If the drawing together of all its tangential plot threads at the close brings to mind the later Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the final shot of a plane taking off to the sound of its protagonists fucking signals much further ahead, to 2013’s I’m So Excited. All the incest, nymphomania and banana skins gags one might have expected on the evidence of his debut are present and correct in this his first stab at a screwball farce.
Labyrinth of Passion (1982)Ī step-up in terms of production values as well as structural complexity, Almodóvar’s second feature makes up in anarchic energy what it lacks in rhythmic finesse and narrative coherence. When Pepi decides to turn the story of her friends’ lives into a film, we’ve also the first instance of a common Almodóvar trope, the attempt to exercise control over life via its embellishment and reconfiguration through art. Bawdy and vulgar in its freewheeling narrative approach, thematic preoccupations take early root in its examinations of identity and sexuality. As indebted to the punk sensibilities of Madrid’s underground arts movement, La Movida, as it is to the early films of Paul Morrissey and John Waters, the formal qualities which would come to define his later works are essentially non-existent. Shot on weekends over the course of 18 months, Almodóvar’s first commercially released feature (after the Super 8-shot Folle… folle… fólleme Tim!) is a scuzzy, lo-fi exercise in filmmaking on the run. Got a favourite film by the legendary director? Let us know Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980) As the undisputed king of Spanish cinema returns with his sumptuous low-key melodrama, Julieta, we’ve decided to leaf through the Almodóvar archives to celebrate his early, funny work.
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