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What a beautiful and intriguing idea this movie suggest: that death is in itself the quintessential orgasm. That despite of the conception we have of death it can be also the opposite. Death as the greatest celebration of life and all this done in the context of bullfighting.

And the bullfighting as a practice is predominantly used throughout the movie, because not only bullfighting is a way of killing but also a way of loving, and a way of lying.

One of the early Almodovar films but also one of his most original and daring ones. Although the performances are not quite flawless as in his recent movies, the characters are well defined.

Only Almodovar can make a film so morbidly fascinated with love and murder. A critic called one of his films, and I paraphrase, ‘a mix between Woody Allen, Luis Bunuel, and John Waters.’ I think that’s a dead on way to arrange different sources into his style but the meat and spirit infused into it is surely his. An ex-matador still wants to kill, a lady lawyer loves him and kills still, his confusedly gay apprentice wishes to kill (if only to escape his ridiculously religious mother, and his innocent lover knows nothing about how to bring happiness to herself. There are other wonderful characters, the best of them being his regulars and in particular whoever plays the cop. This is fantastic storytelling.

What is it supposed to mean? Whatever you want it to mean. It can be offensive, disturbing, sexy, terribly romantic- my wish is that his voice can be persuasive enough to convince people of its strange romance the way Nabokov’s stories would. In the end, no matter how nutty the film it’s terribly entertaining and trashy and violent. Judge if you will but at the end you’ll see the happiest group of loons you’ll ever have seen and Almodovar grants them a world where that way they can remain.