Film ReviewsJulieta: Love In Waiting
Mar 29, 2017 Anchorage Press
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Pedro Almodovar has defined an entire generation across the globe. In Spain specifically, Almodovar gave voice to subcultures whose existence were suppressed by the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. After Franco’s fall from power, these subcultures, as well as main stream culture, had to redefine themselves and quickly catch up with the rest of the world. When Almodovar broke into the scene in the 1980s, he did it with complete and unrestrained hunger for all that had been previously tabooed. He threw himself into the raw and decadent scene of campy-punk film making, giving the world hilarious and extreme films like Pepi, Luci, Bom Y Otras Chicas Del Montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom, 1980) in which a group of young women defy social norms by simply not giving a shit. They are not rebels without a cause, they are taking back control and expressing it through actions that seem outrageous and even perverse to the untrained eye. From this point, Almodovar established himself as a visual story teller for whom the rules simply didn’t apply. He became an auteur that young people followed because he gave them a voice and a way to laugh and deal with their own sense of loss, pain, and inability to fit in. Almodovar empowered persons who were marginalized because of their gender or sexuality; he brought rape, incest, child abuse, and hate crimes to the forefront with compassion and humor. Along his trajectory of inventing tightly-woven plots with mesmerizing design and music, Almodovar gave the world a multitude of talented actors like Victoria Abril, Carmen Maura, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, and a young and unknown actor named Antonio Banderas, among many others.
Almodovar has come a long way from Pepi, Luci, Bom and other seminal films; the list is very long and there are quite a number of masterpieces among them like All About My Mother, High Heels, Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown, to name a few. Almodovar’s body of work pushes emotional boundaries and is very smart. He has a talent for focusing on the grey areas of life, in which judgment must be suspended to open a path for love. He’s been at his best when he works with his own material as opposed to adapting others, so some viewers may go see new film Julieta with cautious trepidation. Julieta is an adaptation of three Alice Munro’s short stories (“Chance”, “Soon”, and “Silence”) that each feature a character by the name of “Juliet”. Almodovar is successful in stitching together and rearranging Munro’s stories into one compelling story about a woman who meets a stranger (“Xoan”, Daniel Grao) on a train and builds a life with him and their daughter, but life brings tragedy and abandonment and she must manage her day to day emotional struggle.
The story is told from Julieta’s vantage point. Julieta is played by two actresses, the younger by Adriana Ugarte, and the older by Emma Suárez. Having two actresses play the same character as a continuation of time that should be seamless (as opposed to childhood vs adulthood) can be a risk that is either rejected or embraced by audiences. However, Luis Buñuel paved the way with the casting for the character of “Conchita” in That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). Buñuel used two vastly different actresses, Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina to play the same character occupying the same space and time; it wasn’t seamless, in fact it was jarring, but audiences accepted it because it deepened the plot and each actress revealed a slightly different side of “Conchita”. In Julieta, the two actresses are hardly doppelgangers for one another but, like Buñuel, Almodovar makes it work, using the transition from one to the other as a beautiful sequence that is a re-birthing of sorts and at the same time retains the wholeness of the character. Suárez delivers a somber and excellent performance as she tells the story of Julieta with every line in her face and every expression in her eyes.
As it turns out Julieta is a solidly good movie but not one of Almodovar’s best. If there is criticism of Julieta, is that Almodovar’s stitching of Munro’s stories is not seamless, and although they are small, the stitches are visible. Viewers get a sense of them because there are lulls or plot details that fizzle out like that of the man in the train who makes Julieta uncomfortable (not Xoan). One may also look askance at Almodovar’s decision to change the setting of Munro’s stories to a more comfortable setting for himself, Spain. Spain is to Almodovar what New York is to Woody Allen, but even Allen goes out of his comfort zone for better or worse. Then again, perhaps the Spanish setting is a testament to universality of Munro’s writing, it will be up to viewers to decide. Even though Julieta does not reach the depth or delightful heights of Almodovar’s other works, a “good” film by him is better than most. What continues to be true is that Almodovar has the capacity to make magic (even if it’s now tempered) through his actors, music, and sublime sequences like that of a stag running by the side of a moving train in a chase for love.
In Spanish with English subtitles
Showtimes:
- Art House-
Bear Tooth
Monday, 4/3
8:30 pm
Run time: 1:39 h
Movie Rating: R.
Almodovar has come a long way from Pepi, Luci, Bom and other seminal films; the list is very long and there are quite a number of masterpieces among them like All About My Mother, High Heels, Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown, to name a few. Almodovar’s body of work pushes emotional boundaries and is very smart. He has a talent for focusing on the grey areas of life, in which judgment must be suspended to open a path for love. He’s been at his best when he works with his own material as opposed to adapting others, so some viewers may go see new film Julieta with cautious trepidation. Julieta is an adaptation of three Alice Munro’s short stories (“Chance”, “Soon”, and “Silence”) that each feature a character by the name of “Juliet”. Almodovar is successful in stitching together and rearranging Munro’s stories into one compelling story about a woman who meets a stranger (“Xoan”, Daniel Grao) on a train and builds a life with him and their daughter, but life brings tragedy and abandonment and she must manage her day to day emotional struggle.
The story is told from Julieta’s vantage point. Julieta is played by two actresses, the younger by Adriana Ugarte, and the older by Emma Suárez. Having two actresses play the same character as a continuation of time that should be seamless (as opposed to childhood vs adulthood) can be a risk that is either rejected or embraced by audiences. However, Luis Buñuel paved the way with the casting for the character of “Conchita” in That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). Buñuel used two vastly different actresses, Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina to play the same character occupying the same space and time; it wasn’t seamless, in fact it was jarring, but audiences accepted it because it deepened the plot and each actress revealed a slightly different side of “Conchita”. In Julieta, the two actresses are hardly doppelgangers for one another but, like Buñuel, Almodovar makes it work, using the transition from one to the other as a beautiful sequence that is a re-birthing of sorts and at the same time retains the wholeness of the character. Suárez delivers a somber and excellent performance as she tells the story of Julieta with every line in her face and every expression in her eyes.
As it turns out Julieta is a solidly good movie but not one of Almodovar’s best. If there is criticism of Julieta, is that Almodovar’s stitching of Munro’s stories is not seamless, and although they are small, the stitches are visible. Viewers get a sense of them because there are lulls or plot details that fizzle out like that of the man in the train who makes Julieta uncomfortable (not Xoan). One may also look askance at Almodovar’s decision to change the setting of Munro’s stories to a more comfortable setting for himself, Spain. Spain is to Almodovar what New York is to Woody Allen, but even Allen goes out of his comfort zone for better or worse. Then again, perhaps the Spanish setting is a testament to universality of Munro’s writing, it will be up to viewers to decide. Even though Julieta does not reach the depth or delightful heights of Almodovar’s other works, a “good” film by him is better than most. What continues to be true is that Almodovar has the capacity to make magic (even if it’s now tempered) through his actors, music, and sublime sequences like that of a stag running by the side of a moving train in a chase for love.
In Spanish with English subtitles
Showtimes:
- Art House-
Bear Tooth
Monday, 4/3
8:30 pm
Run time: 1:39 h
Movie Rating: R.