Spain, 2004
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Score: ***** Year’s 10 Best

A story told in flashback that eventually evolves into a film within a film. A trickle of blood on a buggered boy’s forehead that splits the screen into two halves revealing the two men that ultimately affect the boy later in life. A fade out of two lovers superimposed on the same two—sixteen years later—when they meet once again. And just when you thought the film’s plot was getting a bit complex, director Almodovar offers a breather with a 10-minute teaser of Mexican hottie, sex-on-legs Gael Garcia Bernal in skimpy underwear frolicking in a friend’s swimming pool. These are just a few of the pleasures that await viewers of Pedro Almodovar’s latest tribute to film noir, a film that involves a love triangle between two 10-year old boys and their catholic school priest.

In Almodovar’s LAW OF DESIRE, the transsexual played by Carmen Maura confesses to a priest that she had been a pupil at the school where he had fallen in love with her as a boy.  A similar scene exists in BAD EDUCATION when Angel (Gael Garcia Bernal in drag) confronts Father Manolo (Daniel Giminez-Cacho) to blackmail him (for deflowering him). This is a key scene that re-occurs several times throughout the Almodovar tale. Lies and femme fatales make up good film noir and Almodovar’s is brimming with lies and a most deadly femme fatale in the form of Garcia in drag, doing whatever she can to achieve what she wants in life.

The film opens with acclaimed young film director, Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) looking through the tabloids for a new story.  In appears a bearded stranger, who calls himself Angel, with a script. As the scene ends, Almodovar excites the viewers’ anticipation that these two were first loves. The film then flashbacks two years back to the story in the script.  Almodovar brilliantly weaves his tale non-chronologically while comparing the times, political influences and national attitudes of the changes that follow. 

The film’s best sequence occurs during a school outing in a country with 10-year old boys bathing in the river done to a Spanish rendering of MOON RIVER (sung by the young Ignacio played by Ignacio Perez). It is a most beautiful and innocent sequence filmed in slow motion. The camera retreats and it is revealed that the ones enjoying the scene are the movie audience and not the pedophile Father Monolo who has just abused the 10-year old Ignacio behind the bushes. 

Though two of the film’s three protagonists perform really bad acts, Almodovar never judges his characters. He even manages to invoke sympathy for the pedophile priest. When admonished that a man cannot love a boy of 10, he remarks in all somberness and sincerity that he did love him. The other evil one, Angel, who would sleep with male or female and not hesitate killing anyone to get what he wants, has his mother tell Goded: “Do not judge my son”. 

Yet, Almodovar has not lost his touch of humor or colour. Most of the laughs are provided by scene stealing Javier Camara (the protagonist of TALK TO HER), as Angel’s drag queen accomplice, Paquito. Almodovar hits the funny bone when Paquito asks if she could finish sucking off their victim after noticing him passed out with a hard-on. The deck chairs by film director Goded’s swimming pool are characteristically bight red and the costumes donned by both Bernal and Francisco Boira in drag are designed by haute couture designer, Jean-Paul Gauthier.

But the greatest beauty of BAD EDUCATION is its depiction of the purity of first love between the two 10-year old boys. From the moment they first meet during a soccer match to their jerking off of each other in a movie theatre (influence of the cinema?), the silent scenes invoke the best memories of our first loves (whether straight or gay). And this is what Almodovar’s film is all about. As the story unfolds and the layers pealed away, it is the celebration of the new times and freedom that Almodovar wishes to display. As Father Manolo leaves the church to join a publishing firm re-inventing himself as Mr. Berenguer (Lluis Homar) in the later years, the boy Ignacio grows up to become a drug addicted drag queen in the changing modern times.

Almodovar is at his peak with three hits in a row – this one, ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, which won the Oscar for best foreign film and TALK TO HER. BAD EDUCATION is loosely based on Almodovar’s early life. And it is clearly his film from start to finish. When film director Goded (personifying Almdovar himself) at the film’s start is told that a described scene sounds incredible, his remark is: but it makes a wonderful image. The film ends with a voiceover informing viewers what eventually becomes of each character in the future years.  For Goded, it is said that he continues his passion in making movies. The word passion from a newspaper cut-out finally covers the entire screen. LA MALA EDUCACION is clearly Pedro Almodovar’s personal masterpiece. 

Review by Gilbert Seah.