Broken (Breathless) Embraces
Want to spend two hours feeling breathless? Then spend two hours watching Penelope Cruz in Los Abrazos Rotos, or as it is called in English, Broken Embraces.
Cruz is at the center of another heavy duty melodramatic soap opera from Spanish Director Pedro Almodovar, who brought us the equally dramatic Talk to Her and Volver.
Told between present day and flashbacks, Harry Caine is a film director who lost his sight (along with his creativity and his real name - Mateo Blanco) in a car accident with his leading lady, Lena, during the making of her film debut, Girls and Suitcases. At the time of the accident, Lena happened to be the mistress of an obsessive and powerful millionaire, Ernesto Martel, while having an affair with the director.
Caine is forced to relive his affair of fourteen years ago with Lena thanks to a surprise visit from the millionaire's son, Ernesto Martel Junior, a flamboyant budding filmmaker. Ernesto Junior had been instructed by his father to film everything on the set so that his father, who was also the film's producer, could keep on eye on his mistress and the director, who were doomed to fall in love.
Meanwhile, Caine's production manager and assistant, Judith, goes out of town while her son, Diego, has a drug mishap so it is Caine who has to look after the all-too-curious Diego, so Caine explains to Diego what took place fourteen years ago.
Through flashbacks of the son's footage along with Judith confessing the secrets she has kept hidden all these years, Harry Caine realizes that he is still Mateo Blanco and has to finish his film, even if he has to do it blindly
If anyone can play a Spanish seductress, it is Penelope Cruz. She is the perfect actress to play the role of the mistress, the director's lover, and the leading lady in the film within a film, all in the same film.
She gets better with each film, and this film reminds us that her Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona was well deserved. Lluis Homar as Mateo Blanco is overshadowed by Cruz in every scene, but we feel his sorrow in being blind and his love for life when he has Lena in his arms.
Leave it to Pedro Almodovar for revving up the drama as he does in all his films. Broken Embraces leaves you gasping for air up until the very finish.
Told between present day and flashbacks, Harry Caine is a film director who lost his sight (along with his creativity and his real name - Mateo Blanco) in a car accident with his leading lady, Lena, during the making of her film debut, Girls and Suitcases. At the time of the accident, Lena happened to be the mistress of an obsessive and powerful millionaire, Ernesto Martel, while having an affair with the director.
Caine is forced to relive his affair of fourteen years ago with Lena thanks to a surprise visit from the millionaire's son, Ernesto Martel Junior, a flamboyant budding filmmaker. Ernesto Junior had been instructed by his father to film everything on the set so that his father, who was also the film's producer, could keep on eye on his mistress and the director, who were doomed to fall in love.
Meanwhile, Caine's production manager and assistant, Judith, goes out of town while her son, Diego, has a drug mishap so it is Caine who has to look after the all-too-curious Diego, so Caine explains to Diego what took place fourteen years ago.
Through flashbacks of the son's footage along with Judith confessing the secrets she has kept hidden all these years, Harry Caine realizes that he is still Mateo Blanco and has to finish his film, even if he has to do it blindly
If anyone can play a Spanish seductress, it is Penelope Cruz. She is the perfect actress to play the role of the mistress, the director's lover, and the leading lady in the film within a film, all in the same film.
She gets better with each film, and this film reminds us that her Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona was well deserved. Lluis Homar as Mateo Blanco is overshadowed by Cruz in every scene, but we feel his sorrow in being blind and his love for life when he has Lena in his arms.
Leave it to Pedro Almodovar for revving up the drama as he does in all his films. Broken Embraces leaves you gasping for air up until the very finish.
Here Is The Writer : Tim Baros
Tim Baros has worked in the derivatives industry for several large financial institutions in both the U.S. and the U.K., and one now-defunct financial products company. Tim moved from New York City to London in 2003 to take advantage of the many job opportunities that London had to offer in the banking sector, easily qualifying for a Highly Skilled Migrant Programme Visa. Unemployed but now a UK resident, Tim spends some of his day looking for another job in finance and other parts of the day either at the gym, in the pubs, clubs, or just about anywhere, really.
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