Attache-moi!

Antonio Banderas was truly in his form and height of career when he was cast in Almovodar's Spanish movies. Banderas portrayed innocence and simplicity of character in these early movies that Hollywood always seems to make large and gloss over any sort of character development. There is something that Hollywood seems to drain away and leave behind in the character of people, yet Banderas/Almovodar capture so perfectly the average man/woman and portray them in interesting ways. Atame (Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down) is a delicious little movie about a crook who falls in love with an actress. To get her attention, he kidnaps her and the fun begins. Almovodar's movies are always filled with quirky characters, funny dialogue and plot twists. To see Antonio Banderas at his finest playing a simple man who falls in love but has some issues..Atame is a cute, touching movie to rent.

Pedro Almodovar's "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!" from 1989 is an earlier film from this quirky director. Almodovar's characters are inevitably off the wall and in bizarre situations. This film and its characters are no exception.

"Tie Me Up!" was given an X rating (later NC-17) for a couple of scenes and in the United States at least, it was quite controversial.

The story concerns a recently-released mental hospital patient, Ricky (Antonio Banderas) who kidnaps an ex-porn star, Marina (Victoria Abril) currently making a low-budget horror film. Though the title suggests S&M, there isn't any. Ricky ties her up when he needs to leave the apartment.

An expert in carpentry, locksmithing, and other usable occupations, Ricky had actually been leaving the mental hospital when he felt like it and then returning. During one of those times, he had a one-night stand with Marina.

Deeply in love with her, he stalks her on the film set and, when she doesn't speak to him, confronts her in her apartment, declaring his love and his intention of marrying her and fathering her children. Marina, of course, would like to escape him, but Ricky makes that difficult. A former heroin addict, Marina has a toothache and explains that nothing will help except strong medicine from her doctor up the street. So Ricky handcuffs her to him and they walk to the doctor's apartment, where Marina receives an injection and a prescription.

Later, when she needs more drugs, Ricky goes to the town square to score some and ends up beaten to a pulp. When he returns, Marina is horrified and begins to have real feelings for him.

Meanwhile, her sister Lola (Loles Leon) is worried, believing Marina to have disappeared.

There is a very long sex scene in this film that took 9 hours to film, with Almodovar using the last take.

"Tie Me Up!" launched Banderas in the United States, and this is his last film with Almodovar. He plays Ricky beautifully - as an innocent from a troubled background who will do anything to convince this woman to love him. Abril is a sexy and feisty Marina, and, like Ricky, she is a lost soul trying to find her way. Ricky is an orphan; Abril has a mother, sister, and nephew, but both of them are alone in their worlds.

Despite the title and the sex, this is actually a sweet tale with likable characters. Almodovar often has a bizarre way of telling a story and making a point, but the results, with few exceptions, are well worth it.

It's safe to say that even in a film by Pedro Almodovar that is only marginally successful within the margins there are some good, steamy, questionable times to be had. I can just imagine Pedro sitting in front of his notebook just figuring out ways to mix sex, film-making, kidnapping, and other lewd exercises into some kind of cohesive single film. What makes a very good chunk of Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down exciting satirically is that Almodovar never gives in to making anything TOO serious. Which is perhaps what ends up transitioning the situation Ricky (Antonio Banderas) and Marina (Victoria Abril) are in from the absurd and flirtingly masochistic to the (ironically) conventional and quasi-sweetness that is obviously deep in Almodovar. Perhaps the tying up and re-tying becomes part of a metaphor on the filmmaker's part, that despite it being something very dangerous and totally provocative it's also inviting in ways that would be elusive otherwise. Then again, that the material does (mostly) work, by being so disturbing in the bluntness and perpetually deranged mind-set of Ricky, but then in the human connections that are enhanced all the more. If only the motivations- even in such loose and wacky-Almodovar circumstances- were a little more convincing.

