Pedro Almodóvar's current muse: Penélope Cruz in Broken Embraces.
Partners in blind faith
By Miranda Inganni
Pedro Almodóvar's latest movie, Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos), tells the tale of one man split in two by tragedy.
Moving back and forth over the course of 14 years, the film depicts the psychological death of filmmaker Mateo Blanco and his rebirth as writer Harry Caine (both played Lluís Homar). The split for Mateo/Harry occurs after a fatal car accident and he withdraws into his life of blindness. The filmmaker is no longer able to see images, but the storyteller in him lives on.
In the past the protagonists of Broken Embraces are making the film, Girls and Suitcases (playfully based on Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), with Mateo directing and Lena Rivero (Penélope Cruz) starring. Lena's lover, Ernesto Martel Senior (José Luis Gómez) is producing the film and his son Ernesto Junior, aka Ray X, (Rubén Ochandiano) is videotaping a "making of" film.
Prior to the making of the film, Mateo and Lena had fallen madly in love. As a consequence her behavior changes and Ernesto Sr. grows more and more suspicious about Lena's infidelity and Ernesto Jr.'s silent behind-the-scenes should come in handy. With the help of a lipreader (Lola Dueñas), Ernesto Sr. learns that his fears are indeed valid, culminating with a scene where Lena supplies her own dubbing while standing behind her estranged lover. As Lena's image leaves the film they are watching, Lena herself walks out on Ernesto.
Lena and Mateo escape together to the volcanic island on Lanzarote, finding comfort in each others' embraces. Ernesto Sr. seizes this opportunity to destroy both Lena and Mateo's credibility by releasing his own cut of the Girls with Suitcases, using only the worst takes. Critics pan the movie and though Mateo tries to ignore the reviews, he can't help but be affected.
After Mateo's car accident, his production manager and longtime friend, Judit (Blanca Portillo), comes to his aid, trying to keep Mateo grounded. However, Mateo is only capable of dealing with his new reality as Harry Caine ("Hurricane"?). When Judit's son, Diego (Tamar Novas), is suddenly stuck ill while Judit is out of town, Harry agrees to care for him while he convalesces. During this time Diego asks Harry about what happened to Mateo; Harry begins to dissolve back into Mateo to tell his tale of love and woe.
The theme of duality begins during the opening credits where two stand-ins are being filmed then are replaced by Cruz and Homar (seemingly themselves, not their characters) preparing to shoot the next scene. The film within the film extends to include events from Lena's life, and indeed, we can assume, Cruz's (she was one of the stars of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown).
Many of the characters in the film serve as a duality/partnership who work as two and as one -- Mateo/Harry, Harry/Magdalena, Magdalena/Lena, Lena/Mateo, Lena/Ernesto Sr., Ernesto Sr./Ernesto Jr., Ernesto Jr./Diego, Diego/Judit, Judit/Lena, Mateo/Almodóvar, etc./etc., -- until their embraces are broken by circumstances.
Now my favorite film of Almodóvar's, Broken Embraces is more mature, far less histrionic than his other work. The shifting of time serves the narrative while director of photography Rodrigo Prieto's vibrant colors, especially the reds (cars, tomatoes, walls, etc.), illuminate the screen. Perhaps other than the blind faith it requires to make any film, nobody was blind when they were making Broken Embraces.
