TALK TO HER aka HABLE CON ELLA Q&A with Pedro Almodovar

What, for you, is a Pedro Almodovar film? I think perhaps the definition of an Almodovar film should be made by others rather than me. For me it's just enough that I've made it. But there is a way in which I approach subjects - or the subjects themselves that I choose to deal with, or the tone in which I deal with them in the films - that is recognisable and different from other films. I think I can be recognised. It's not so much that I make an effort to be different, but I do think that my films are different. It is kind of difficult for me to pinpoint why because that might sound presumptuous. How long has Talk To Her been in your mind? A couple of years. What I do is take notes, and there always comes a time when I then take those notes and sit down and write the script. What drew me to this was the idea of this highly sentimental man, Marco, who is moved to tears by all sorts of different things. And then I was intrigued by the relationships that formed between him and Benigno, and between them and these two women lying in bed in a coma. I was interested in making the character of these women be as alive and expressive as if they were standing up and talking. As much as the praise that has been heaped upon your film there is also predictable controversy from some quarters - not least the fantasy sequence in the form of a silent film that Benigno describes. Did you anticipate this? I actually don't foresee any audience reaction. But I was aware that it was one of the most important parts of the film, and one of the parts of the film that would be the most talked about. I felt it was important because it entailed so many things, but my initial reaction was that I was a little afraid because it was quite risky to put a seven-minute silent film in the middle of the action. That's very daring on my part.  So are you happy with what it achieved? At the end of the day I'm very glad I did it, and I'm very satisfied in the sense that this is almost like a caprice, to make a short silent movie in black and white, I enjoyed it very much. And I thought it might be more difficult than it really was, there is a lot of risk in there, but we fortunately overcame all of this quite easily. My main preoccupation was the acting style, because it is expressionistic and a little exaggerated. Everything has to be bigger, the decoration, the gestures, you can easily go beyond exaggeration into the grotesque. There is a very subtle line between being exactly how they used to be in those films and being completely ridiculous. Fortunately the two actors in that sequence understood very well what they had to do. Continued from page 2

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