Bad Education (La Mala Educacion)
Celebrated Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar's latest is a classic film noir set in Madrid, 1960 - 1980. Two kids, Ignacio and Enrique, discover love, cinema and fear in a religious school. Father Manolo, the school principal and their literature teacher, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three characters meet twice again, at the end of the 70s and in the 80s. The re-encounter will mark the life and death of some of them.
Member Reviews
Wonderful, as expected - Poet
With Pedro Almodovar, things are always a little ambiguous. In a sense, you never kmnow what to expect. His stories take unexpected twists and turns and leave you amazed by the result. On the other hand, you still know what to expect: An awesome movie!
In this one, the colors, the scenery, the compelling story and the acting were all ingredients in a wonderful cinematic recipe. Gael Bernal was especially brilliant in his portrayal of the different characters he played.
Well worth a watch.Richly colourful film noir - Hitchcock
Bad Education is a dark labyrinth of a thriller that catches you off guard more than once. Actor Ignacio (Gael García Bernal) brings a script (called The Visit) to his long-lost love and former classmate Enrique, now a film director. The script is part fact, based on their years at the all-boys Catholic school where they fell in love, and were sexually abused; and part fiction, detailing Ignacio’s imagining of his future encounters with Enrique. Bad Education cuts between present day, the boys’ time at school, and The Visit, the film-within-a-film that Enrique eventually begins shooting. The Visit stars Ignacio as transsexual Zahara which further complicates matters and adds to the film’s complex fabric of interwoven lives—and lies.
More than anything else, Bad Education is about self-deception and unfulfilled love. Except for the love Ignacio and Enrique share as young boys, every relationship we see is destructive and one-sided. The characters continuously pile one lie on top of another: they lie to each other, to themselves and to the viewer.
Bad Education moves effortlessly from slow, reflective moments to incredibly passionate ones. Those that feature Zahara’s scenes from The Visit are especially touching. Doing double-duty as both Zahara and Ignacio, Bernal is extraordinary. He gives himself completely to a role that ends up being even more multi-faceted than you first realize.
I recommend Bad Education to anyone who appreciates fine filmmaking. It’s a brilliant, poignant film with exceptional writing, directing and acting. But be forewarned: it’s upsetting and features explicit homosexuality. If this sort of thing bothers you, look for the theatrical release instead of the uncut NC-17 version I saw.
If you’re homophobic, I highly recommend that you see this film. If you open up to it and let the characters in, maybe you’ll realize that of all the terrible things people can do to each other, loving someone is not one of them.Grim, graphic, great - Stitch
Visually intense, intelligent and complex-- a film I had to step back from for several days to satisfy in my mind if it was directed towards a basic premise or theme. And once I escaped the vivid immediacy that Almodovar uses so effectively to hook his audience, it surfaced. This story is simply about love in all its guises and how we are trapped by it and molded by it and how an exploiter will use it for rank advantage..
In my opinion, there is only one villain, an amoral sociopath cleverly introduced and camouflaged within a rich story and clever plot. And however much we abhor pedophilia, the director had the courage to show us another side of the perpetrator and by not moralizing made the later transition to victim so understandable and consequently so very effective in soliciting our reluctant compassion.
This is a work for adults in every sense of the word. It is solely about relationships. Gael Garcia Bernal is excellent as usual portraying two markedly different personalities. He epitomizes the life force good and bad so do not look for resolutions. There is no moralizing mood or intent. We are given no help in making judgments. He trusts us. We will differ in interpretations. This is its strength as intelligent cinema.
Almodovar innovated here and I’m not sure the result will appeal to all his fans. And certainly you should pass if you are offended by fairly explicit raw sexuality, some of it so impersonal as to verge on pornographic. But if not and if serious (bordering on grim) is the mood tonight, it will simultaneously baffle and seduce you.
Member Reviews
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Wonderful, as expected - Poet
With Pedro Almodovar, things are always a little ambiguous. In a sense, you never kmnow what to expect. His stories take unexpected twists and turns and leave you amazed by the result. On the other hand, you still know what to expect: An awesome movie!
In ...Richly colourful film noir - Hitchcock
Bad Education is a dark labyrinth of a thriller that catches you off guard more than once. Actor Ignacio (Gael García Bernal) brings a script (called The Visit) to his long-lost love and former classmate Enrique, now a film director. The script is part fact, ...Grim, graphic, great - Stitch
Visually intense, intelligent and complex-- a film I had to step back from for several days to satisfy in my mind if it was directed towards a basic premise or theme. And once I escaped the vivid immediacy that Almodovar uses so effectively to hook his audience, ...