Bad Education [La Mala Education]

Pedro Almodovar, Spain, 2004, 109 minutes

If you’d ask me who is the most interesting contemporary European director, my first answer would probably be: Pedro Almodovar. Not only because he’s just the most famous one, it’s because he makes really good films. After the genius "Talk to her" I was waiting impatiently, just like the rest of the world, for his next project. It was "Bad Education", a film which the director himself calls as his most personal so far.

Enrique and Ignacio went to a catholic boys’ school where they met and fell in love with each other. Yet, the innocent youth affection couldn’t last long as the love triangle was completed by father Manolo – the school headmaster. Obsessively in love with Ignacio, he made Enrique leave the school. Many years later, the boys meet again. Ignacio, now an actor visits Enrique, who is a film director and gives him a story based on their childhood. From that moment Almodovar leads us through a maze of three different worlds - the reality, a film that is being shot and flashbacks from the memories of the men and father Manolo who returns to complicate the whole situation even more. Typically for Almodovar, we are presented a tarts and vicars show with blowjobs, trans-, homo- and bisexualism, paedophilia, murder, drugs and painful love experiences, accompanied by a flawless direction, and shots composition.

"Bad education" shows that everybody has a right to love, even if it’s a love condemned by the society; Almodovar shows understanding both for the priest and the boys, and tries to show that love itself is not dangerous - only the people who are obsessed with it.

Review by Jan Naszewski
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2005