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Pedro Almodóvar gives the Eighties a proper kick-off—where Saura's Franco-era heroines trudged with corseted appetites, his freewheeling gal-pals here greet each other golden showers. The heiress (Carmen Maura) keeps potted hashish on the windowsill and saves her maidenhood for the highest bidder, the cop from across the street (Félix Rotaeta) deflowers her scheme and is marked for revenge. His wife (Eva Siva) is a mouse concealing a wide kinky streak under her curlers, "one woman's meat is another's poison," the punk stomper with purple eyebrows (Olvido "Alaska" Gara) completes the trio of "mujeres independientes." Madrid and the new freedom, a haphazard 16mm cabaret. One can teach knitting or one can design commercials about menstruating dolls and perfumed farts, it's all part of the festivities. "Erecciones nacionales" in the yard, indoors the bearded housewife (Cristina Sánchez Pascual) with mosquito voice and blue peignoir and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof monologue. Discotheque ideas with the diva (Julieta Serrano) in crinoline dress (Scarlett O'Hara? "No, The Lady with the Camellias"), aesthetic debates with the gang ("Representation is always artificial"). Tashlin by way of Warhol, Almodóvar right out of the gate with raunchy hedonism as an act of political restoration. Wesselmann intertitles, the screeching Cocteau hermaphrodite, the comfort of baked cod. "This country... With so much democracy, I don't know where it will end." The masochist may go back to her oppressor but the genie can't be put back into the bottle for the joyous bawds, "una nueva vida" awaits them. With Concha Grégori, Cecilia Roth, Fabio McNamara, Kiti Mánver, and Assumpta Serna.
--- Fernando F. Croce |