top 100 films of the 2000s: #5

5. Talk to Her, 2002, Spain
Dir: Pedro Almodovar
Cast: Javier Camara, Dario Grandinetti

While Talk to Her is a bit more straight-forward than Mulholland Drive, its story is no less bizarre, wonderful, and wholly original. It was the film that really put Pedro Almodovar above and beyond his already legendary status. Almodovar had already gained quite a reputation for himself as one of the masters of Spanish cinema, but Talk to Her is his masterpiece.

The movie starts out innocently enough about a man, Marco, who falls for a female matador, Lydia, and they wind up striking a romance, but Marco's life turns upside down when his girlfriend Lydia winds up comatose after being gored by a bull. Marco winds up striking a friendship with a caregiver at the hospital, a man named Benigno. Benigno has obsessively been taking care of a beautiful young comatose dancer named Alicia. Benigno comes across as very helpful, harmless, and kind and he seemingly does a superb job with taking care of Alicia. His attitude encourages Marco to stick with Lydia even though her condition appears to be hopeless.

But there's something about Benigno's behavior towards Alicia, something quite disturbing. And once you begin to figure out where the story is about to go, you really cannot believe what you are watching. I mean, really, you do not know where this movie is going and a part of you doesn't want to know where it's going.

The reason why this is such a big win for Almodovar is not just the wonderful colorful cinematography that is present in all of his films and his masterful camerawork and the bold, graphic, yet fitting sexual imagery that runs throughout this film. It's disturbing, it's shocking, it's beautiful. But that's not all. It's how he writes his characters, especially Benigno. Benigno comes off as such a nice, pleasant character and yet his questionable actions totally fit within his persona. And that's what makes his actions even more disturbing and hard to come to terms with.

The films starts to become hard to watch after awhile but you have to watch because it's unlike anything you've ever seen before. What starts out like such an ordinary story, almost immediately becomes more than that. It's an extraordinary film that tackles themes of loneliness and coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. By the end of the film, I was just so thrilled and satisfied with the overall product of the movie that I remembered why I became such a film buff in the first place. Talk to Her is the reason why I continue to watch movies.