"Bad Education" (2004)

(Originally released as La Mala Educacion)

Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Fele Martinez, Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Lluis Homar, Francisco Maestre

First, the Lowdown: A Spanish film director is reunited with the mysterious love of his boyhood.

What is it about Pedro Almodovar and his ability to make otherwise odd emotional content seem almost normal (bordering on blasé?) I can’t tell too much about the movie without giving away its entirety because of how layered the plot is. But I might as well give you a bigger sample than the Lowdown above, because otherwise you’ll never want to watch it.

Enrique Goded is a critically acclaimed independent filmmaker. While scanning through tabloids for imagery to base a script on, an old friend Ignacio pays him a visit. Ignacio and Enrique attended the same Catholic academy together and were each other’s first love. Ignacio gives Enrique a short story that he’d been working on for the last few years based on his experiences at school (including being molested by a priest). Enrique knows a hit when he sees it and immediately wants to put the film into production. Seeing his first love, however, has sparked a feeling of confused nostalgia for Enrique which doesn’t seem to be returned at first.

As with Talk To Her, this movie works in multiple layers, each of them dependent on the other. The great thing about the film is that you don’t realize how complex it is until you try describing it to someone else. Another aspect I appreciated about the movie is that while it addresses the touchy subjects of homosexuality, child molestation in the Catholic Church, and drug abuse – deals with those matter-of-factly and never soapboxes at any point. The main characters are gay, but this isn’t a “gay movie”; Ignacio was raped by a priest and seeks revenge, but this isn’t a “victim flick” or a “revenge flick” either.

One subject matter that permeates the film is how one’s nostalgia is often tinted and blurred. Enrique’s feelings of his boyhood romance are vastly different than Ignacio’s, which confuses him. And the more Enrique looks into his past, the more he finds that what he colorfully remembered and what had happened are vastly different things.

Line of the movie: “Although he let me sleep with him, I could not penetrate him.”

Four stars. Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.