Me Too **1/2

Director: Antonio Naharro, Alvaro Pastor
Cast: Lola Dueñas, Pablo Pineda
Isabel García Lorca, Pedro Alvarez-Ossorio, Antonio Naharro
María Bravo, Lourdes Naharro, Daniel Parejo, Catalina Lladó

Films about people with disabilities, mental disorders and all other assortment of "different" qualities, have already won half the battle by dealing with these subjects (See? Even the word "won" seems politically incorrect placed there).
Such films, even those of the lowest quality, can brag about dealing with tough subjects and sparking conversation and debate among the audience.
And how could they not, if we live in a world where the slightest mention of "being different" brings out opinions from everyone.
These movies are also usually relieved of dealing with artistic criticism in the way other projects are, since it becomes impossible to discuss them without turning the disability into a main focal point. Just think about how differently we would perceive the Mona Lisa if we knew she had a terminal disease when she sat down to be painted or how many actors would be award-less if they hadn't played someone with a disability.
In the case of Me Too, the disability is Down's syndrome, the sufferer is Daniel (Pineda), a thirty-something from Seville, who graduated college and leads an almost traditional life despite his condition.
Daniel starts working at the Andalucía Board where he meets and falls in love with Laura (Dueñas), a promiscuous, hard drinking, social worker from Madrid.
Their friendship becomes controversial in the eyes of others. Their co-workers, most of whom refer to Daniel as a "kid", think Laura is just a cock-tease who will leave him empty, while Daniel's overprotective mother (García Lorca) wishes her son would adapt to his condition and begins to regret the way she brought him up.
It's one of those "against all odds" stories we've seen before with the added disadvantage of a chromosomal disorder.
The best thing the movie has going for it, is the fact that it tries-hard and selfconsciously- to make Daniel seem "normal" (this is the word used throughout the movie) and Pineda's charm makes this work to a certain degree.
The actor is known for his personal achievements in the face of adversity, so perhaps he's playing a version of himself in the film. Still, this doesn't diminish his chemistry with the other actors and his interaction with the camera.
He turns Daniel into someone funny and real. He's rarely condescending towards himself and because of this makes it hard for other characters to do so.
Yet despite his best efforts to look past Down's syndrome, the movie often reduces his character's essence to how the disorder affects him and somehow it's impossible to ask, how could it not?
Whenever Daniel does something remarkable, you're almost automatically driven to think he's doing it despite his condition and when he fails, it's hard not to attribute this to the syndrome as well.
His entire character arc is based on a Catch 22 that makes it hard for him to achieve what he wants. But the major flaw in Me Too isn't that it does this with Daniel but that it also does it with Laura.
Instead of letting her become her own, obviously flawed, person, towards the end of the movie we receive a facile explanation to make us understand why Laura fears emotions so much. In a way they compare her emotional insensitivity to Down's syndrome.
It's fortunate for Laura that she is played with such conviction by the wonderful Dueñas though, despite the writing flaws and the filmmaker's tendency to patronize her, she turns Laura into a real force of nature.
The actress plays with her greatest qualities to make Laura someone completely irresistible. Watching her move to the music in a club and then squirm after a random sexual encounter is enough for us to understand who she is. We don't need to know her entire past, and much less have it read to us (quite literally too).
A lot can be said by the mere fact that Laura is often more moving than Daniel. She is so damaged, and often damaging, that her character is the one that stays with you after the credits start rolling.
Unlike Daniel whose pain seems more superfluous (because we never know if his ability to get over things is because of the syndrome or because of his personality...or if these two even are connected) Laura's is more affecting because it will move on with her.
That Dueñas is able of "stealing" the film from someone with a disability pretty much defines what your post-theater debate will consist of.

Walking the Green Carpet.

Unlike red, which is the favored color for celebrities to step on in our continent, Spain favored green to tint the carpet that led to the Goya Awards.
"Celda 211" swept the awards winning in almost half of the categories it was nominated and taking home eight Goyas.
Alejandro Amenábar's "Ágora" came in second with seven (and seeing how uncomfortable he looked I was glad he didn't win more).
As with all that's European, oddity abounded like the many languages in which the speeches were delivered (Spanish, English, Italian and Gallego among others) and by the time a man by the name of Milkyway took the stage I was astounded by Naausica Bonnin's gorgeous cleavage (very triple pleated mushroom collar if you ask me).
Among the other gods and goddesses of fashion were:


Natalia Verbeke was luscious in Antik Vatik. The flashiness of the glitter might look like a bit too much but the back of the dress was practically nonexistent and paired with her Rita Hayworth hairdo was jaw dropping.

Bimba Bosé put the avant garde in the carpet by pairing her canary hair with a Davi Delfín pantsuit in the same color.
If she screams David Bowie perhaps that's what she was going for.

Effortlessly beautiful in vintage Versace Penélope Cruz evoked the muse she is.

Jordi Mollá was best dressed man in a gray Armani tux which brought out the beautiful color in his eyes. Seating next to Penélope and Javier Bardem in the front row it was like an overdose of gorgeousness.

