In Contention

Tag: Broken Embraces

  • ‘A rollicking struggle, a joy to watch’

    Breathe, my fellow Almodovar devotees — the first reviews for “Broken Embraces” are in. While they’re not unqualified raves, it would appear that the master has pushed himself into new and challenging tonal and thematic territory, and the critics are duly appreciative.

    Screen International’s Barry Byrne suggests that it will delight fans and befuddle others, but isn’t that usually the case with auteur works as singular and stylised as Almodovar’s? Extracts from Byrne’s measured take on the film (beware of spoilers, however):

    The film is awash with references to the noir genre, Italian neo-realism and even to Almodóvar’s own quirky oeuvre. Stylistic nods to films including Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place and Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful form part of Almodovar’s valentine to cinema.

    Fans of Almodovar will get plenty of what they expect here – rich saturated colours, hyper plotting, stylistic pyrotechnics and off-centre comedy. But there are carefully nuanced male characters too and the bleak, distant tone coupled with the unassuaged pain of the leads is a new departure for the director.

    In the more successful first half of the film he elegantly pulls it off … (but) With the action moving ponderously towards a baffling denouement, we enter the terrain of high melodrama.

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  • “A profession of love for cinema”

    That’s how Pedro Almodovar describes “Broken Embraces,” which is now mere days from opening in Spain. Reviews should arrive soon enough, but for now, this rather thin article offers the following tidbit:

    With hints of thriller-style cinema thrown in, Almodovar’s film alludes to his own earlier movies those of directors he admires, such as Roberto Rossellini.

    “It is a romantic movie, with intertwined stories of love. But underlying them all is my love for cinema,” Almodovar said Friday after a press screening.

    A Reuters piece extends the vague noir comparisons, likening Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography to that of 1940’s Hollywood thrillers — one scene, in particular, apparently evokes “Kiss of Death,” which is good enough for me. (Am I the only one totally psyched about the teaming with Prieto?)

    All well and good, but I’m puzzled by such writers describing this as some kind of major departure for the auteur: what were “Bad Education” and “Live Flesh” (which was, after all, a Ruth Rendell adaptation) if not jet-black thrillers?

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  • Película negra

    I’m sure many of you by now have seen the gorgeous European poster artwork for Pedro Almodóvar’s upcoming “Broken Embraces,” in all its lurid Warholian variations. (If you haven’t, Nat Rogers has the lot here.)

    Now, even more enticingly, we have the first full-length Spanish trailer for the film, an expansion of sorts of the enigmatic teaser that was revealed a few weeks ago. Obviously, it comes without English subtitles, and I’m afraid my college-boy Spanish is not what it was a few years ago, so I still have only a vague grasp of what it’s all about. Fine by me … when I’m looking forward to a film as much as this one, I prefer to remain as unspoiled as possible.

    Regardless, the trailer appears to confirm suspicions that this is a return for the master to the cruel, contemporary noir territory of “Live Flesh” and “Bad Education” — which might come as a relief to those, like me, who found “Volver,” for all its candy-coloured beauty, a little fey for its own good. As it stands, the pristine femme fatale styling of Penelope Cruz, and the popping hues of Rodrigo Prieto’s apparently luscious lensing, immediately call to mind John M. Stahl’s dayglo melodrama/noir/kitsch hybrid “Leave Her to Heaven.”

    Which is fine by me. But that’s just going on appearances. The Spanish, of course, get to find out on March 18. The rest of us have rather longer to wait.

  • Year-in-advance winner predictions

    Yes, I’m insane, but before I leave off this year’s year-in-advance week, by request, I thought I’d throw up a random set of winner predictions and see if I was close to the target next February.  Last year I managed three correct guesses (four if you count Winslet for the wrong movie), two of them in the tech categories, so maybe I can at least up that tally.  I really want to predict Clint’s movie for Best Picture, but I have some weird sense of irritation at predicting an untitled movie.  Oh well, who cares?

