Sony Pictures Classics
In select cinemas on 20 November 2009

Official Selection of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, Pedro Almodóvar’s, Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) overflows with mystery, tragedy, murder, love and loss.  Despite turning 60 next month, Almodóvar has not lost his cinematic touch.  His most ambitious script to date explores the life of writer, Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar), a man who approaches his work, his life and his loves with immense passion. Following a tragic car accident and the disastrous end to his comedy “Girls in Suitcases,” Mateo loses his sight and ultimately abandons his real name, taking up the penname, Harry Caine.

Through an array of flashbacks, we learn how Mateo lost his sight, shot his final film and fell in love with his leading lady, Lena (Penélope Cruz). Her jealous boyfriend, Ernesto Martel (Jose Luis Gomez), producer of Caine’s film, has his son (Rubén Ochandiano) spy on Lena and Mateo under the guise of making a documentary about the shoot.

This genre juggling film—part comedy, part 50’s thriller, part noir—has definitely “broken” the mold. Almodóvar slips in and out of myriad film references, including many to itself, and includes two films-within-a-film. One is “Girls with Suitcases,” a comedy that Almodóvar freely admits is based off of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. The other is producer Martel’s voyeuristic documentary. As the director notes, “a ‘making of’ reveals not only the technical secrets but also the secrets of the people responsible for [the film].”

Films-within-films-within-flashbacks, hydra-like doubling and self-reference weave a complex visual fabric. And yet somehow Almodóvar makes sense of it all with the help of Cruz’s excellent performance. Despite its intricacies, Broken Embraces is a beautiful story that touches a romantic nerve of which few films are capable.