"Bad Education" is one of Almodóvar's few films about men. To be precise, it tells the story of four gay men. According to him, it is an autobiographical film adapted from his real childhood experience. The story is interspersed and connected back and forth in reality, memories, scripts, and movies. It is not until the end that it is clearly laid out in front of the audience.
The story begins in Enrique's film studio. Enrique is in the dry period of his creation. Ignacio, his first love who has not seen each other in 16 years, sent the script "Visit", which was rewritten based on their real childhood experiences, and most of it was fictional. When Enrique was reading the script, the plot was recalled. 16 years ago, Enrique and Ignacio were classmates of the mission school. They had an inexplicable affection for each other because of a closeness in the cinema, and once in the bathroom late at night. Father Manolo, who had been coveting Ignacio, found out that he took Ignacio’s virginity in the artifact room under the threat of expelling Enrique. The shameless Father Manolo was still expelled later. Enrique. Ignacio has since lost his faith. Began to embark on the path of destruction.
In the process of contacting Ignacio, Enrique felt that the other party was not like the Ignacio in his impression, so he found Ignacio’s home based on the lost lighter. The truth is amazing: it turns out. The real Ignacio passed away three years ago, and the one who is now posing as his brother Juan. But Enrique concealed his knowledge of Juan's true identity and agreed to use Juan to play the role of Ignacio in "The Visit". They had same-sex relationships in the name of auditioning over a period of several months. The movie was successfully completed, and after the last shot, Juan could no longer restrain her sobbing. The lights in the studio went out one by one, and people left one by one, which seemed to herald the end of the long drama playing Ignacio's Juan both in and out of the play.
Father Manoro walked out of the darkness on the set and revealed to Enrique the mystery of Ignacio’s death: Three years ago, he learned that Father Manoro had left the church school, got married and had children, and worked in a publishing house. , Ignacio sent the novel "Visit", which records the gloomy history of his childhood, in order to blackmail Father Manolo. Father Manolo came to visit and saw an image of Ignacio who was completely reversed from his childhood. He has successfully undergone sex reassignment surgery, drug abuse, fraud, and blackmail. It seems that all the ugly and dirty can be with him. connect together. It was Father Manolo’s visit that allowed Juan to enter this story. He was deeply infatuated with the young and handsome Juan. He fell in love at first sight and kept sending money to Ignacio to get close to Juan. Under the material temptation of Father Manolo, Juan betrayed his body and instigated Manolo to poison his hated brother, Ignacio, with high-purity heroin.
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Ignacio is no longer the innocent boy whom Father Manolo was obsessed with. The priest’s devastating education allowed him to end the age of innocence early, thus changing the trajectory of his life. Become a transgender person who is disgusting from the inside out. And his only constant is his attachment to Enrique over the years. In the last scene of his life, after smoking high-purity heroin, he wrote the last sentence on the typewriter "Dear Enrique, I think I succeeded", and then knocked his head heavily on the typewriter. This is Yi Gennacio's life. A life that withered and withered prematurely because of an unfortunate childhood. Two huge contrasts. Ironically, when he was determined to change, he was conspired to death by two people (brother and priest) who had loved him before. Fate did not give him the last chance. The fate of the other people in the film are all intertwined around Ignacio.
Judging from the comparison between Juan and adult Ignacio, Juan has more of Ignacio’s childhood shadow, so Father Manolo’s love for Ignacio naturally continued to adult Juan, just like us After Enrique looked at the script and recalled his childhood, no one also doubted the authenticity of Ignacio played by Juan, and believed that the feeling of Juan’s image was in line with Ignacio’s childhood. Trajectory, even after learning that the real Ignacio was already dead through Enrique’s visit to Ignacio’s house, the simple mother said sadly: “Don’t blame my Juan, he is actually a good guy. Child." Still let us forgive Juan’s impostor, because Ignacio was beautiful in his childhood. Juan, who studied acting in college, is undoubtedly the best actor. He plays Ignacio brilliantly both in and out of the play. He can't even distinguish the boundary between drama and life. He is a powerful man with a weak position. On the surface, Manolo is a priest occupying his body with money. In fact, Juan used Manolo’s desire to manipulate him to kill; on the surface, Ignacio oppressed and exploited Juan. It was Juan who used the hands of others to kill his brother. On the surface, Enrique knew that Juan was a fake and possessed his body. In fact, Juan used Enrique to pave the way for his fame. Finally, at the end of the filming of the film, Juan couldn't calm down in tears for a long time, perhaps in the play he finally realized the tragic fate of Ignacio. At that moment he also walked out of the role of drama.
Enrique has never believed in it. When he was a child, he turned to a word in the dictionary, "hedonist", which he used to describe himself. With the keen observation of a director, he felt the difference between Juan and Ignacio in his childhood, but after learning the truth about Juan’s counterfeiting, he still said, "I want to see how far you can go, and I "How much can it bear" to dig further, but with the excuse of an audition, he couldn't help but fall into a crazy carnal desire for Juan. Enrique is like the woman who rushed into the pond and embraced the crocodile to commit suicide in the story he read in the newspaper. He is passionate about drama, obsessed with challenging the limits of himself, and rushes to misfortune under the banner of art.
Father Manolo symbolizes power in the social sense, not salvation in the religious sense. This is also Almodóvar's distrust and irony of religious power. Father Manolo destroyed Ignacio twice, the first time he took his virginity and destroyed his childhood, and the second time he used high-purity heroin to destroy his life. He also used the right of the church school to expel Enrique, used money to take possession of Juan, and finally exposed himself and Juan's plot to kill Ignacio in front of Enrique. But Father Manolo is not completely dehumanized in the film. His uncontrollable obsession with Ignacio in his childhood, his uncontrollable madness for Juan, and the despair of his life when he was separated from Juan for a short time after the murder, but also Make people pity. I never thought that homosexuals would be so obsessed with innocence, yet spotless after years. It can be said that Father Manolo’s various crimes were born from this, and Almodóvar still followed his usual law of desire, rather than secular moral law.
The ending of the film uses subtitles to explain the ending of the three men: Juan became the most popular star after the release of "The Visit"; Manoro began to blackmail Juan, and was hit and killed by a car one night. It was Juan who drove. Rick still continues his film career with passion.
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Almodovar grew up in the gloomy and depressing atmosphere of the dictatorship in the Franco era, and experienced the explosion of Spanish culture and art under the democratic politics after Franco’s death. As a springboard for a multi-ethnic country and an underdeveloped region to enter Western Europe, Spain's strong tolerance for various cultures is also clearly reflected in Almodóvar. Almodóvar, who has experienced the impact of multiculturalism, also has its own unique thinking and insights. In Almodovar's films, what he does usually is to lead us to an open field, to re-observe desire with our own eyes, naturally and openly. Excluding ethics and morality, Almodovar only presents the reality for us, helping us try to face the darkness that gushes out of desire, make our own judgments, and tolerate the cruelty of the world with gentle eyes.
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