Steven Shapiro on Almodóvar
Jan. 3rd, 2007 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersIn a review of Bad Education, Steven Shaviro has a great insight into what makes Almodóvar tick:
But then, one of the great things about Almodovar is that he has never made any distinction between gay and straight passions/relationships: all of them are equally queer, all equally delirious and obsessive. This is what’s utopian about his movies. It’s remarkable how he can create this sort of equality, even as all the passions he depicts are intransitive, i.e. not reciprocal, not fully reciprocated. Almodovar is fully aware of the power relations that flow from different privileges of gender and sexuality; it’s not by ignoring these, but precisely through them, that he creates sympathy for the madly-in-love obsessives who populate his films.
I watched Talk to Her for the third time last night, and its portrayal of the amour fou of a strangely innocent, virginal stalker mama's boy for a comatose woman leaves me helpless for words. Confused gender identity and intransitive desire ain't half of it.
But then, one of the great things about Almodovar is that he has never made any distinction between gay and straight passions/relationships: all of them are equally queer, all equally delirious and obsessive. This is what’s utopian about his movies. It’s remarkable how he can create this sort of equality, even as all the passions he depicts are intransitive, i.e. not reciprocal, not fully reciprocated. Almodovar is fully aware of the power relations that flow from different privileges of gender and sexuality; it’s not by ignoring these, but precisely through them, that he creates sympathy for the madly-in-love obsessives who populate his films.
I watched Talk to Her for the third time last night, and its portrayal of the amour fou of a strangely innocent, virginal stalker mama's boy for a comatose woman leaves me helpless for words. Confused gender identity and intransitive desire ain't half of it.