    Best Picture: “Nine”
    Best Director: Rob Marshall, “Nine”
    Best Actor: Morgan Freeman, “Untitlted Nelson Mandela Project”
    Best Actress: Michelle Pfeiffer, “Chéri”
    Best Supporting Actor: Matt Damon, “Untitlted Nelson Mandela Project”
    Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: “Nine”
    Best Original Screenplay: “Up”
    Best Art Direction: “Amelia”
    Best Cinematography: “Nine”
    Best Costume Design: “Chéri”
    Best Film Editing: “Nine”
    Best Makeup: “The Wolf Man”
    Best Music (Original Score): “Broken Embraces”
    Best Music (Original Song): “Nine”
    Best Sound Editing: “Green Zone”
    Best Sound Mixing: “Nine”
    Best Visual Effects: “Avatar”
    Best Animated Feature Film: “Up”

    Those will all be wrong.  Each and every one of them.

    (And in case you missed it: OFF THE CARPET: Handicapping 2009 a year in advance!?)

  • OFF THE CARPET: Handicapping 2009 a year in advance!?

    Ewan McGregor and Hilary Swank in AmeliaAhh.  The dust is settling.  And on the horizon, just visible through the mist and waiting to drive us all up the wall once again: the 2009 Oscar season.

    I’ve been writing this year-in-advance column for probably six years now, and I always look forward to gazing ahead.  No one dives in so pathetically deep this far out as yours truly, but in exchange for not having a life for the past few months, I get to unload this burden the day after our annual season’s peak and forget about little gold men entirely for a few months.

    It’s quite liberating.

    The most interesting thing about the season to come, from my vantage point, is the lack of a dreaded “frontrunner status” for any of the contenders.  Some might say Clint Eastwood’s Nelson Mandela project (which is not called “The Human Factor,” mind you — the director says the film is currently untitled and is based on John Carlin’s book “Playing the Enemy”).

    Others might say Rob Marshall’s “Nine” (coming from a money-tight company hoping to avoid echoes of “Memoirs of a Geisha”).  But I don’t see a “Geisha” from here, or a “Charlie Wilson’s War,” expected heavies waiting to miss the mark.  The field is curiously flat, and as a result, excitingly broad.

    Let’s get to it, shall we?

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  • A soupçon of ‘Broken Embraces’

    Thanks to Nat Rogers for pointing out this new teaser for Pedro Almodovar’s upcoming Penelope Cruz-starrer “Broken Embraces.” I do mean “teaser,” by the way — it’s under 30 seconds long, with no betrayal of dialogue or plot — but if, like me, this is your most anticipated film of 2009, you take what you can get.

    This much we can tell: it’s lush. If “Volver” was a joyful, humanist showcase for the tinderbox screen charisma of its leading lady, this appears to be its (and Cruz’s) nastier, noir-ier bookend, furthering Almodovar’s ambition to construct her as this generation’s premier Euro screen goddess. I. Can’t. Wait.

  • Pedro Almodovar starts the buzz on Penelope Cruz in 2009

    Pedro Almodovar at the 75th Annual Academy AwardsWriting in the weekend’s New York Times Magazine, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar becomes one of the first to begin spitballing the efforts of an actress we’re likely to be talking about this time next year:

    Last year she finally came into her own in America, as she had already done in the rest of the world. Penélope is one of the most versatile actresses with whom I’ve worked. And this season she has proved it, with two performances in very different keys: the hysterical, very funny painter in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and the young, neatly coiffed student in “Elegy.”

    What will 2009 bring? For starters, “Broken Embraces,” a hard-nosed drama with the feel of a thriller, and Rob Marshall’s “Nine,” a remake of Fellini’s “8½.” My film is finished, and I’ve seen images from “Nine,” and I can tell you that this year Penélope Cruz will continue to plumb depths we haven’t seen before.

    Check out the rest here.

  • ‘Broken’ beauty

    The news that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired rights to “Broken Embraces,” the latest from Spanish master Pedro Almodovar, isn’t really much of a story. After all, SPC have handled Almodovar’s last nine features, and after the success of “Volver,” why would they stop now?

    However, it does provide a nice excuse to post this gorgeous still from the film, courtesy of Almodovar’s always-interesting blog:

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