Paraplegic pussy nuzzling Sunday matinée spectacular

We took it real easy on Sunday after having drank rather more than we'd planned, and I'm not sure there's an easier fit-for-print way to take it real easy than to watch an Almodovar film during breakfast. In this case, Carne Tremula. The F-word wanted to see it again, and I was agreeable because I usually find his movies really soothing, and because I wanted to see Javier Bardem nuzzle pussy. I think he's got the face for it, and before I'd only seen him in that crappy Fargo brothers thing being a sexless asshole without enough screen time, and in Before Night Falls being gay, if picturesquely so.

The only problem with Carne Tremula is that it made me dislike Volver more, because it made it seem like even more of an anomaly. Talk to Her, All About My Mother, Bad Education, and Carne Tremula - I love them all because they take an utterly ridiculous story and do justice to the characters caught in that story, explore people who'd be one-dimensional if most directors took a crack at them. The F-word pointed out that Almodovar movies have something in common with Tarantino's last few movies, in that when you see a man hurt a woman you can be sure you'll see something awful happen to him soon. But while that seems to be an excuse for Tarantino to tug off over a one-dimensional dominatrix archetype, in an Almodovar film everybody keeps being human beings. Volver, though, was just an utterly ridiculous story with no justice to the characters. Sure, it looked really great - his movies always do. But I didn't give a good goddamn about any of the people in it, whereas in his other movies I've seen I give a good goddamn about the whole ensemble.

In Carne Tremula, that good goddamn went all the way from Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem's mum, who had a brief scene together at the opening of the film, through the two male leads and all the way to Francesca Neri, and not only because of the beautiful way Almoodovar shot her. There's one scene towards the beginning of the movie - the second, you feel, when she falls in love with Bardem's character - that makes her look absolutely unearthly in a beautiful way. And Javier Bardem is one of those ridiculous actors who are geniuses. He plays a paraplegic professional basketball player, and whilst pulling off this massively physical stunt still turns in a great emotional performance. There's a line he delivers at one of the painful emotional climaxes - 'Great, I'll just keep exploiting your guilt complex' - that was so good on his part, and so good from the writer too (who I think was also Almodovar) that I had to laugh.

Anyhow, we'll see the rest of Almodovar's films - the F-word thinks I'll like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and generally he's right about these things. I'm just hoping the new one he's working on, Broken Hugs, isn't as crappy as Volver.