Talk to Her

[bonanzataz]

i'll just throw in my two cents.

who gives a shit about the girl's family and the girl? we're not dealing with her in this film. i'm not saying "who cares about rape victims," i'm saying, in this film, what her and her family goes through isn't of consequence, because they are not the main characters. benigno and the marco are. for you to ask me something like "what would you do if this would happen to your daughter" is irrelevant, because that's not who we're dealing with in the movie. benigno gets rightly punished for what he did, and because of the guilt he had, he kills himself. benigno is not a bad man in the film, he is just psychologically impaired. he has lots of mental issues stemming from the relationship he had with his mother. i'm not saying what he did to alicia is right, but the way the film plays out, it's hard not to feel bad for benigno because he is messed up and doesn't know that what he did to alicia was wrong. he is a very damaged character. of course i feel bad for alicia as well, but she isn't the character that we're dealing with. we're not looking at her and her family as the main characters because that is not who the story is about thus far. it is benigno's journey. by saying that the audience should hate benigno and embrace alicia's family is like saying that for the last third of the movie taxi driver (i use this as an example because it has been brought up before), we should switch perspectives from travis bickle's point of view to that of the senator or cybill shepard's character. it just wouldn't make sense. yes, travis bickle is a bad man and cybill and the senator are being victimized by him, but we're not switching perspectives simply because it makes the audience more comfortable.

oh, fuck it, just argue with the points i already made and i'll get back to you.

[Jeremy Blackman]

We're reading too much into this. Feels like a Do the Right Thing debate.

I don't think Almodovar is defending rape, but I do think he's defending Benigno. Or at least trying to understand him.

I think Almodovar, with this movie, is speaking against the kind of automatic dehumanization that Onoff has done throughout this thread.

The whole point is that it's not that simple.

[pete]

in calling "Talk to Her" a pro-rape propaganda film and saying how it's very manipulative and successful in its techniques, one has to ask a very easy question--
how many rapes have occured since "Talk to Her" that are inspired by the film?  was there some kind of international coma-patient-humping craze that swept the hospitals everywhere in which the patient's loved ones were only trying to revive them?  or even, how many people who have seen the film and finally decided that rape is okay?
nobody ever tries to establish the realm of Talk to Her in a real universe, with the laws of the real universe.  It's about a matador getting gored and a ballerina in a coma and the two men.  There is a surrealistic silent sequence in the film, and parts of the film were plotted like melodrama.  At no point was the film attempting to bring insight into rape with the conclusion that it's a fun activity that all should give a chance at least once in his lifetime.
secondly, the "rape" only occurs out of intense love and care, which no judge will buy in the real world but once again, and this is how sad your argument is because I'm about to break this simple fact to you: TALK TO HER ISN'T IN THE REAL WORLD (all who agree say: "no shit.)  This is a universe where an intense love matters.  It's like a risque version of Snow White or Sleeping Beauty--do those stories promote "unauthorized kisses" which can qualify as sexual harrasment which may or may not lead to rape?  Or are they fairytales that insist love triumphs over coma/ death?
You moralizing over something that doesn't exist in this world is a knee-jerk reaction, and I pity you a little for that.  it's one thing to have a film ruined by the filmmakers' own inadequecies, it's another to have it ruined by the viewer's sense of self-righteousness.

lastly--so Scorsese gets off easy just because his characters don't "do" what they believe?  So if Benigno only talks about raping someone you'll be able to enjoy the film a lot more?

[rustinglass]

the spoiler warnings?

(off subject), I love your avatar (imo underground is one of the best film ever made.)

thanks, yours is cool too

[mariogiuliani]

I wonder why a certain class of Americans can be so self-righteously dumb? Anywhere in the world, a discussion about a movie like Almodovar's 'talk to her' would, of course, touch the issue of rape, but never get to the point where it completely blurs all other interesting discussions the movie may ensue. It's like they'd rather look at Almodovar's hands than to where they're pointing at.
Such dumb self-righteous behaviour can only stem from this judeo-christian-protestant i'll-make-the-world-right attitude (or right as I think it should be).
My suggestion to this people: goto Iraq and make the world right. The body-bags are still coming and there's gotta be one with your name on it.

[RegularKarate]

Who the fuck do you think you are?

This is your first post?

Make it your last.