Nevertheless, I liked a lot about Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down up until it goes off the rails with its logic turning into knots (simply, I just don't buy that Marina falls for Ricky just like that, even if she was an ex-junkie porn star, and Ricky's advances are like that of a uppity, headstrong but shy 13 year old, a slight reminder of A Life Less Ordinary's bizarrely innocuous kidnapping turned romance). Chiefly, the performances and the usually arty-yet-trashy style from Almodovar and his crew. Banderas is, by the way, in one of his best and funniest performances here, a near emblem of the male ideal for a life with a woman, and a with an innocent yet fervent attraction to bondage, with that perfect look in his eyes detailing all even in brief moments. Yet there was something about his stay in the mental home all those years that did something to his ideas towards sex and what it is to live, and Banderas captures this mix of intense sadism crossed with the heart of an old Hollywood-studio leading man who will do anything to brush the leading lady off of her feet. Abril is always believable too, even when Almodovar gives her character a turn around into something more akin to an exploitation film, however sweet it tries to be. While she decides to underplay her immediate fear of her kidnapper, it works to add a level of comic timing to Ricky's own odd-ball ways. They make a great pair, really, especially when it comes to that 'turning point', where Almodovar uses his unique style to get five ceiling-mirrored shot of a pivotal scene.

There's also a fantastic role of the director of the film Marina is starring in at the start of the film, the aged Maximo Espejo (Francisco Rabal, who's been in countless films including the Eclipse and Belle de Jour), who has the ideas burning and changing around at a beat as to what his ending will be for his actress- death, being saved, something else? His moments on screen display a richness that lies often in Almodovar's script, where the surreal pressures of shooting the movie for Maximo somewhat carry over- and sort of dissipate as the characters become vulnerable- into that realm where reality and un-reality cross paths. This is heightened, and made a little additionally conventional, by the musical score, which like many of Almodovar's work is a tip of the hat to Herrmann compositions and old Hollywood romantic classics. There's even an emotional upheaval when Ricky and Marina meet again on that balcony overlooking the vista. The wildest thing about the picture is that one does become absorbed in the push and pull relationship between 'kidnapper' and 'kidnapee' (I quote that for its a little redundant to use those terms as the film goes on), and that these f***ed up people are practically the most average couple you'd ever meet. There's sensational comedy stacked in there too, in Ricky's behavior (moustache), the film within the film being shot (that strongman character is amazing), the random TV commercial about Spanish retirees, and just the consistent absurdity in the repetitive, ritual-side of the tying up and down. But there's something missing in Almodovar's third act to live up to the better parts early on, and he chickens out on really making this a much better, more challenging effort. I'll probably watch it someday again though, if only for Banderas and Rabals' performances.

An unbalanced but alluring former mental patient (Antonio Banderas) takes a porn star (Victoria Abril) prisoner in the hopes of convincing her to marry him.

How can anyone deny the beautiful, almost dreamlike use of color in this film? Trying to find anything comparable is a challenge. The musicals of Jacques Demy? No, not even those.

"Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!" comes from a strong pedigree, as it follows in the myth of Beauty and the Beast and the notion that the savagery of the Beast is, in the presence of Beauty, tamed by gentler feelings. This has been a recurrent theme in films like "King Kong", "Frankenstein" and "Tarzan the Ape Man". Some have even drawn parallels to "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" in that kidnapping can lead to romance.

The soundtrack was composed by Ennio Morricone in the style of a thriller and is reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". This music changes the whole tone. Some consider the film a "dark romantic comedy" and others even say there is a hint of horror in there. Much of the mood relies on the music -- with a lighter tone, this could just be an "offbeat" romantic comedy and not a "dark" one -- there is very little about the film that is dark besides the music.

After all I heard and read about this movie, I think this one of the most commonly misunderstood movies ever. It is not a comedy (although sometimes bizarre). It is NOT a glorification of violence. It is not about S/M or Bondage (which occurs between consenting parties). It's message is NOT that if you tie up and beat a woman, she will love you in return.

This is a movie about two people who are unable to master life on their own. This has led Ricky to the mental ward and Marina to being a drug-addicted porn star, who just happens to have a streak of luck because a movie director is completely obsessed with her. In the end, the two have found each other and it looks as if together, they can find the happiness and home they always were looking for. Beautiful...

Yes, Ricky's method of convincing Marina to love him is horrible and unacceptable. His attitude toward women and life in general is seriously twisted, and he just cannot think of any other way to get what he needs to fulfill his desire of living what he considers an ordinary life. Why does Marina fall for it? Probably because he's the first person who ever seemed to care about her. He fights to get her, he fights to help her. Even if his interest in her is ruthless and possessive, it is a genuine, deep interest and that is what she has been missing all her life.

I found Atame to be a fascinating and remarkable movie. Watch it open-minded and try to look beneath the pure surface of the plot, and you will be moved and captivated by its beauty.