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...

Dvd/150: MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS (Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown) (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988)

30 years on, the film that catapulted Almodóvar to international acclaim still glows with colour, fun and warmth.

Pepa is desperate... she's burned the bed, filled the Gazpacho with tranquilizers and ripped the phone out because her lover Ivan has left her and is not returning her calls....

But she is interrupted by her friend Candela, on the run now the police have arrested her lover as a terrorist, and Carlos and Marisa who arrive to view the flat...   and Carlos is Ivan's estranged son.  Outside, Ivan's wife Lucia, institutionalized for 20 years after he left her, is out for revenge...

Almodóvar allows the farce to develop at it's own unforced pace which allow you to fully appreciate Carmen Maura's magnificent performance as Pepa.

Almodóvar's glorious ensemble includes Julieta Serrano (Lucia), Antonio Banderas (Carlos), Rossy de Palma (Marisa), Maria Barranco (Candela), Fernando Guillén (Ivan) and Kiti Manver as his lover.

Shelf or charity shop?  As long as I have a shelf... this will be on it!