User Reviews

I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I watched 'Hable Con Ella'. All I knew was that it was directed by Pedro Almodovar, who is considered as one of the biggest talents outside of Hollywood. Well, he certainly has some talent. A talent to make movies that are not always easy to watch, but certainly thought provoking, beautiful, compelling and stylish.

'Hable Con Ella' tells the story of two men who are in love with a woman in a coma and how they both handle this in a different way. They meet each other in the hospital with a beautiful friendship between the two men as a result.

Pedro Almodovar is some kind of artist who likes to paint with words and images. As a result you get a beautiful tale about obsession, love, friendship and desperation, which may not be to everybody's taste because of the bizarre subject, but which certainly touched me. It's very original and I would recommend it to everybody who isn't afraid to watch a movie with a special subject. I give it a 9/10

TALK TO HER (2002) **** Javier Camara, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores, Mariola Fuentes, Geraldine Chaplin. Filmmaker Pedro Almodovar once again creates a cinematic masterpiece in his ongoing quest to bring together the war of the sexes as a harmonic convergence this time in a somewhat surreal matter involving a male nurse (Camara) and a tough yet sensitive journalist (Grandinetti) who form a unique friendship when his girlfriend, a bullfighter (Flores), is gored and sent into a coma landing her in the hospital where Camara is taking care of his ‘beloved' (Watling), a dancer, who he has fallen in love with her when he (in a sense) was stalking her. Love, sex, desire and social ills fall into one heady mix of melodrama, soap opera fodder and a sprinkling of comedy as well as a memorable foray into silent cinema with `The Shrinking Lover' (think of an NC-17 version of `The Incredible Shrinking Man') that actually serves as a Greek chorus as to the happenings occurring. Controversial, bold and audacious in its execution yet ultimately haunting, harrowing and altogether human (and humane). One of the year's best films.

This is a film about men and their emotions. One man has a relationship with a woman, the most famous female matador in Spain. He cries over the most strange things. The female matador gets in a coma. The other man is in love with a woman, he has only spoken to her once. The man is a male nurse and when the woman gets in a coma he is the one to take care of her. Some people around him thinks he is gay so he is allowed to take care of her, see her naked, touch her. The two men get to know each other while waiting at the beds of their loved ones.

I will not reveal what happens with the two women, or with the men. The way the subject is handled is great. In one way we see the two man devoting their lives two women. In another way we see the creepy part of that. For example we know the male nurse is in love with the one he is taking care of, and as I said, he sees naked every day. The woman seems to be an obsession, the man seems to be obsessed. We have sympathy for the men anyway.

The acting is good, a very intelligent story and a great direction makes this film one of the year's best. In the end you will have a strange feeling, and a good feeling as well.

Good film including interesting drama , colorful cinematography , sensitive score and nice interpretations by all-Spanish-star-cast . Almodovar successful melodrama about two comatose women and the men who love them , including his ordinary rare characters , twisted situations and eccentric events . Two men Benigno (Javier Camera ,this role is based on Pedro Almodóvar's close friend Roberto Benigni) , and Marco (Dario Grandinetti) share an odd friendship while they care for two women , Alicia (Leonor Watling) and Lydia (Rosario Flores) in very different ways , who are both in deep comas .

