Spanish film director Pedro Almod?var, known for his boundary-pushing works, has twisted pedophilia and the Catholic Church together in his newest release, Bad Education. The semi-autobiographical film invokes themes of sexuality and gender identity, and, in its ambiguity, stays one step ahead of the audience.
Nothing is as it seems in the world of Ignacio and Enrique. The two boys seem to be friends and turn out to be lovers. The story seems to be about men, yet without doubt depends on femininity for its depth. The church should be a haven for peace and security but is in fact the birthplace of corruption. The context of the film is the late Franco era in Spain. In a world of censorship, persecution of homosexuals and unquestioning support of the church, the audience is left as unsure about the convoluted plot as the characters in the film would have felt about life under the Franco government.
Pedro Almod?var has become famous for his color-saturated depictions of the human condition. In some of his most famous films, Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), All About My Mother (1999) and Talk to Her (2002), women are iconic, well-defined characters, be they insane or heroic. Almod?var reveals the human side in everyone, looking beyond physical attractiveness, which is the depth of many female characterizations. His portrayals are honest and often unflattering but always respectful in his attention to nuance and detail. Although Bad Education features an entirely male lead cast, Almod?var succeeds in his unbiased case study of the human character, developing the female psyche through male characters. With transvestites and transsexuals, the gender boundary becomes obscure giving Almodovar even more room to work.
The film begins in 1980 in Spain, with the reunion of childhood lovers Ignacio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Enrique (Fele Mart?nez) who are now in their late 20s. Aspiring actor Ignacio presents his friend with a film script. As Enrique reads the script about their years together at Catholic boys’ school, the audience is transported to a parallel world in which real events and script pages overlap. The boys’ fictionalized meeting in the script as adults leads to scenes from childhood, and then back to real time. The convoluted and passionate story is slowly revealed out of chronological order, piece by piece.
The Catholic Church is the most formative force acting on young Ignacio. Father Manolo (Daniel Gim?nez Cacho) worships Ignacio, a choir singer and his favorite altar boy, and the ensuing abuse, implied rather than seen, takes a stab at the Catholic Church. In Franco’s Spain the church was protected from criticism and societal pressures to curb exploitation. As the Franco government would have turned a blind eye towards the actions, the film alludes to the events rather than actually portraying them. Almodovar never directly shows Father Manolo’s assaults. In a scene when the best boys have been taken to the river for a day trip, Father Manolo plays “Moon River” on guitar while Ignacio sits close by singing in his sweet soprano voice. As the haunting song sung in Spanish goes on, the camera pans away from the two of them to rest on a path nearby. We hear the guitar stop as Ignacio continues, and then suddenly he screams. When the camera cuts back to them, Ignacio is laying on the ground, hiding his face.
As the layers of the plot unfold, the story becomes darker and more perverse. Yet true to form, Almod?var paints the film in luminous color and bright light. Reds, oranges, yellows and greens are present in every carefully designed shot. Mirrors reflect brightly made-up faces, and warm light emits from the lamps and wall fixtures in interior scenes. The color would typically accompany a bright, happy movie, yet the darkness of the plot only increases. Once again, appearances are deceptive, and the audience is further baffled by the juxtaposition.
Throughout the film, it becomes unclear how the layers of the story relate. The flashback scenes, prompted by the film script, continue for so long that it becomes easy to forget the context of the action. Some characters and occurrences in these flashbacks are fictional in relation to the real time story, and scenes with transvestite singers and church pillaging are so vivid that one might lose track of what is really going on. As the narrative returns to real time, the audience discovers plot twists at the same time as one of the characters. To fully enjoy the film, it is necessary to let go and let it happen as it will. Again, Almod?var speaks to the Spanish memory of dictatorship, this time with the cinematographic elements of the film.
The non-linear storytelling and provocative themes of Bad Education are so shocking at times that it makes for an unsettling experience. Almod?var has surpassed his previous feats in the inventiveness of this film. Though the stories of disillusionment, corruption, and love are not new, the way Almod?var weaves them into his elaborate scheme is intriguing.
