Pepi, Luci, Bom e le altre ragazze del mucchio

All the energy put in Pepi... is enough to go and see it. That a young director show so much enthusiasm is a litmus test to see if he really loves his story, his actors... and the medium, cinema at large. Far from all those neurotic self-centered so-called authors who will only deal with their obsessions through intimate and intricate tales.

Sure, Almodovar gives so much in the first half (i.e. till Luci leaves her home) that the following is not so surprising and exciting. But he learnt later to build up his stories mastering pace all along. As for then he steps out from underground flicks yet displaying great skills.

He will be back.

Felix Rotaeta rapes Carmen Maura. She decides to get even by getting his wife to leave him.

Pedro Almodóvar's second feature is full of kinks and weirdos in a Spain where Francisco Franco is dead. Yet I find a naivete to this one that I didn't in his next movie -- his first feature is not readily available. There's plenty of drugs and non-normative sex, with sado-masochism and lesbianism and people rutting in punk rock clubs. Yet there's a tentative attitude to the way the director handles it, as if he's an anthropologist observing the natives, not yet ready to draw any conclusion. There's plenty to shock a conservative audience, but it lacks the deliberate, in-your-face offensiveness that he would later assume. The characters are wearily ironic about the situations they find themselves in.

I like this movie,maybe it's not the best of Almodovar but it's the first containing all the themes that he will explore. It's a movie about freedom,the new freedom acquired by Spanish, Franco is dead and now they can do whatever they want, even bad taste jokes. It's the beginning of "la Movida",now they can criticize stupid cops with their macho mustache,now they can urinate where they want... I like it because it's the awakening of Spain, with all the excess possible,with all it's qualities and defaults. this movie is a sort of coming out,Spain have the right to do what it want to do. It's the first spit against pseudo-morality against the wall erected by Franco all over Spain. It's a punk movie.

Pepi, Luci and Bom (1980) is a twisted sexually perverse comedy from Pedro Almodovar. The story revolves around three working class women living in Madrid, Spain. Carmen Maura (an Almodovar regular) is the star of this very low budget film. A meek house wife is slowly seduced by her lesbian next door neighbor ( part of a plot to get revenge on her abusive husband) is one of the many strange events that occur in this farce.

The seduction techniques are very "unique" and creative to say the least. The director flows the exploits of the three friends as they hang out in the emerging seedy underground of Spain.

A n interesting movie from rising film-maker Pedro Almodovar. You also get a first hand look at life after the dictatorial reign of one Franco. A lot of sexual repression and tension was released in the streets after he left power. How much can the average viewer take? Well since this is an Almodovar film, it's only for die-hard fans or if you like some of John Waters earlier work. Others stay, don't say I didn't warn you.

Recommended for viewers of esoteric foreign films.

B

"However, you begin to disappoint with the first dialog (silly and absurd, no provocative), and it's better if we don't talk about the papers and acting (what happened to great Carmen Maura?!!)." I totally disagree with that, this movie is great, full of references to other great directors,which I guess the person who wrote this comment failed to see.

The actors are simply great, and act in the most purely Almodovar-John Waters way, making all the dialogs hilarious, playing with language (changing register in the same sentence from the highest to the lowest, making absurd speeches, from the point of view of the linguistics) and intonation, which I think is the greatest tool used by almodovar in his films.

Again, he rises daily life and common problems to the absurdity, by magnifying them, making us laugh at our own problems.

One of his greatest movies, in his purest style, which he greatly used again in his latest film "volver".