Bad Education (2004)

"Black are the priests’ soutanes, black are the nights in the pupils’ dormitory, black are the characters’ destinies, and noir is the genre to which the story told in Bad Education belongs," states writer/director Pedro Almodóvar.

Almodóvar’s films are not for every taste and Bad Education does not exemplify a mainstream picture at all. The setting is Madrid during and after the Franco era. It is a world of abuse and abusers.

The story features Enrique Goded (Fele Martínez), a young movie director and Ignacio Rodríguez (Gael García Bernal), an old school fellow and his first love. Outlining the plot is a difficult task that I am going to skip. Suffice to say there are smooth shifts amongst past, fictional past, present and fictional present, surrounded by swirls of “Almodovarian” gaudy colors. Memories melt with reality and fiction blends into autobiographical facts, all of which are portrayed by a variety of complex characters, including transvestites, transsexuals and pedophile priests.

This film is a good example of counter-culture; not only because of the time in which it takes place, but also because it demands the spectator to unconditionally accept alternative views on human relationships. An example is in its frank portrayal of sex; it is always either involuntary or as a means to an end. Never as pleasure. Never as love.

It is hard to involve yourself with a movie that has no heroes to identify with and where monsters, such as Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho), are humanized. Real characters and newspaper stories can be just as harsh.

Bad Education is a powerful picture, though not impeccable. Not only do loose ends exist, but also a lack of logical ties appears when new characters are introduced into the story. This movie is not as strong as Aldomovar’s Talk to Her (2002), but García Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries, 2004) is reason enough to see it. The best way to enjoy this art flick is to go with an open mind and watch it for what it is: an overly auteuristic Almodóvar work. It is playing in Shirlington Cinema and Dupont Circle 5.