1980: Enrique cannot think of a plot for his next film when he is visited by Angel, a struggling actor who says he was Enrique's former school friend Ignacio. Angel has written a novella of how their boyhood love was ended by the jealous Father Manolo who lusted after Ignacio, and how the grown Angel, now the transvestite Zahara, visited the priest for revenge.
Enrique sees it's film potential but is suspicious of Angel who demands to play Zahara and whose claims to be Ignacio are suspicious.
Enrique discovers that Ignacio died four years previously and that Angel is actually his younger brother Juan, but despite all this, he makes the film. On the last day of filming. the real Father Manolo appears on the set - and he has another story to tell of the brothers...
Shelf or charity shop? An absolute keeper - I found it hard to like when I saw it on release but now I appreciate Almodóvar's masterly multi-layered storytelling, the vivid cinematography and Alberto Iglesiais' marvellous score, Excellent performances too from Gael Garcia Bernal as the mysterious Angel, Daniel Giménez-Cacho and Lluis Homar as the fictional and real Fr Manolo, Nacho Pérez and Raúl Garcia Forneiro as the younger Ignacio and Enrique, Francisco Boira as the doomed Ignacio and Javier Cámara is hilarious as Zahara's camp friend Paquito.
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