About halfway into Pedro Almodovar’s “Talk to Her,” one of the lead male characters offers this advice to a newfound friend: “A woman’s brain is a mystery. You have to pay attention to them, be thoughtful occasionally, let them know they matter to us.” It says a great deal about the character and the movie when one considers the fact that he is referring to a woman lingering in a vegetative coma.
Almodovar is one of America’s favorite cinematic imports. Since 1988’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” the Spanish filmmaker has built a strong following in theaters across the United States. “Talk to Her,” Almodovar’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning “All About My Mother,” is a stylized and wonderfully textured examination of two men’s aching need to unlock the mystery of women.
“Talk to Her,” a sepia-toned dream of a movie, tells the story of Marco (Dario Grandinetti), a journalist who falls in love with Lydia (Rosario Flores), a famous female matador. However, the brief romance is interrupted when Lydia is gored by a bull and spends most of the movie in a coma. While standing vigil at her bedside, Marco meets male nurse Benigno, a social misfit with an increasingly unhealthy fascination with another coma patient, Alicia (Leonar Watling).
“Talk to Her” begins with a theater performance in which a woman wanders around stage with her eyes closed. A man hurries around her, removing obstacles from her path. Marco sits in the audience crying. This is the essence of his character — speaking to his strangely self-absorbed desire to protect women. He has a compulsion to take care of them rather than understand them.
Conversely, Benigno is a lonely, immature man who finds the easy nature of his relationship with Alicia to be the ideal situation. He tends to her every need without risking the danger of rejection.
“Talk to Her” functions on numerous levels, tackling everything from the importance of feeling connected to fellow human beings to the idealized version of the female form. The movie often lingers on the curves of naked women, and we see the two women in occupations that typify physical prowess — ballet and bull fighting. And in one unforgettable scene, Benigno watches a silent movie in which a man literally climbs inside a woman to fully explore her sexuality.
“Talk to Her” addresses the idealized version of women that men create, then puts our lead characters face to face with the sometimes harsh reality that flesh and blood women create. It’s multi-layered and undeniably fascinating.
“Talk to Her” begins showing Friday at Bijou Art Cinemas.
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