the arts are
flourishing.
Like all Almoddvar films, Women on
the Verge opens at the flash point. A
television actress named Pepa (Carmen
Maura) checks her answering machine only
to learn that she's been jilted by her long
time lover, Ivan (Fernando Guillen). He so
wrongfully dismisses her that he even
demands she pack his bag.
Itami, he represents a growing trend in
filmmaking towards highly personal view
and style combined with a genuine
restlessness with traditional storytelling
techniques. This is neither new nor
original, but both these directors are moving
beyond solving formal problems merely in
terms of technique. They are solving these
problems conceptually, in terms of
character and drama.
As Pepa, Carmen Maura proves once
again that she is perhaps the most
powerfully comic actress in movies today.
Her sways of mood are intensely funny; she
transforms herself in an instant from a
hardened avenger to an incandescent pal, in
nothing more than a blink of her beautifully
dark eyes.
The New Yorker's Pauline Kael has
called the openly gay Almoddvar "the most
Julietta Serrano as Lucia in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the
outrageous new comedy directed by Pedro Almodovar.
Soon Pepa is leaving phone messages all
around Madrid for Ivan to call her, but in
her anger she tosses both the telephone and
answering machine out the window, and
sets out to pursue him in person.
Along the way a lot of Pepa's friends
make appearances, and each of them has a
distinctiveness of character that makes them
instantly taking. First,there is Candela, an
eccentric beauty who wears earrings shaped
like tiny espressomakers and who has fallen
in love with a Shiite terrorist.
Then there is Maris (Rossy de Palma),
nervously assertive and possessive, who's
fallen in love with Ivan's son Carlos
(Antonio Banderas), a chip off the block in
the way he prefers the company of
whomever he's with at the given moment.
The film also introduces Ivan's former lover
(Julieta Serranto) and his current interest
(Kiti Manuer).
Almoddvar keeps the swirling goings-on
in clear focus, deepening his material with
dreams so powerful they alter the contours
of individual personalities. He also sees
something akin to grandeur in the way his
characters are willing to commit themselves
to others in the name of love, even when the
prospects for happiness appear bleak.
Almoddvar now directs with complete
assurance. Like the Japanese director Juzo
original pop writer-director of the eighties,"
and likened him to Godard in his affection
for our pop iconography. In his films such
as Dark Habits, What Have / Done to
Deserve This?, Matador and Law of Desire,
Almoddvar is throwing the hottest satirical
light around on Catholicism, the nuclear
family, machismo and mad love (gay and
straight).
Almod6var's films are already parodying
the next step beyond the white, heterosexual
middle-class, hand-me-down cliches of
The Accidental Tourist or The Good
Mother. For persons bred on the
conservatism of those works, even Women
on the Verge, Almod6var's tamest film so
far, might seem too much. Others will find
sanity and balm in his insistence to fly
beyond the safety net of merely being
acceptable.
-Terry Francis
There will be a benefit performance of
Women on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown on February 9 at the Garden
Hills Cinema to raise money for film
equipment for the High Museum of Art.
Tickets are $20.00for Museum members
and $25.00for the general public. There
will be a reception.
First 75 Win
•ree Tickets to
Does...
Meet Dos Lesbos,
Lea and Kelly,
for a special
performance
to benefit
Deana's PWA
Housing Fund
and SAME.
Wed., Feb. 8
from 8 to 11.
$3 Donation
Requested...
Deana's One Mo' Time
; y>
A Gay Place for Novel Gifts
In Little Five Points
523-1331
Dos
Opening Night
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874-0980
esbian and gay business owners!
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