La Mala Educación (2004) | From Catholic School To Casting Couch

In La Mala Educación, Almodóvar portrays the lives of a handful of characters linked by a tangled past revisited intermittently through the dreamlike world of the protagonists as children. These scenes, infused with Catholicism drawn from the director's own background and set in a parochial all-boy boarding school, paint a soft-focus, romantic story of gay-first-love between Ignacio (Nacho Perez) and Enrique (Raúl García Forneiro) . This idyllic landscape of memory becomes marred by headmaster priest Padre Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho), who takes a strong liking to Ignacio, who's cherubic voice makes him a favorite of the cleric staff. The romance that develops between the two tikes and the ensuing jealous retaliation of the headmaster are both treated dramatically, save the latter comes across much more disturbingly.

Upon opening, the film's credits marry the titles and score in a collage that recalls the great Alfred Hitchcock. The resonance is fitting as the element of suspense becomes a finely wielded component managed deftly, which is a good thing, Pedro having claimed the film to be his tribute to Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), the all-time classic Noir in which the con man gets conned by the beautiful femme fatale.

In Almódovar's take we see the role originally enshrined by Barbara Stanwyck finding its parallel in the character Zahara, a tranvestí played by Gabriel García Bernal. Released concurrently to Bernal's other star-vehicle The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), La Mala Educación showcases him in his most risqué role since Y Tu Mamá También (2001), a challenge he tackles whole heartedly.




Unavoidable comparisons to Almodóvar's La Ley del Deseo (1987) are warranted. In that film, Carmen Maura plays Tina Quintero, a transsexual who also confronts past abuse at the hands of Church clergy when she was a young boy. As stated by Pedro on Educación's official web site "Carmen['s character] is a foreshadow of Zahara." In that at its heart La Ley del Deseo also features a film/play-write accosted by a psycho makes it a further compelling view, not to mention the hot, gay scenes featuring a young and cute Antonio Banderas.

In La Mala Educación, Almodóvar has mostly shed his youthful tendency to meander. He weaves together a tight, complex plot in which the story itself unfolds as its text is written and where the leads reenact their own purported pasts for the film-within-the-film. A self-reflective look at movie making --including the trap of the casting couch-- reveals Pedro is the consummate auteur and enfant terrible that he always was and shall continue to be.

It should be noted that drag queen Paquito (Javier Cámara) steals the show upon first appearance.

aka Bad Education
dir Pedro Almodóvar

Check out:
Sony Pictures Bad Education official website.
La versión en Español aquí.

La Mala Educación teaser trailer: