The Red Expression

Bad Education

Pedro Almodovar

Spain

2004

Pedro Almodovar, the world renowned feminist director, coming up with a queer film is nevertheless a brave statement about the integrity of women and the women-like men against the politically stronger sex—the male. This 2004 Spanish film is embroidered with the trademark Almodovar expression through red and other warm color-palette about unacceptable obsessions succumbing for at least recognition. Fantastic in most edges of a rubric-cube’s thriller, “Bad Education” is a flamboyant, unpredictable, and an original contemporary film.

Enrique (Felle Martinez) holds one of the most important elements in a thriller film—the POV. Despite that fact, interestingly Enrique is like a five year-old prince in the sense that his objective in the film is too sublime and seemingly too passive compared to the objectives of other major characters. This exclusivity in the POV of the film creates more suspense in the part of the audience for Enrique’s eyes are the viewer’s eyes as well. Unlike other thriller films whose main character or POV-holder do everything to seek for the reason behind the question, this case is just different. Enrique is a little appeased and a little ascertained to move the story. The force providing the thrill in the film is not provided by Enrique’s curiosity to solve the mystery instead by his reaction to the perseverance of the second character—Ignacio (Gael Garcia Bernal). Ignacio wants to play the role of Zahara, the drag queen in his play “The Visit” and obviously he is going to move heaven and earth just to get it. The aspiring actor never got the POV but he is more of the protagonist when it comes to drive to attain a certain goal while the POV-holder’s objectives are not even a quarter of Ignacio’s. The reason why this works is because of the fascinating dynamics between the two characters. Ignacio’s objective depends on Enrique’s decision and Enrique’s decisions are dependent on the past the two of them shared and the apprehension he is developing to his childhood friend. The objectives and conflicts in this film is overshadowed by the director’s style which is not a bad thing neither a disadvantage of any sort. This is definitely not a screenwriter’s film but definitely a director’s film more than anything else.   

This mere shot tells metaphors about the general scheme of the film: the distance between Enrique and Ignacio speaks about the many years they haven't heard of one another and its approaching infringe in the attempt to reviving the friendship and the sunlight on Enrique's side and its absence on Ignacio hints a secret the former doesn't know about the latter.

I am thinking too much about the development in the characters of “Bad Education” and at first I was saddened to figure out that it has been confined much to the suspense genre which equates character development to the mere fact of just knowing what happened. That is probably the weakest part of the film. While Almodovar utilizes the limitless opportunity of complexity in a story which provides quality revelations, the practicality of using what the protagonist would learn eventually in the course has been almost unavailable. I appreciate the deception in the storyline that as we are waiting to finally clarify our assumptions that young Enrique and Ignacio had really been sexually abused by Father Jacob in the orphanage, we are surprised that we never witnessed such scenes explicitly and instead we are taken to a different sub-story, a different pedestal of growing intensity and consequently curiosity.

A flashback scene of Ignacio and Father Jacob which will reveal as the exact scene from "The Visit" which Enrique will be directing.

High praises should be rendered to Almodovar’s use of creative devices. The quasi-flashback at the early minutes of the film juxtaposed with Enrique reading the script Ignacio wrote is trying to convince us that it is not just a mere thought or imagination but a picture of what these two childhood friends have undergone. The contribution of such device doesn’t end there, eventually we would be surprised that those actual sequences are the exact sequences in the film Enrique would be directing and Ignacio would be playing the drag role. This device is one of the most efficient and successful deceit I have seen yet. One of the things in the film that I spent conscious effort to trace its development is whether Ignacio will get the role or not, and I never thought that it has already been answered by that quasi-flashback mimicking foreshadowing with the fake Ignacio (played by Bernal) playing the drag queen character. This device also gives us a hint that the real Ignacio would be incisively like the gay character in “The Visit”. That originative manipulation comprised of reminiscing and fast forwarding at the utilitarian expense of stylized storytelling produced intelligent control over the rhythm of the narrative and that complexity resting on logical collectedness. Such single element at its disposal is automatically a bountiful of Almodovar legacy yet its individuality even raises the bar at the ether.

Probably the most striking shot in the film, the enclosed darkness predicts serious consequence to Ignacio, as Enrique (riding in the red car) learns about the secret.

Almodovar has always utilized scenes where a character or two reveal a secret from the past, and more often than not he opts to concentrate on that character telling the suddenly accessible information without any visual accompaniment. I can recall scenes from “To Return” and “All About my Mother” with such instances. This one however is a bit different, flashback scenes are required to be in the film when Father Jacob who is presently Mr Berenguer reveals how Ignacio died. Such flashback sequence is needed visually and is essential to the total coherence of the form because it is a supplement to the creative device mentioned above, and this time the information is coming from a different major character.  That supplement enables us to see how the real Ignacio looks like as supposed to the character Juan (Bernal) did everything to portray. The second device also counterpoises the balance between the character of the blundered Father Jacob and the untrustworthy Juan, and this time the fault-finding eye of Ignacio’s death looks sternly at Juan, more than Mr. Berenguer. This sequence requires us to be engaged more in a series of never-ending revelation and accusations.

 

 The first appearance of Gael Garcia Bernal as Juan and not as Juan pretending Ignacio. The way he looks so youthful is amazing. The ultra soft lighting, the unnoticeable make-up, and the clean shaved face all made him so youthful.

“Bad Education” is a brilliantly cinematographed film about fervid and clandestine obsessions at the height of religion, education, and socialization. As it speaks controversially, the film should be celebrated more of an artwork than a powder keg of social and religious revelations. The film is the film itself because the director made it his own; moreover, “Bad Education” is “Bad Education” because it is an Almodovar film more than anything else. Probably the drawback of an illustrious modern-day auteur, and the quagmire of a heavily stylized director is the criticism of the difficulty of these films to soar independently without the apparent strings of the creators’ minds. This contemporary Spanish film is undoubtedly adorable I just deeply feel that the director’s extreme ingenuity and expression in absolutely all of his works makes a dark, contentious, worldwide issue of morality a subordinate component of his work.