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High Heels (DVD)
Year: 1991
Rating: M
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Cast: Victoria Abril, Miguel Bose, Marisa Parides
Release Date: July 07, 2010
Distributor: Umbrella
The Film: 3.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5While the film's sense of humour may be a required taste, this quirky murder mystery has a clutch of memorable moments.
Pedro Almodovar, the one-time enfant terrible of Spanish cinema, is now almost an elder statesman. His 1991 effort, High Heels, nicely straddles his earlier craziness and the concerns of his mature work, such as the nature of mothering. Rebeca (the luscious Victoria Abril) had a famous singer mother, Becky (Marisa Parides), who more or less abandoned her to further her career in Mexico. In the intervening years, Rebeca has become a newsreader, but fame and fortune have not entirely healed the hole left by her mother's absence. In a typical Almodovar contrivance, Rebeca has also married her mother's ex-lover. As this situation suits neither of them, he has to be gotten rid of, and the film becomes a sort of comedic murder mystery.
Almodovar also seems to have a mission to "queer" the world, and he specialises in high camp (there is a trannie character introduced into the plot for no real reason), but he also likes absurdist dialogue and situations. These are always played absolutely deadpan, so you have to be predisposed to the humour. The film is rounded out with his vivid, even lurid, interiors, and lots of farcical elements and the obligatory kinky sex scenes. This is not a great Almodovar film by any means, but even for non-fans, it has its moments.