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| Plot Synopsis Once-great Spanish matador Nacho Martinez has been reduced to starring in gruesome "snuff" films. Martinez is idolized by Antonio Banderas, who has no notion of his idol's current illegal profession. Terrified at the thought of drawing blood in the bullring, Banderas nevertheless seeks out Martinez' assistance in preparing for a bullfighting career. To prove his "machismo", Banderas rapes Martinez' lady-friend Eva Cobo. No one will believe Banderas' confession of the rape, so he decides to attach more importance to his crime by confessing to a recent rash of serial killings (actually perpetrated by Martinez and his cohorts). Bandera's case is taken by feminist attorney Assumpta Serna, who unwittingly-but not unwillingly-sets herself up as Martinez' next "conquest." - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide Reviews KEN HANKE Mountain Express (Asheville NC) 10/11/2006 The earliest film in the Viva Pedro! series, Matador (1986) is also one of his strangest concoctions. Mixing just about every genre imaginable, Almodovar here serves up a bleakly comic tale of voyeurism, rape (well, borderline), murder, religious fanaticism, death fixations, clairvoyance and just about anything else that crosses his mind. Needless to say, it's about as far from family fare as it's possible to get. The storylines involve a repressed young man, Angel (Antonio Banderas), who is training to be a bullfighter; his teacher, Diego (Nacho Martinez), a former matador who has been reduced to teaching after a disabling goring; Diego's girlfriend (and Angel's neighbor), Eva (Eva Cobo); and a high-powered lawyer, Maria (Assumpta Serna), who has a fixation on Diego. The product of a strict religious upbringing by his fanatical mother (Julieta Serrano), Angel is not a good candidate for bullfighting since he faints at the sight of blood, but his reasons for trying to be one seem, in any case, more grounded in his desire to be like Diego. To this end, he decides to rape Diego's girlfriend Eva -- a drastic move that he's essentially too inept to pull off, but one that sets the story in motion, since his well-developed capacity for guilt prompts him to confess his crime to the police. When Eva and her mother refuse to press charges (the whole thing seems a minor annoyance to them), Angel, in need of some kind of expiation, confesses to a series of murders he didn't commit, but to which he is closer than he perhaps realizes -- or that he may have tapped into by his clairvoyant abilities. The results are a richly detailed, physically gorgeous movie (Almodovar's most professional-looking work to that time) that almost has too much on its mind. The ending of the film doesn't quite work. It feels rushed and too small for the grandeur of the twisted passions that precede it. But Almodovar is such a playful and creative filmmaker (who else would have everyone -- each completely equipped with bits of smoked glass -- stop in their tracks to look at a solar eclipse in the midst of a life-or-death pursuit?) that it's easy to forgive the ending. (Watch for Almodovar himself in a bit part as a fussy director, who blandly assures a model who has just been puked on that it looks good on her.) VINCENT CANBY N.Y. Times Published: September 16, 1988, Friday LEAD: Diego and Maria have not yet met, but it's clear from the initial sequences of ''Matador,'' Pedro Almodovar's insistently raffish, 1986 Spanish comedy, that they were made for each other. Each equates the act of killing with an act of sex in which death is the ultimate orgasm. Diego and Maria have not yet met, but it's clear from the initial sequences of ''Matador,'' Pedro Almodovar's insistently raffish, 1986 Spanish comedy, that they were made for each other. Each equates the act of killing with an act of sex in which death is the ultimate orgasm. Even in a society that tolerates virtually anything that consenting adults agree to do, this must lead to certain practical problems for lovers so obsessively bent. In ''Matador,'' Mr. Almodovar, who is quickly becoming Spain's most reputable disreputable young film maker, faces this issue with a grand lack of solemnity and a lot of spirited affronts to convention. The film opens today at the Cinema Studio. With his exhausted eyes and his painful limp, Diego (Nacho Martinez) is still a charismatic personality. He's a former star matador, forced to retire from the ring after being gored by a bull, and is now the master of a school for bullfighters. The handsome, elegant Maria (Assumpta Serna) is a successful Madrid lawyer. When first seen in ''Matador,'' Diego is huffing and puffing with erotic anticipation as he sits at home, alone, watching videos