Who Plays Who?

Penélope Cruz Lluís Homar Blanca Portillo José Luis Gómez Rubén Ochandiano Tamar Novas Ángela Molina Chus Lampreave Kiti Manver Lola Dueñas Mariola Fuentes Carmen Machi Kira Miró Rossy de Palma Alejo Sauras

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Lena Mateo Blanco/Harry Caine Judit García Ernesto Martel Ray X Diego Lena's Mother Concierge Madame Mylene Lip Reader Edurne Chon Model Julieta Álex

The Inside Story The protagonists of Pedro Almodóvar's "Broken Embraces" are shooting a comedy, "Girls and Suitcases". Mateo Blanco is the director and Lena Rivero is the protagonist. Judit García is the production manager and Ernesto Martel, Lena’s lover, is the producer. Ernesto Martel Junior is in charge of the 'making of' video. Mateo falls in love with Lena from the moment he sees her, the same thing happens to Lena (although she’s living with Martel and the tycoon is madly in love with her). Years before, Judit had a love affair with Mateo and still hasn’t got over it, although that doesn’t prevent her from working with him, in fact she’s his right hand person. Ernesto Martel is a broker (from the generation of the financial boom of the '80s) with lots of money and few scruples. He isn’t a producer, but as Lena shows an inclination for Thalia’s art, he produces Mateo’s film in a desperate effort to hold on to her. Ernesto Martel’s son, named after his father, is a childish young man who likes cinema and men, in particular Mateo. Martel Senior commissions Martel Junior to make a documentary about "Girls and Suitcases", what would now be called a 'making of', that way he can spy on Lena. His only problem isn’t moral, but technical. The first videos have terrible sound. Martel Senior improvises and reinvents dubbing, hiring a neutral lip reader. All these elements are typical of a comedy, but "Broken Embraces" is a drama with very dark touches, more like a 1950's thriller. Although morally I detest the way Martel is using the 'making of', a mere pretext in order to control all of Lena and Mateo’s movements on and off the set, I like the idea that the 'making of' is a parallel narrative to the original (the film which it reflects), an independent, furtive narrative. I’ve always dreamed of making a film whose story is seen through a 'making of'. A 'Making of ..." reveals not only the technical secrets but also the secrets of the people responsible for cooking up and coordinating the fiction, at times embodying it. It turns those responsible for the fiction into fiction. The ideal 'making of' should strengthen and complete the original story. But it can be dangerous (all fiction is dangerous and also therapeutic, that’s why we find it irresistible), it’s a living material, moved by its own impulses which can only be tamed and transformed if you submit them to editing. Martel Senior sees the filmed material in its raw state. He projects the video tapes just as they come from his son’s camera, supervised only by the lip reading automaton. When Lena comes into the large sitting room of the mansion and finds Ernesto Martel, with the lip reader, viewing her violent argument with Ernesto Junior, Lena becomes a duplicate of herself, the woman who from the screen confesses to Martel that she doesn’t love him. At that moment, the 'making of', produced by Martel with perverse intentions, turns against him. Lena leaves him doubly, on the screen and from the door of the sitting room, behind him. As a result of Martel’s harassment, the humiliation and pain when Lena leaves him is doubled. The male protagonist has got 'two' names. When blind Mateo starts to call himself Harry Caine, he does so to escape from himself. His reality is unbearable. He can only survive by 'supplanting' or 'duplicating' himself. Before the accident, Harry Caine was already a prolongation of himself. Mateo Blanco (played by 2009 Sant Jordi Special Award & 2003 Butaca Best Catalan Film Actor Award winner Lluís Homar) had playfully invented the pseudonym in order to sign the scripts and stories he wrote. Like many authors, fiction was a rehearsal of reality. A director who can’t direct and who moreover has lost the woman he adored, has only got grief and despair to look forward to; if he wants to survive he’ll have to do so through imposture. Several of the characters in "Broken Embraces" work in film. I’ve always said that for me film is 'representation' of reality and at times is its most faithful reflection, its 'duplication'. Even though, the moment they are finished, all films are the past, I see premonitory qualities in them. It’s a theory that appears frequently in my filmography. In "Matador", the two protagonists go into a cinema where "Duel in the Sun" is being shown. They arrive just at the end, when Jennifer Jones fires at and in turn is gunned down by Gregory Peck, with whom she melds in (another) eternal embrace. The female lawyer and the bullfighter in "Matador" see the anticipation of their own end on the screen. Something similar happens in "Bad Education" when Mr Berenguer and the devilish Angel go into a cinema as an alibi in order to kill some time, while Ángel’s brother is dying, the victim of exceptionally pure heroin which both of them have given to him, the cinema is showing two thrillers "Double Indemnity" (Billy Wilder 1944) and "Thérèse Raquin" (by Marcel Carné). Both tell of crimes by lovers, similar to the one they have committed. The cinema maintains a very vivid awareness of crimes carried out by lovers who were induced to commit them. When they leave the cinema, Mr Berenguer (the lover who has become a criminal), overwhelmed, laments: "It’s as if all the films were talking about us." I won’t deny that "Girls and Suitcases" is freely based on "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown"; but it isn’t a self-homage. I hope no one interprets it like that. When I was writing the script I decided that Mateo Blanco would be filming a comedy because it is the opposite genre to the drama the protagonists are living. In that way their problems would take on greater relevance, and the efforts, for example, by Lena to achieve the light, sparkling tone that comedy demands are more obvious and