"Tetro" nominee Maribel Verdú was stunning in Nina Ricci.

Supporting Actress winner Marta Etura rocked in passion red Oscar de la Renta. Watching the tail flow as she went to pick up her award was breathtaking.

The gorgeous Naausica Bonnin in Amaya Arzuaga takes the ingenue in magnificent couture vote.

Broken Embraces ****

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo
José Luis Gómez, Rubén Ochandiano, Tamar Novas, Ángela Molina
Lola Dueñas, Chus Lampreave, Rossy de Palma, Kiti Manver

Life may not offer any extra footage but the redeeming, regenerative power of movies has the effect of rebirth in Pedro Almodóvar's "Broken Embraces".

A cunning examination of the auteur's role as both God and devil, the plot centers on Harry Caine (Homar) a blind screenwriter who reminisces about his past.
He remembers how fourteen years before, he wasn't only able to see, but was a thriving film director called Mateo Blanco. During the filming of his first comedy he fell in love with his leading lady Lena (Cruz), mistress of Ernesto Martel (Gómez) a powerful businessman turned movie producer.
When their affair ends, Mateo takes the name of Harry and is left putting back together the pieces of what went wrong. This doesn't only include their doomed relationship, but the reconstruction of the movie he let slip away from his fingers.
With his usual mix of melodrama, dark comedy and referential winks, Almodóvar comes up with one of his mot labyrinthine creations yet, in which revenge tales get tangled among studio productions, Oedipal vendettas and Hitchcockian voyeurism.
Because "Broken Embraces" above everything is a movie about watching. Mateo watches through his camera, Harry watches with his other senses, Almodóvar watches through his own lens and then there's also us as an audience.
When a character named Ray-X (Ochandiano) appears asking Harry to write a screenplay with him, he also brings a camera.
What interests Pedro here is pulling off the hat trick Michelangelo Antonioni did in "Blow Up" by coming to terms with the tragic fact that no single person in the world will be able to see it all.
This is brought up in a scene of haunting beauty where Mateo takes a picture at the beach, only to discover a couple in an embrace when he develops the film. The couple wasn't there before, but it was.
This acknowledgment of our limitation as humans offers Almodóvar another chance to try and be God by establishing that a film-considering you keep the raw material-can be done and undone in a million different ways, each time creating something completely new and magical.
While a life has no director's cut.
In her fourth collaboration with Almodóvar, Cruz gives perhaps her most complex performance to date. Lena starts as a secretary with a "Belle de Jour" past who gives in to Martel because he helps her out economically.
We can't however bring ourselves to question her morally and in several scenes Lena goes through self flagellation that reaches heartbreaking proportions.
She's "too beautiful to be funny" says Mateo's assistant Judit (Portillo) about Lena, but she proves her wrong by turning in a delightful performance in "Girls and Suitcases" (the movie within a movie that also turns out to be "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown").
The director gives Cruz an Audrey Hepburn look (there's a ponytail straight out of "Funny Face") but her performance is shaped around Ingrid Bergman.
From her prostitution-out-of-duty in movies like "Notorious" and to a degree "Casablanca", to her heartbreaking turn in "Voyage to Italy" (a scene of which is featured in the moment where the film's title is borrowed from) to even aspects of Bergman's personal life (falling in love with her renowned director while being in a relationship).
Like a Bergman performance, Cruz inhabits Lena quietly. Her introduction happens in the most inconsequential of ways to show us how Cruz's beauty is the rare kind that can also go unseen. Her way of giving herself to Mateo fills the screen with the kind of passion classic stars could suggest with a glance.
Homar's double turn reminds us of the wonderful characters in film noir. His job is also to evoke Pedro himself and in one scene as he listens to a woman describe herself, his face lights up with the kind of joy we imagine Almodóvar directs every scene with. Gómez gives a menacing performance and Portillo's portrait of bitterness and oxymoronic loving resentment might just be the most layered character in the movie.
There's also a lot of duality in "Broken Embraces" as every character must play a part; they're all involved in a game of hide and seek with each other and themselves. this could bring us to the conclusion that Almodóvar might not be in tune with his characters' needs.
Almost everything in the film reaches redundant proportions as Pedro shows us everything., he tells us everyone's secrets, specifically shoots elements that might otherwise seem irrelevant and even recurs to the sin of matching images with narration. Or so he makes us think.
It's only after the movie has ended that we begin to understand that his plan was to take us into Harry Caine territory all along. Like Harry we remain blind throughout the movie and need to be shown and told everything, up to the most infinite detail.
And like Harry there's more than meets the figurative eye as we leave the movie thinking we know everything. When "Broken Embraces" finishes-on a perfect note-we see a contented Harry confident that he has reached catharsis.
It won't be a mystery if your mind instantly goes back to a scene in the movie where we see a character trying to put together a torn picture on a table. As the camera zooms out we see that it's merely one out of what might be hundreds of photos. When we leave "Broken Embraces" we have just begun to solve the mystery.