Almodovar 99

There is a poster on my wall above the prayer plant and the Pilea peperomoides. It is my favorite movie memory.

I went with a friend, an older man, who was in love with me. Other people thought he wasn’t. Other people thought he was nefarious. But I didn’t mind so much about what other people thought, I was twenty-one. He took me to places I needed to go.  To the Caribbean side of Mexico and the Allison hotel. This time was my first trip to Manhattan (a flight from SFO).

In the city, we walked and it was fall. The night was opening.

We didn't know what we would see. 

It turned out to be a masterpiece:

To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother. (All About My Mother, 1999)

There is a frankness to the fantasy in an Almodovar film. Tragedy and passion happen as a matter of fact and happenstance. It just swallows you. The patterns and dramatic hue. The feverish urgency of everything (is everything).

It’s like the celluloid was burning with a Streetcar Named Desire. Shameless allusion and illusion. He put Tennessee Williams on the stage in Spain and Bette Davis in the dressing room. The men were mostly women and the women were all powerful. Icons and angels brazenly flaming on the screen.

In the end he sticks the landing. To imagine something so impeccable, complete.  

An inexplicable antibody born in the blood of a baby conceived by a transexual man and a nun.

The End of HIV.

Is there anything that gives a better bachanal? Thats what good cinema can do.