Two women in nightgowns with their eyes closed wander in a crazed sort of sleepwalk across a stage. A man watches them, pulling chairs out of their way as they dance around blindly. He protects them with an angel’s concern, without their knowledge. In the audience sit Benigno(Javier C_эmara), a nurse, and Marco (Dar’o Grandinetti), a journalist. As the two strangers watch the dance, Benigno notices that the performance has moved Marco to tears.
Months later, the two meet again at a private clinic outside Madrid where Benigno has been caring for a comatose young ballerina named Alicia (Leonor Watling) and where Marco stands vigil over his girlfriend Lydia (Rosario Flores), a bullfighter so gored by a bull that she too lies comatose. Benigno’s advice to Marco is simple, “Talk to her…”
Written and directed by Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almod–var, “Talk to Her” borders on the absurd without crossing the line into lunacy. Benigno, for instance, devotes himself almost unhealthily to Alicia, whom he watched attend a dance studio across the street from his apartment. Marco, still recovering from a past relationship with a drug addict, grieves for Lydia, who herself still loves another man. As the men care for their loved ones they become close friends, revealing to each other the secrets of their past and their hopes for the future. Within the clinic’s walls, the two couples’ stories interweave and ferment into a startling conclusion.
Unlike many Hollywood films, “Talk to Her” revels in its attention to detail. C_эmara attended nursing, massage and beautician courses, Watling learned ballet and Flores even braved bullfighting lessons. Almod–var presents the step-by-step dressing and preparation for Lydia’s bullfight, the time-consuming process of bathing and dressing the comatose Alicia, the slow pan through her childhood bedroom from framed dance photos to lava lamps — creating an overall look and feel that took Almodovar’s crew months of preparation that translate into crisp and consuming performances.
Camara portrays Benigno, the ‘Benign,’ a harmless, childlike man who has spent the majority of his life caring for two women – his mother and Alicia. One sympathizes with Benigno and his good-natured dedication, but at the same time is unnerved by the obsessive nature of his guardianship. Grandinetti’s Marco, similarly unnerving, presents a loving boyfriend but also one who cries at anything he can’t share with his long gone love. He sits at Lydia’s bedside vigilantly but won’t touch or even talk to her. Camara and Grandinetti touchingly and hauntingly portray these flawed characters.
“Talk to Her” represents a departure for Almod–var. While the film has its comedic moments, it strays from the pure comedy seen in Almod–var’s previous films such as “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and “All About My Mother.” And despite the movie’s title and Almod–var’s reputation for focusing on women in his previous films, “Talk to Her” ultimately explores the deep friendship that Marco and Benigno develop.
That bizarre friendship and how it affects their relationships with others is what leaves one lingering in the theater at the end of the movie, staring pensively into the credits. Almod–var captures the oddly hatched duo in scenes that can be both disturbing and deeply poignant. In the end, he poses deep questions about what signifies life, about communication and the lack thereof, and leaves it to the audience to answer them.
The film concludes on another dance number where the curtain does not close, where the dancers remain like that unanswered question. And that’s what makes “Talk to Her” ultimately moving — it refuses to be left behind on screen. nyou
