A.K.A.:
All about My Mother, Bad Education, Law of Desire, Live Flesh, Matador, Talk to Her, The Flower of My Secret, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
All about My Mother:
A single mother in Madrid sees her only son die on his 17th birthday as he runs to seek an actress's autograph. She goes to Barcelona to find the lad's father, a transvestite named Lola who does not know he has a child. First she finds her friend, Agrado, also a transvestite; through him she meets Rosa, a young nun bound for El Salvador, and by happenstance becomes the personal assistant of Huma Rojo, the actress her son admired. She helps Huma manage Nina, the co-star and Huma's lover, and she becomes Rosa's caretaker during a dicey pregnancy. With echoes of Lorca, "All About Eve," and "Streetcar Named Desire," the mothers (and fathers and actors) live out grief, love, and friendship.
Bad Education:
From two-time Academy Award®-winner Pedro Almodovar (2002 Best Original Screenplay, Talk to Her, 2000 Best Foreign Language Film, All About My Mother) comes Bad Education, an outrageous tale of desire, revenge and murder. Filmmaker Enrique (Fele Martínez) gets a visit from an aspiring actor claiming to be his old school friend Ignacio (Gael Garcia Bernal, The Motorcycle Diaries, Y Tu Mamá También), who has written a story about their traumatic childhood spent at Catholic school. In the story, adrag performer known as Zahara (also played by Bernal) attempts to blackmail a predatory priest by exposing their scandalous past. The tale provides the inspiration for Enrique¹s next film. But when the villainous priest from their school days arrives on to tell his own version of the events, thetruth is wilder than anything anyone could have imagined. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone raves, "Gael Garcia Bernal is dynamite!" and calls the film "a rapturous masterwork!"
Talk to Her:
From Pedro Almodóvar, the director of the Academy-Award® winning All About My Mother (Best Foreign Language Film, 2000), comes his most acclaimed film yet. Talk to Her is the surprising, altogether original and quietly moving story of the spoken and unspoken bonds that unite the lives and loves of two couples. Two men (Benigno and Marco) almost meet while watching a dance performance, but their lives are irrevocably entwined by fate. They meet later at a private clinic where Benigno is the caregiver for Alicia, a beautiful dance student who lies in a coma. Marco is there to visit his girlfriend, Lydia, a famous matador, also rendered motionless. As the men wage vigil over the women they love, the story unfolds in flashback and flashforward as the lives of the four are further entwined and their relationships move toward a surprising conclusion.
Flower of My Secret:
Leo writes romance novels - but with a loveless marriage, she finds herself fresh out of inspiration. Angel is a tough and gruff with an iron will and a heart of gold. When their paths cross, they discover something neither had expected - a real-life love affair! It's no secret that the critics are smitten with Almodovar's hip, romantic comedy, calling it "the flower of Almodóvar's genius! The most intelligent, subdued and uncannily powerful film of his career." - Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Press
