"Talk To Her" (2002)

(Originally released as Hable Con Ella)

Starring: Javier Camara, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Gonzalez, Mariola Fuentes

First, the Lowdown: Two men try to reconcile their love for two women, who are both comatose.

Seeing this movie makes me glad that I live alone with two cats. The curtain rises, showing two dancers in a room full of chairs. They stalk forward, their eyes closed like somnambulists. A man is on the stage with them, knocking the chairs aside to clear a path. In the audience two men, Marco and Begnino, watch the scene. Marco is moved to tears by the performance, much to the distraction of Begnino.

The next day, Marco, a newspaper reporter, watches a television interview with Lydia, a famous FEMALE bullfighter, who abruptly halts the interview because the questions are too personal. Immediately smitten with the headstrong woman, Marco approaches her under the pretense to interview her himself. Lydia is annoyed at his request, but when Marco dispatches a snake from her kitchen, she warms up to him and they begin dating. The relationship seems steady until Lydia is gored by a bull at a headlining match, and winds up comatose from her injuries.

Begnino is an orderly for a coma ward, personally attending to Alicia, a girl in who has been in a vegetative state for four years. Alicia used to train at the dance academy across the street from where Begnino lived, and daily he would watch her practice, nursing a crush that he could not act upon. Until one day, Alicia drops her wallet on the sidewalk, and Begnino sees his opportunity to break the ice. Unfortunately nothing further happened, because Alicia would be struck by a car the next day.

As much as I hate plagiarizing someone else’s work, another review once compared the characters of Begnino and Marco to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza respectively. Begnino proclaims his love to someone who not only could not respond, would probably not recognize him because of how briefly they interacted. A social recluse, Begnino frequently has to be pulled back to reality by the awake and fully conscious Marco.

The performing arts also are used rather metaphorically in this film: dance presentations bookend the film, Marco confesses his lingering attachment for a failed relationship to Lydia during an outdoor concert; Begnino retells a very disturbing (and Freudian) silent film to the unconscious Alicia. Each performance underscores what the two characters feel subconsciously.

Line of the movie: “The female mind is difficult to understand. Even more so in this state.”

Four and a half stars. I need a hug