Director: Pedro Almodóvar (Spain). Year of Release: 2002A theatre which is showing a modern dance performance. Two women stumble over the furniture which fills the stage. A man prevents them from doing serious damage to themselves by pulling them away, but they carry on running around. In the audience, two middle aged men in neighbouring seats watch transfixed. One of the men cries, although it is unclear what provoked the tears. The other sideways glances, sharing the same intensity of emotion.Cut to the hospital where one of the men, Benigno, works. He is a male nurse who is uncomplainingly watching over an unmoving coma victim. We are to learn that she, Alicia, is a ballerina who trained in studios opposite Benigno’s house, from which he would stare at her practising. Benigno is a virgin, who has spent most of his adult life looking after ailing his mother, only feeling permitted to act for himself after she died.Marco, the other man in the theatre, is a journalist. Although he is balding, he is much more conventionally handsome than Benigno, with a touch of Gianluca Vialli about him. Although he mainly writes about travel, he is intrigued by Lydia. a female bull fighter. We first see Lydia being interviewed on tv, where the female host wrestles her to the ground trying to get her to tell the story of her break up with fellow bull fighter el Niño de Valencia .Marco wins a commission from El Pais to tell Lydia’s story, and approaches her in a bar to pitch the idea. She is sick of the press racking over her private life is intrigued by Marco, even after he confesses his lack of knowledge about bull fighting, and agrees to think it over. Lydia allows Marco to drive her home. He is ready to drive off, but hears a shriek from within Lydia’s home. It turns out that the fearless bull fighter is petrified of snakes, one of which has made its way into her house.Marco kills the snake, and not for the first time in the film he bursts into tears. He confesses that this isn’t the first time he’s been in this situation. His ex, Angela, was also an ophidiophobe and he once had to similarly save her. When Angela got a little too fond of heroin, her parents took her away from him. Later, she married, leaving Marco feeling emasculated. Maybe he sees a second chance in Lydia.Marco and Lydia get involved, and one day she makes an announcement that she has something important to tell him. Before they can have that conversation, she has a workplace accident which results in her being seriously gored by a bull. Also in a coma, she is admitted to the same hospital as Alicia. Marco comes regularly to sit by his bedside. One day, he walks past Alicia’s room, where Benigno sees him lingering outside and beckons him in.Marco explains his predicament, leading Benigno to give the optimistic advice which provides the film with its title – even if your loved one is in a coma, you should not give up on them, Marco can still maintain his connection with Lydia if he just talks to her. Most of the rest of the film consists of the helpless men fretting about what to do about their even more helpless partners, together with some flashbacks which explain how we got to where we are.In a sense, talking to a comatosed partner is the epitome of Benigno’s idealisation of courtly love – your devotion is rewarded not by anything your partner does, but by the fact that she cannot walk away. For Benigno, Alicia is the successor of the mother who he cared for for 20 years. There is little sexual about either relationship. When Benigno tells an interfering official that he’s gay, there are some ulterior reasons which later become clear, but he does give off an air of asexuality.Almodóvar’s films tend to centre around women, so Talk to Her is an exception, but the men who star are more thoughtful than macho. Similarly, although Alicia is often shown nude, receiving bed baths, she is utterly sexless, a creature who has lost all control of her own desire. An early scene shows Benigno and a nurse removing the blood from an involuntary period. Alicia’s vulnerability makes it even more shocking when a doctor announces that she is pregnant, a victim of rape.Because it’s Almodóvar, you tend to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the way in which the film’s men treat the women. Yes it is a story primarily about men where the women have been literally silenced, but Almodóvar has written and directed enough films about women for you to allow him the opportunity to try something else. Besides which, though this is a film told through the eyes of its male protagonists, they are unreliable narrators who we shouldn’t trust.Both Benigno and Marco in their different ways behave in a decidedly creepy manner, preferring to obsess around a woman who can’t answer back than to spend time in the real world. Each man spends increasing amounts of time pouring their hearts out to the two silent women – Benigno even goes out to the cinema to watch the silent films which Alicia has said she loves, as a way of finding something to talk about. Marco meanwhile confesses his fears about Lydia to Alicia.The men’s faltering relationship with reality reaches its peak when Benigno announces that he wants to marry Alicia. Even Pedro is shaken, telling his new found friend that you can’t marry someone who is unable to say yes, but this rejection of consent is a natural conclusion to the way both men have been behaving. It is easier to maintain an idealised vision of love if the other partner lacks the autonomy to affect the development of your relationship.I’m not quite how sure how Almodóvar avoids endorsing the latent misogyny of his characters, while making us somehow root for them. But as in the opening dance scene, the male characters all feel disempowered by not being able to protect the female ones. Rather than viewing them as embodying toxic masculinity, Talk to Her sympathises with them and celebrates the fact that they can express emotion, as we see in Marco’s crying.I somehow missed Talk to Her when it first came out, and in some ways it does not quite feel like an Almodóvar. And yet his sensitivity and empathy for his characters are still visible. He has certainly made more showy films, but this one is more contemplative than camp, and none the worse for that.
CinePhil 