pathetic.I only needed three or four sequences of "Girls and Suitcases" to act as background to the main story and I thought the best thing was to adapt some of my own material in which I could move with total freedom. That’s why I chose "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". In this new version of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" Pina isn’t an adaptation of the role played by Carmen Maura, but rather of the role of her model friend Candela. The character also has echoes of Holly Golightly from 1961's "Breakfast at Tiffany’s", the most modern ingénue of cinema and American literature, although the hairstyle is that of another character played by Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina. Most of the female roles I’ve written in my life are a mixture of my mother and her neighbors in La Mancha, mixed with Golightly, the Giulietta Masina of "La strada" and the Shirley MacLaine of "Some Came Running" (Vincente Minnelli 1958) and "The Apartment" (Billy Wilder 1960). All those women are inside Penélope, so are their opposites, the "grandes dames" of American film noir, Gene Tierney, Linda Darnell, Constance Bennett. Penélope can be any of them, and also Sofia Loren, Magnani and Claudia Cardinale and all the heroines of Italian neo-realism, a style that has always been an inspiration to me. Pedro Almodóvar was born in Calzada de Calatrava, province of Ciudad Real, in the heart of La Mancha, on September 24th 1949. At the age of eight, he emigrated with his family to Estremadura. There he studied for his elementary and high school diplomas respectively with the Salesian Fathers and the Franciscans. At seventeen, he left home and moved to Madrid, with no money and no job, but with a very specific project in mind: to study cinema and direct films. It was impossible to enrol in the Official Film School because Franco had just closed it. Despite the dictatorship that was suffocating the country, for an adolescent from the provinces Madrid represented culture, independence and freedom. He worked at many, sporadic jobs but couldn’t buy his first Super-8mm camera until he got a 'serious' job at the National Telephone Company of Spain in 1971. He worked there for twelve years as an administrative assistant, he shared this job in the mornings with other multiple activities which provided his real training as a filmmaker and as a person. In the mornings, in the Telephone Company, he got an in-depth knowledge of the Spanish middle class at the start of the consumer era, the seventies, its dramas and its misfortunes, a real gold mine for a future story teller. In the evenings and nights, he wrote, loved, acted with the mythical independent theatre group Los Goliardos and made films in Super-8 (his only school as a filmmaker). He collaborated with various underground magazines and wrote stories, some of which were published. He was a member of a parodic punk-rock group, "Almodóvar and McNamara, etc". And he had the good fortune that his personal explosion coincided with the explosion of the democratic Madrid of the last seventies, early eighties. That was the period the world knew as La Movida. His films are the heirs and the witnesses of the brand new born Spanish democracy. After a year and a half of eventful shooting on 16mm, in 1980 he opened "Pepi, Luci, Bom", a no-budget film made as a cooperative effort with the rest of the crew and the cast, all beginners, except for Carmen Maura. In 1986, he founded the production company El Deseo S.A. with his brother Agustín. Their first project was "Law of Desire". Since then, they have produced all the films that Pedro has written and directed, and have also produced other young directors. In 1988, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" brought him international recognition. Since then, his films have opened all around the world. With "All About my Mother" he won his first Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, a Golden Globe, César, 3 European Film Awards, the David de Donatello, 2 BAFTAs, 7 Goyas and 45 other awards. Three years later, "Talk to Her" had the same or better fortune (Academy Award for Best Script, 5 European Film Awards, 2 BAFTAs, the Nastro de Argento, the César and many other awards throughout the world but not in Spain). In 2006 he was awarded with the Prince of Asturias Award to the Arts. That very same year he presented "Volver" in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It got the Best Screenplay Award as well as the Best Actress Award for the six actresses of the film, leaded by Penélope Cruz. The film received 5 EFA awards, 5 Goya awards, the Fipresci award, the National Board of Review, and 72 other awards. The Verdict "For many cinemagoers, there is more than one proverbial 'carrot on the string' to tempt them when when it comes to "Broken Embraces" ("Los abrazos rotos"). Indeed, there are in fact, three tasty morsels that make this a must for lovers of art-house cinema. For a start it's a Pedro Almodóvar production: the much lauded, applauded and rewarded Almodóvar wrote and directed the film. Next in line is that once again, Almodóvar has cast the his close friend Penélope Cruz (the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar ®), star of Almodóvar's "Carne trémula", "All About My Mother" and "Volver", in another lead role. And it works famously. The gorgeous Cruz, about whom Almodóvar once revealed, "She has caused me sexual desire", has never looked better. And that reference is not just about her beauty, it also refers to her talent: ie her unforgetable performance in 2000's "Woman on Top". "Broken Embraces" has not only received huge critical acclaim it has picked up a Golden Globe nomination; two audience awards at São Paulo International Film Festival for Best Foreign Language Film (it tied with Bruce Beresford's "Mao's Last Dancer") and International Feature Film; plus, Best Composer (Alberto Iglesias) at the European Film Awards. "Broken Embraces" is a beautifully shot, stylish noir, that will I'm sure, test some cinemagoers. There is a lot to absorb, because Almodóvar has incorporated so much into the films storyline. 4 STARS." Synopsis

