Kika

What everyone in the press seemed to miss about this film was that it was a spoof on the media and especially the talk show mentality which has come to dominate our lives. The central figure of the film is not so much Kika as it is Caracortada (scarface) who runs a real life television program featuring live footage from video cameras. She chases down much of this footage herself, having a camera inserted into a helmet and flying around town on a motor scooter. We are drawn into this web -- during the middle of a rape sequence, the rapist actually says something funny -- and in the audience with whom I saw the film when it premiered, many laughed (and then somehow gasped that they were laughing in the middle of a rape scene). That is as nearly perfect as black comedy gets. Following the rape, Caracortada interviews the victim and asks "How big was he?" Isn't this indicative of the intrusiveness of media in our lives? How did the press and so many commentators miss it?

This was the first Almodóvar film that I saw, and I would still say that it's one of his better movies. It's yet another highly unusual film by the Spanish director, filled with weird situations and his typically unorthodox style. The story is actually somewhat flimsy, and I didn't much care about what would happen to the main characters. However, I enjoyed this film because I liked a high number of the silly jokes. Like all Almodóvar films, this definitely isn't for all tastes, but if you like unconventional films, this is a pretty good choice.

Although the film is ostensibly about "Kika," she is actually only one character featured in this raunchy, ensemble comedy.

The plot here is all over the place! This is not necessarily bad--one character ties into another character's life and the focus of the movie moves in a circular manner which eventually returns to our heroine, the naive but lovable Kika (well-portrayed by Verónica Forqué).

This film is funny! It's a combination of "There's Something About Mary," Woody Allen at his zaniest, and "Sex and the City." Good for a laugh, especially for the poor dubbing of Peter Coyote's Spanish.

More of an ensemble comedy than one would expect for a film titled after a single character, 'Kika' focuses on how the lives of several Spaniards intersect, including a widowed author, his jaded son, the son's reporter ex-girlfriend, a porn star, the porn star's lesbian sister and the makeup artist the sister fancies. It takes quite a while for the trajectories of the characters to overlap and 'Kika' seems a little all over the place at first with bizarre seemingly random incidents like a graveyard murder and placing makeup on a sleeping man thought dead. As the movie progresses though, everything fits into place surprisingly well with the highlight being arguably the funniest rape scene ever filmed. While a comical treatment of the subject might sound in bad taste, the media frenzy that the rape causes in the film makes for an excellent satirical target. The film is less about mocking rape and more about public nonchalance towards it. Almodóvar's satire would have, however, benefited from the rape occurring earlier with more focus on the aftermath and Victoria Abril who, dressed in full-body camera-suit (!), films and unthinkingly broadcast it. There is also a great twist with Peter Coyote's character that deserves more screen time rather than being thrown in at the end, but for all its unevenness and roundabout first half hour, 'Kika' is a reasonably involving motion picture at the end of the day.

Almodóvar does Fellini? Well, that seems to be the general tone of the film here, as the director takes a central caricature and drops them into a mocking satire of grotesque farce, frightening colours and the continual abstractions of 1950's melodrama, all the while revelling in the juxtaposition of highbrow movie references and lowbrow humour. Understandably, with such a giddy concoction of ideas, the film is something of a mess; with the collage of styles and somewhat awkward combination of film references combined with the over-the-top production design and characterisations of the director bombarding us from the first scene to the last, while some of the more outré moments of satire, including the (intentionally) morally bankrupt nature of the character "Scarface" and the near-infamous rape sequence that plays out in the same frivolous, high-camp approach as the rest of the film are sure to raise a few groans of disagreement from many of the less liberal of reviewers amongst us.

Having said that, I personally feel that despite its position in Almodóvar's career as something of a creative misstep, there are still some incredibly intelligent and highly interesting ideas at work behind the film, some of which we have to really search for amidst the camp theatricality of the characters and the screaming kitsch of the narrative and its overall design. It has certain similarities to Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960), with the comment on journalism and the depiction of the media against an episodic background that seems to go nowhere until the last twenty minutes of the film, at which point Almodóvar introduces a new strand to the drama that will probably make it necessary for a second or perhaps even third viewing to fully comprehend. It also has the same interesting concept of the writer creating the story as it unfolds that we previously saw in the excellent Law of Desire (1987), with the character played by Peter Coyote writing a crime book that might be a veiled comment on his own character and role within the film, or might be the plot of the film itself. However, unlike Law of Desire, the idea isn't carried off quite so well, with the notion eventually being pushed into the background as we focus more on "Scarface" and her trash TV empire that forces itself into the lives of the characters, creating an interesting comment on the idea of cinema as voyeurism previously foreshadowed in the "keyhole" iconography of the opening sequences, and the thread of exhibitionism that is cemented by the film's male lead, the photographer Rámon.

Throughout the film these themes jostle for our attention as we watch the drama unfold from an affluent apartment building overlooking an obviously artificial recreation of night-time Madrid, as the characters seem to just drift from one scenario to the next in a way that doesn't always make sense until pondered over in light of the film's somewhat enticing "twist" ending. Ultimately, you could argue that with Kika (1993), Almodóvar really bit off more than he could chew, as he takes full advantage of the larger dramatic canvas offered to him by the international success of Law of Desire, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990) to truly indulge his interests in farce, design, fashion and theatrics. It's a self-indulgent work, without question, but I feel for an artist of Almodóvar's calibre, such indulgences are excusable; especially when the purging of such indulgences eventually leads to work of the impeccably high-standard of Live Flesh (1997) and All About My Mother (1999). The film is also a triumph of perfect casting, though one does wonder why Coyote - with his voiced awkwardly dubbed into Spanish - is present over a greater actor like Eusebio Poncela, who in my mind would have been perfect for the part?

Other than that rather odd choice, we have the film tied rigidly to the underrated performance of Veronica Forqué, who manages to convey the moves from comedy to tragedy without compromising the colourful tone or her somewhat ditzy characterisation. Her performance is really a marvel in my opinion and definitely makes Kika worth experiencing, even in spite of its various limitations. There's also fine support from Victoria Abril, Alex Casanovas and the truly iconic Rossy de Palma (once seen, never forgotten). Certainly, I can understand why many wouldn't like this film, what with the provocative nature of the tone, the lapses in character and the occasional slow pace, but there are still some interesting touches that should make this required viewing for anyone already familiar with the director and his work. As with the other Almodóvar films that I've seen from this era, Kika is bright and vibrant and filled with moments of keenly observed character-play and fanciful farce against an approach to film-making that rivals the very best of contemporary European cinema.