Bad Education DVD

Almodovar is one of those rare directors who seem to improve with every film they make. Talk To Her, one of the very best films of the new millennium, marked a new maturity in his filmmaking, a trend that continues with Bad Education.

The film concerns a young filmmaker (many critics have been quick to draw parallels with Almodovar himself), played by Fele Martinez, who is visited by a man claiming to be his old schoolfriend (Gael Garcia Bernal). The man hands the director a script supposedly based on their childhood at a Catholic school run by pederast priests. The film then switches its timeline, flashing back to the friend’s fictionalised version of the past, and it soon becomes clear that the man is not all that he seems. Thus begins the rich web of ambiguities and changing timelines that make Bad Education such a riveting watch, and one that rewards repeated viewings.

Unusually for Almodovar, the focus of his narrative is on the male characters (the bad education of the title could refer to the absence of females in the male protagonists’ formative years), and the actors give some extraordinary performances. The film confirms Bernal as one of the most exciting actors around; after impressing in Y Tu Mama Tambien and Amores Perros, he gives a nuanced performance here, delineating a wide variety of identities as one of the most complex characters in recent cinema history.

Almodovar’s films are full of extreme characters, who, in the hands of a less talented director, could appear to be grotesque caricatures whose outlandish (and frequently egregious) conduct could distance audience empathy. However, the Spanish auteur is adept at handling these eccentric figures, and even the movie’s chief villain elicts sympathy by the film’s climax. It is this generosity that Almodovar extends towards his characters that make him one of the most fascinating auteurs working today.

Alex Davidson on 14th October 2004
Author of 231 reviews