Format: DVDs from Rockford Public Library (Breakdown) and personal collection (Talk) on laptop.
Cynthia, my librarian, loves Pedro Almodovar. We talk movies now and then, and whenever one of his movies comes up, the tone of her voice changes. I don’t think this is terribly uncommon. Almodovar is generally thought of as a director of women’s movies. I believe this is a misnomer. Certainly his films focus on women in general and he often has many memorable female characters. However, I’ve really enjoyed the films of his that I have seen. The fact that they focus on women makes no difference to me—I like that they focus on interesting characters and real stories.
Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is one of the most appropriately named films I’ve seen in a long time. It’s also a film that more than almost any other I have seen in recent memory depends on Dickensian coincidences that would embarrass most amateur writers. Oddly, it sort of works in this film because the coincidences pile up to such an insane degree that it quickly becomes ridiculous. Let’s see if we can make sense of things.