A man writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years ago, Mateo Blanco was involved in a brutal car crash on the island of Lanzarote. In that accident, Blanco not only lost his sight; he also lost Lena, the love of his life and the beautiful star of his first comedy film. After the accident, Blanco reduced himself to his pseudonym, Harry Caine. If he can’t direct films, he must survive with the idea that Mateo Blanco died on Lanzarote with his beloved Lena. In the present day, Caine lives thanks to the help he gets from his faithful former production manager, Judit García, and from Diego, her son, his secretary, typist and guide. Now he uses two names: Harry Caine, a playful pseudonym he uses to sign his literary works, stories and scripts; and his real name, with which he lives and signs the film he directs. But circumstances will soon force him to reveal what happened fourteen years ago.

What Do The Critics Say

"Jumbling genres and fragmenting characters: in particular, Penélope Cruz’s Lena who has more identities than Jason Bourne, from an Audrey Hepburn-esque film star, to a femme fatale and a 'Belle de Jour' style call-girl; Almodóvar seems to be trying to cram everything he loves about the movies into "Broken Embraces". The sense is of an ageing director taking stock: exploring his cinematic roots, imagining his future and working through it all to emerge counting his blessings at the end." Nick Funnell TIME OUT "Perhaps not as dazzling as Almodovar's masterpieces, this film is still an involving and sleekly well-made melodrama." Rich Cline SHADOWS ON THE WALL "Penelope Cruz is a treat for the eyes, and so is her latest film, Pedro Almodovar’s sizzlingly sexy film noir "Broken Embraces", a love letter to the magical power of movies to mend broken hearts." Lou Lumenick NEW YORK POST "Pedro Almodóvar’s "Broken Embraces" is a lush, deeply romantic noir dense with nods to films past, yet it plays as if it sprung fully formed from the director’s unconscious." David Edelstein NEW YORK MAGAZINE "The sensual pleasures of Pedro Almodóvar's lush new meta-melodrama are the more intense for being fleeting. The sheer, gorgeous style of "Broken Embraces" is what is so seductive; with his cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, Almodóvar conjures a vivid, rich palette of colours. Broken Embraces is a film in which the director demonstrates a continuing, virtuoso fluency in a cinematic language that he himself invented. It's an embrace I want to submit to." Peter Bradshaw UK GUARDIAN

"True, Spain’s hippest and most prominently homosexual auteur is happy to ogle big breasts and pert bums. But it is faces he frames with the greatest passion and, here, with muse Penélope Cruz dominating a story of erotic obsession, he surpasses himself. Cruz famously bats her eyelashes for L’Oréal, but their stylists have never made her look this scrumptious." Charlotte O'Sullivan LONDON EVENING STANDARD "One of the most challenging and visually accomplished films of Almodóvar’s long career." Allan Hunter DAILY EXPRESS "Like a well-crafted novel, "Broken Embraces" takes its time revealing its true intentions: an emotional time bomb, packed with passion, color, romance and tragedy." Marshall Fine HOLLYWOOD & FINE "Stylish, satirical and intriguing, surreptitiously exploring themes of ambition, jealousy and betrayal; and Penelope Cruz dazzles." Susan Granger SSG SYNDICATE "After a standout opening seduction in which a blind man manages to charm an assistant half his age out of her jeans, the movie settles into a strangely stilted four-way." Joshua Rothkopf TIME OUT NEW YORK "the strength of Almodóvar's films is his characters and he knows how to get us hooked on their soap-opera lives. With Penélope Cruz, his favourite leading lady centre stage, looking sexy and seriously beautiful, we are assured of a sensual ride. Additionally, there is a duality associated with each character, which occasionally is too clever for its own good." Louise Keller URBAN CINEFILE

The Production Team

Director Written by Producer Executive Producer Original Music Cinematography Film Editor Casting Production Designer Art Direction Costume Design

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar Esther García Agustín Almodóvar Alberto Iglesias by Rodrigo Prieto José Salcedo Luis San Narciso Antxón Gómez Víctor Molero Sonia Grande

Run Time 127 minutes Rated M [AUST] ©2009 - Paramount Vantage - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2009 All Rights Reserved The Movie Pages - Protected by Australian & International Copyright. Trademark laws applied.