[MrBurgerKing]

Hey mariogiuliani, do you enjoy walking into the holy cracks of a woman's body as you shrink into oblivion? That kind of sadistic pleasure can only be had by taking a houseguest to the local McDonalds. Do you complain to waitresses when they put too much beer in your ice? You're the type who walks into a Burger King and asks for a Big Mac because you don't know the difference. Do you know the difference though? Could you explain the difference? I'm sure you can't, so I'll explain it to you: the Big Mac is a piece of trash with two soy-product patties and too much sauce.. it's too small and it comes in a container which is also too small, so it's impossible to hold without getting messy. The Whopper on the otherhand, on a good day, is cooked to perfection. 100% groundbeef and flame broiled. The perfect size, with the cheese melted and all the ingredients coming together. Maybe a bit too much mayo but you have to ask for them to go light on the mayo. On a bad day, it's still pretty good. I took a good friend of mine to BK and it was a bad day, and the man never forgave me. He refused to walk into BK ever again. Are you that man?

[pete]

haha I saw a body bag with your name on it, so I unzipped the bag and took a dump on your dead face, and even though your judeo-christian-protestant-WASP corpse is decomposing, it still looked like you felt that hot load and cringed.  And then suddenly I recall the fact that I speak several more languages than English and remember reading reviews in French, Spanish, and my home tongue Chinese, addressing specifically the issue of rape in the movie Talk to Her.  I wish I could show them to you but you're dead and you've got what I had for dinner last night (rice crackers and popcorn) on your face.

ps. oh yeah, but you and onoff would still make a great couple.

Judeo-Christian milk!?!?  I drink liberal milk.

[ono]

Finally got to see this last night.  Quite enjoyable and unique.  I tend to look at this movie differently than most people here do.  I think for some odd reason, the evidence of who the rapist was points to Marco.  He had more motivation to do it.  Hear me out: Lydia was going to break things off with Marco before she was put into a coma.  Marco is the much more lonely person.  He had access to her as well.  Benigno was abused and lonely, yes, but he also cared too much for Alicia to hurt her.

The two most damning things, I think, were 1) the conversation between Benigno and Marco in the jail.  What I took from this was the composition of the shot of Benigno on the telephone.  It's something I don't think anything has ever pointed out before, but it's really important.  Through the reflections the glass give off, you see the reflection of one man superimposed on the other.  I don't think this is a happy accident.  It shows two things: their closeness, and the fact that the two are almost interchangable.  It implies that Marco should be the one behind bars, and in some sad way, Benigno was mixed up in Marco's inability to forget about the women from his past.  Also, at the end of the film, like clockwork, another subtitle comes up as Marco looks back at Alicia while in the theatre: "Marco y Alicia."  I think that's really telling, right there, in another disturbing way.

The point is, I don't think it matters who the rapist was.  Maybe it was neither man.  That wasn't really the point at all.  The movie was really about the unfortunate loneliness these men were both suffering through.  And for that, it did a great job.  Oh yeah, and the silent film sequence was truly one of the most memorable and humorous I've ever seen.  It was also quite funny as I saw it with a college crowd, and I remember so many girls busting out laughing, and a couple a few rows ahead of me wondering to themselves "what's this film rated?!" ***½ (8/10)

[MacGuffin]

I finally watched this tonight, and I think it's Almodovar's best film; a brilliant exploration of loneliness and obsession. To me, it seemed a more 'mature' work of filmmaking for him. I noticed a more attention to camerawork and technique than I've seen in his previous work from what I can remember (granted, I haven't seen those for in a while).

[Gloria]

*SPOILERS throughout*

Saw this movie yesterday.  I've read the interesting comments throughout this thread, so I thought I would give my two cents.  About Benigno, I believe that we were supposed to understand his situation and the events that happened in his life that lead him into a very lonely lifestyle.  To see someone develop such love for someone who cannot love in return was heartbreaking and a bit unnerving.  The entire rape incident really disturbed me.  I realize the audience was to see more of Benigno's perspective and not Alicia's, but I couldn't help but think of how horrible that would be to wake up and find out someone violated you in such a way. I understand that the friendship between Marco and Benigno was supposed to be the centerpeice at that point (and it was very interesting and well done), but that thought was always at the back of my mind, which kind of disconnected me from the film. I did not feel any sympathy for Benigno being in jail for what he did, but I did feel that he had such a desperate loneliness that effected his grip on reality. Anyways, with all this talk about the rape incident, I think what is being neglected is the interesting background relationship between Lydia and Marco.  The scenes with those two were some of the best moments in this film.  The fact that she can be a bull fighter and be deathly afraid of snakes was interesting, and a little amusing.  And how Marco just couldn't get over his old girlfriend and talks about her to Lydia all the way to her last bull fight gave him so much guilt and grief after the accident.  All the characters were very compelling and completely original.  I didn't enjoy this film as much as most of the people who posted here, but I could appreciate it's originality and compelling filmmaking.

[ElPandaRoyal]

Lemme just say that this is just a great great movie. If you see it again, you'll like it even better. It's that kind of movie.