DVD/150: KIKA (Pedro Almodóvar, 1993)

KIKA almost works but the combination of an unfocused storyline and uninvolving characters leaves it frustratingly adrift.

It feels like Verónica Forqué's Kika was supposed to be the focus but Almodóvar changed his mind to focus on a satirical take on reality television.

Kika is a Madrid make-up artist who loves photographer Ramón although she occasionally sleeps with his father, American writer Nicholas, who has a strained relationship with Ramón who suspects him of being involved in his mother's suicide.

Nicolas provides storylines to an exploitative reality show presented by Ramón's former lover, Andrea Scarface, When an escaped prisoner rapes Kika, footage of it is shown on Andrea's show but as Kika's life crumbles, Andrea realizes that Nicholas is not all he seems...

Forqué and Rossy de Palma shine but are swamped by the lacklustre performances of Victoria Abril as Scarface and miscast (and dubbed) Peter Coyote as Nicholas.

 

 

Shelf or charity shop? Will stay on the shelf as it's part of an Almodóvar box-set but not viewed much..  Gaultier's frocks are as outrageous as one might expect!

 

DVD/150: TACONES LEJANOS (High Heels) (Pedro Almodóvar, 1991)

After Almodóvar's initial success in the 1980s, the 1990s saw him move into more sombre storytelling with a more studied feel to the look and tone of his films as he explored melodrama, such as the family drama in TACONES LEJANOS.

Newsreader Rebeca is overjoyed to have her singer mother Becky back in Madrid after 15 years working in Mexico but is still resentful at being rejected for Becky's career and lovers.

Further problems arise because Rebeca married Manuel, one of Becky's previous lovers, and while seeing her friend Letal's drag tribute to her mother, Manuel tells Becky that he wants a divorce; meanwhile backstage, Letal has sex with Rebeca...

A month later, Manuel is murdered...Rebeca confesses but did she do it?

Colourless performances from Victoria Abril and Miguel Bosé are eclipsed by Marisa Paredes as glamorous Becky, a dry run for TODO SOBRE MI MADRE eight years later.

Shelf or charity shop?  It's worth keeping for Marisa Paredes, suffering in Armani, and the flashback to 1980s Pedro with a sudden dance routine in a women's prison led by the statuesque trans actress Bibi Andersen!

DVD/150: ATAME! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) (Pedro Almodóvar, 1989)

Ricky has a goal: to find Marina, a former one-night stand, and make her love him, marry him and have their children... and now he's released from the psychiatric home...

Almodóvar set the cat among the PC pigeons with the scenes of violent attack and bondage - and America definitely had issues with it's two lead actresses seen peeing - but the shock has evaporated and what emerges is an oddly tender story - with restraint.

Antonio Banderas channels his four previous Almodóvar roles into Ricky and is sensational: dangerously unhinged but played so sympathetically that he delivers a real breakout performance which was his calling card to Hollywood; it would be 22 years before he worked with Pedro again.

I never warmed to Victoria Abril in any of her three three lead Almodóvar roles; here she fades against Banderas' electricity and the machine-gun attack of Loles Leon as her sister.   

Shelf or charity shop?  With nice cameos for three Almodóvar actressses: Maria Barranco, Rossy de Palma and Julieta Serrano - and a jaw-droppingly hilarious tv ad for pensions - ATAME! is tied onto the shelf...