re:mote voices

Title: Bad Education
Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Fele Martinez, Javier Camara, Daniel Giminez-Caho, Lluis Homar, Dario Grandinetti
Director: Pedro Almodovar

Bad Education is the latest film from Pedro Almodovar, which he describes as being partly biographical, at last delivering a story he seems to have been working on for the last 12 years. Which probably explains why there are aspects of Bad Education which seem to be familiar from Almodovar’s past work. Most obvious is the presence of transvestites in Bad Education, who also featured prominently in All About My Mother.

Bad Education layers a couple of narratives, one is described as truth (within context) and the other fictional projection from that truth. The two main characters are a film director and an actor, who was the director’s friend when they were in school. The director was put out of the school for getting too close to the actor when they were children, the actor being the favourite of a priest looking to take advantage of the boy. Since then the expelled boy has grown up to become a prominent Spanish director, which is when he is approached by a young actor, who turns out to have been the other boy from the school. The actor presents the director with a story based on their lives, projecting the idea that the director’s character grew up to be just a regular bloke, who encounters the actor’s character years later, a transvestite who performs as part of a travelling show. The director is sucked into the story, and decides to make it as a film.

In this way we get flashes of the fictional narrative as the director reads the writing, then again as they start to turn it into a film. But along the way it would seem that the reality presented as truth perhaps isn’t, and events from the fictional version start to show themselves for what they are. So that in the end the true reality, somewhere between the threads comes out.

Cast wise the actor is played by the Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernial, who has made is name from performances in the films Y Tu Mama Tambien (directed by Alfonso Cuaron, behind the latest Harry Potter film which has just been released) and Amores Peros (directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who was behind the recent 21 Grams). Bernial’s performance here has been well received, many feeling the parts where he plays a transvestite are particularly convincing – while some may be over stating the case, there can be no denying that Bernial is on form here and puts in the films strongest performance. One of the other transvestite’s is played by another familiar face, Dario Grandinetti, who has appeared in a number of Spanish films, including Almodovar’s last film Talk To Her, as one of the four lead characters – here Dario Grandinetti has a smaller role, but there is some amusement to be had from this change in roles, and his atrocious stage performance.

Pedro Almodovar seems to have attained a certain status over the years, where many confuse being the most well known Spanish director with being the best. Which tends to bemuse me a little, given that there are a number of strong films coming from Spain each year. In saying that, while I may not think he is the best ever, he is certainly capable, and Bad Education should please fans of his work and of Spanish cinema. Though thinking about it, of the four or so of his films I have seen I would tend towards saying Talk To Her was my favourite still.