Kika - Un corpo in prestito

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?

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.

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.

Verónica Forqué is Kika, a cosmetologist who gets called in by writer Peter Coyote when he finds his stepson, Àlex Casanovas dead. He wants the younger man looking better before he calls in the mortician, so she applies some make-up and... well, to make a long story a little shorter, he's not dead. The two younger people start living together while Miss Forqué carries on an affair with Coyote, until one day....

No, it's too complicated to give a precis. Most plots occur when plans collide. In this feature from Pedro Almodóvar, the movie is a collection of sexual kinks that collide into incidents, and several of those incidents collide into a story, although which of those incidents make what plot isn't clear until it's all over. Roles include a serial killer, Peeping Toms, a porn actor on the run from the police, a dead mother, and a woman with what I can only call a camera gimp suit, fitting for PEEPING TOM.

Are all these sexual incidents supposed to be funny, red herrings or the point of the movie? Is there a serial killer? Does any of it matter? In Almodóvar's color palette in this movie, what is the significance of the color yellow? There's a lot of black humor in this one, and that might be enough for someone looking for a shock comedy, but I have the feeling there's more.... or perhaps, not having more to say, Almodóvar substituted a slowly revealed plot.

Kika is a movie whose plot sounds tasteless beyond belief if merely read aloud. After all it features an extended rape scene played for laughs; the rapist himself is a porn star who has sexually assaulted so many girls that his sister forms an incestuous relationship with him to take his mind off raping even more women. This is hardly typical comic fare it has to be said. Imagine if in 1979 Mel Brooks had decided to make a spoof of I Spit on Your Grave, the results would have been an absolute travesty. That's what the synopsis of Kika makes you think of. However, Kika was made by Pedro Almodóvar and for some reason he seems to be capable of making even the most grossly offensive material so completely ridiculous it comes at you in reverse and can be alarmingly funny. The rape scene in Kika is comedic and before watching the movie I simply could not understand how such a thing could ever be.

The film is named after the cosmetologist played by Veronica Forqué. But the movie is not really her story, it has several memorable characters. Ramón is a young photographer whose mother commits suicide. Nicholas is his womanising step-father. The latter hires Kika to work on the corpse of Ramón, who comes back to life unexpectedly and embarks on a relationship with Kika. Kika's maid Juana is a lesbian who is in love with Kika, her brother Pablo is the porn star rapist. All the time in the background on the television is Andrea (a.k.a. Scarface) the host of a reality TV show that celebrates real life tragedy, death and destruction. The movie concludes with an unexpected serial killer plot strand.

It's true that the story is somewhat chaotic. There are so many separate ideas in here that the film seems a bit unfocused. But because it is essentially a comedy this isn't really so much of a problem. While there is a lot of silly humour, the film is mainly a media satire. With this in mind the most important and memorable character is Andrea who is kitted out in some fantastically over-the-top Jean-Paul Gaultier outfits, including her street gear which includes a helmet with attached movie camera. Victoria Abril is really excellent in this role. She is simultaneously wicked and sexy at all times. The scenes of her broadcasting her show from a stage are the most visually iconic in the movie. She roams the streets of Madrid intrusively filming scenes of grieving people and aftermaths of violent encounters. She is the black heart of Kika.

Despite the controversial moments it's simply impossible to take the events depicted at all seriously. Almodóvar's typical colourful aesthetic is present throughout and the tone is consistently absurd. This means that he gets away with material that would have been contentious otherwise. As it is, Kika is very entertaining.