Where to start? Let's start with the silent film that was inserted. Clearly, it is the key to the mystery, and astute viewers must know that it alludes to the rape committed by Benigno. The director did not make it clear in the feature film, but demystified the process. The sin thus becomes ambiguous and less immoral. Even, this sin has completed a sublimation at the end, because Alicia finally miraculously woke up without knowing it, but the motivation is hidden behind, this invisible even makes this sin a little sacred. Back to the silent film, it takes place between a couple. The man once accidentally swallows the potion made by his lover, and then his body shrinks day by day. In the end, he became a villain in Swift's Lilliputian country. The audience followed him and looked at his lover's huge and even terrifying body, and the female body became an alienated landscape. In the end, however, they had sex and the woman had an orgasm. The silent film is actually about a process of "transformation", a gender hierarchy transformation, in which the male body becomes insignificant and the female body becomes majestic and mysterious. The silent film here makes clear that the female body is the main object of the film—because the story revolves around the female body from the start; it is men who have the say. Of course, in silent films and feature films, women's bodies are almost always in a state of slumber and aphasia, waiting to be awakened. Ironically, Alicia's body is being plundered by Benigno until she finally wakes up from her sleep.
On the other side of the coin, Lydia, as a female bullfighter, also becomes an unconscious vegetative after a suicidal (heroic) act. However, women who attempt male roles end in death. Almodóvar's subtext seems to tell us that if women try to transcend their gender itself, the outcome is tragic. On the contrary, a woman who has lost her language ability and is "plundered" by male gaze and body can get a second life. However, the perpetrators of the crimes are ultimately punished. Benigno finally committed suicide by taking drugs in prison, while his friend Marco met Alicia after waking up and was about to start a new relationship with her. Women are still objectified in the film, but the director's psychological and emotional descriptions of men are extremely delicate.
View more about Talk to Her reviews