of beautiful young women being drowned, beaten, stabbed and decapitated. They remind Diego of past pleasures and those still to be achieved. Meanwhile, in another part of Madrid, Maria is having heated sex with a stranger. At the climactic moment, she pulls out a hatpin and, like a matador, stabs her partner with a quick, clean thrust at the base of the neck between the shoulders. Diego and Maria might have gone through life forever unfulfilled were it not for Angel (Antonio Banderas) and Eva (Eva Cobo). Angel, one of Diego's students, is a handsome, moody young man, still a virgin in his 20's, constantly harassed by a pious mother. He also possesses second sight. Eva, who lives in the apartment across the court from Angel, is Diego's pretty young mistress. One night, after being teased by Diego about his manliness, Angel attempts to rape Eva, unaware of her relationship to Diego. Angel botches the job so wimpishly (he has trouble opening his pocket knife to threaten her) that the haughty Eva refuses to press charges. When the police decline to arrest him, Angel confesses to the murders he knows to have been carried out by Diego and Maria. Maria, in the interests of justice, elects to defend Angel, which provides her introduction to Diego. In this fashion, Mr. Almodovar's rather cynical conception of true love is finally served. On the basis of ''What Have I Done to Deserve This?,'' released here in 1985, and ''Law of Desire'' (1987), Mr. Almodovar has been compared, somewhat prematurely, with Luis Bunuel, Billy Wilder and John Waters. There are entertaining hints of each director in Mr. Almodovar's work but, so far, his films are most memorable for their comically deadpan treatment of supposedly taboo subjects. The movies themselves aren't as consistently funny or invigorating as the points of view they represent. The films do offer lots of material for interpretation, which, I suspect, amuses Mr. Almodovar as much as such interpretation used to amuse Bunuel. Considered on its most obvious level, ''Matador'' can be read as a cautionary tale about the awful impossibility of the love of two matadors. Who sticks whom first? It's also significant for the exuberant heedlessness with which it portrays a society breaking loose from decades of fascist repression. In the manner of Bunuel's apocryphal ''I am an atheist, thank God,'' Mr. Almodovar likes to say that his films deny that Franco ever existed, which is, of course, to affirm the Franco heritage. The best moments of ''Matador'' have nothing to do with its star-crossed lovers but with its narrative asides. These include a chic Madrid fashion show, titled ''Spain Divided,'' at which the designer (played by the director) goes into a snit when he finds two of his models shooting dope backstage. ''Please go to the toilet,'' he says pettishly. ''That's what it's for.'' The movie looks terrific and is acted with absolute, straight-faced conviction by the excellent cast headed by Miss Serna, Mr. Martinez and Mr. Banderas. ''Matador'' is of most interest as another work in the career of a film maker who, possibly, is in the process of refining a singular talent. Upcoming, and not yet seen by me, is his latest comedy, ''Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,'' which will open the 1988 New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center next Friday. |
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| MATADOR 1986 - Spain - 90 min. - Feature, Color Director - Pedro Almod�var |
| Genre / Type - Thriller, Erotic Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Gay & Lesbian Films Flags - Violence, Nudity Keywords - lawyer, bullfight, murder, seduction, kill, proteg�, retirement, serial-killer, sex, sexual, Spain, black-widow [human] MPAA Rating - NC17 Themes - Femmes Fatales, Dangerous, Attraction Serial Killers Tones - Disturbing, Lurid Quirky, Sexual, Atmospheric, Paranoid Moods - Flames of Passion, Nail-biters Box office - Domestic gross: $210,000 Color type - Eastmancolor MPAA Reasons - for aberrant sexuality including violence (rated in 2005) DVD Street Date - Oct 9, 2000 Languages - Spanish Subtitles - English Screen Format -Color Aspect Ratio - 1.33:1 (DVD) Studio - Fox Cast Assumpta Serna -- Maria Cardinal Antonio Banderas -- Angel Gimenez Nacho Martinez -- Diego Montes Eva Cobo -- Eva Soler Julieta Serrano -- Berta Chus Lampreave -- Pilar Carmen Maura -- Julia Eusebio Poncela -- Police Inspector Bibi Andersen -- Flower Vendor Luis Ciges -- Guarda Eva Siva -- Asistenta Maria y Diego Ver�nica Forqu� -- Periodista Jaime Ch�varri -- Sacerdote Angie Gray -- Chica Ana Concha Hidalgo -- Tata Angel Agust�n Almod�var -- Policia #2 Juan Sanchez - Enfermo |
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