Talk To Her

Review on Talk To Her

by Pedro Almodovar

Synopsis

     After a chance encounter at a theater, two men, Benigno and Marco, meet at a private clinic where Benigno works.

Marco, a journalist grieving for a love affair that ended ten years' ago, falls in love with Lydia, also on the rebound. Lydia, Marco's girlfriend and a bullfighter by profession, has been gored and is in a coma. It so happens that Benigno, a nurse, is looking after another woman in a coma, Alicia, a young ballet student. Benigno dedicates his life to his only patient, a young dancer in a coma as a result of an accident four years' before; he talks to her, reads to her, holds photographs in front of her closed eyes. When Lydia is brought comatose to the hospital where Benigno works, he and Marco become friendly, and the nurse encourages the journalist to talk to her and hope for a miracle.

The lives of the four characters will flow in all directions, past, present and future, dragging all of them towards an unsuspected destiny. Marco is Sancho to Benigno's Quixote, and as Benigno's hopes for his patient become fantasies, Marco tries to inject reality. Does a miracle await?

Review

The story is a desperate cry of deep loneliness and the damage caused by superficial relationships. Could the hospital workers have prevented Alicia’s tragedy just by taking the time to talk to Benigno and recognise his mental state earlier? Yes, probably. Could Marco have saved Lydia’s life just by letting her talk about her problem and face the bull with clean conscience? Yes, possibly.

However, the story is also about accidents that nobody can prevent or escape. The strong influence of coma and unconsciousness is present in the film also in a symbolic way. In today’s society, nobody listens, just talks, taking little interest in the partner’s response. We might consider Benigno a fool, but looking deeply inside, we do the same everyday: showing pictures to people with closed eyes, telling events which have no relevance at all and just waste our time waiting for some miracle to happen. Almodovar’s film holds a mirror of truth in the face of our concept of friendship and love.

Additionally, Talk To Her shows a beautiful panorama of European, especially Spanish life, where the role of cinema culture is just as important as real experiences of life. This slight confusion of the two worlds usually dissolves during childhood, but in Benigno’s case, who grew up nursing his own mother,  these boundaries don’t exist. It might be the reason why a black-and-white movie called ‘Shrinking Lover’ influences him to rape the unconscious Alicia. Seemingly he’s unaware of the severeness of his act, because he doesn’t even try to run away, but plans to marry her.