Agreeable film full of feeling , outlandish characters full of desire and love , haunting mood-pieces , unforgettable as well as outrageous images , and sense of style . The picture deals with off-the-wall/intense drama , loneliness familiar absurdities , superb scenes , a haunting meditation on love with dysfunctional roles and many other things . Here deals with existences of the four peculiar roles : a nurse , a ballerina , a writer , and a bullfighter , whose fates will flow in all directions, past , present and future , dragging all of them towards an unsuspected finale . A silent segment , played by Paz Vega and Fele Martinez , is awesome with shocking as well as funny images . This strange as well as excessive melodrama could only have been made by Almodovar . The picture is pretty well and turns out to be superior to Almodovar's previous entries such as or ¨Live flesh¨ , ¨The flower of my secret¨ , ¨Kika¨ , ¨High heels¨ , ¨Atame¨ and ¨Entre Tinieblas¨, all of them strong and outlandish dramas . The result is undiluted scabrous flick , plenty of crazy strings of plots and sharp images with enjoyable situations . I liked everyone in the excellent cast, and the male and female actors , especially Leonor Watling , were all very attractive . Furthermore , a notorious support cast such as Lola Dueñas , Roberto Álvarez , Elena Anaya , Chus Lampreave , Adolfo Fernández , Ana Fernández , Jose Sancho , Carmen Machi , Loles León , Fele Martínez and other delightfully played roles . In addition , spectacular dancing carried out by Pina Bausch and her professional dancer group . And a lot of cameos : Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes: frequent Pedro Almodóvar actors appear briefly when Caetano Veloso is singing . As usual in most of Pedro Almodóvar's movies, there is a small role for Agustín Almodóvar, his brother and producer of the film, who plays the priest conducting the wedding is the producer of the film . Rousing musical score by Alberto Iglesias , Almodovar's ordinary ; including some marvelous songs . Colorful and luxurious cinematography in Panavision , beautifully photographed by Javier Aguirresarove .

This one-of-a-kind picture was realized in his peculiar style by Pedro Almodovar ; he often uses symbolism and metaphorical techniques to portray circular story lines though here he directs a special melodrama , including his ordinary touches . He won an Academy Award for Best Original screen-play and it was chosen by "Les Cahiers du cinéma" as one of the 10 best pictures of 2002 . Almodovar directs throughout with splendid zip and he usually portrays strong female characters and transsexuals and along his career getting some important international prizes . His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980), was made in 16 mm and blown-up to 35 mm for public release . In 1987, he and his brother Agustín Almodóvar established their own production company : El Deseo, S. A. The "Almodóvar phenomenon" has reached all over the world , making his films very popular in many countries . Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar who made successes such as Labyrinth of passions , Law of desire , Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown , Bad education , All about my mother , Broken embraces , The Skin I Live In , Volver and many others . The latest from acclaimed Spanish director , Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited (Los Amantes Pasajeros) competing for the inaugural best European comedy honor during the upcoming 26th edition of the European Film Awards

There are many who say that "Todo Sobre Mi Madre" is his best film, but now that I've seen both these movies, I give the nod - by a long way - to "Hable con Ella". This is a masterpiece, and not just because of the poignancy of the characters, or the story in general, or the way the scenes are shot - watching the matador get dressed was quite engrossing - but EVERYTHING comes together so wonderfully. The brilliance of Spanish-language films never fails to amaze me, and this is another one in that long line of greatness. There will be times where the viewer may feel somewhat uncomfortable with the characters and their actions, but that does not stop Almodovar from exploring such emotions; indeed, one sometimes gets the impression that Almodovar's entire purpose is to make you analyze your own feelings - and simply does it better than anyone else. Recommended for anyone who can read subtitles.

'Hable con ella' aka 'Talk to Her' (2002) is a powerful cinematic experience…It is not the best Almodovar and the narration is not a pristine one as more affective details could have been added. Yet the movie succeeds on so many levels. Why is that so? An original scenario and a bunch of very good actors might very well be the answer. Very baroque at time, adept of kitsch atmospheres Mr. Almodovar also has a cinematic sense of parody as well as drama. His style became famous out of Spain with movie like 'Women on the verge of a Nervous Breakdown' (1988), High Heels (1991) and Kika (1993). 'Talk to her' is no exception. It is baroque in the topic, kitsch in the atmosphere and dramatic in the output. The movie not only talks about friendship between two men but also about loneliness and wounds provoked by passion. It demonstrates how monologue can become dialogue and how silence is in fact 'eloquence of the body'. In between those silences, Benigno Martin (Javier Camera) and soon Marco Zuluaga (Dario Grandinetti) use words as weapons: weapons against Solitude first, against Death and against Madness…Yes Madness is another theme in this movie but not the 'dark madness', not the 'killing madness', but the type that is so close to tenderness and common sense that it becomes almost normality and that's exactly where Mr. Almodovar succeeds.

Benigno and Marco are both lonely men, Marco because his lover, a woman bullfighter, is in a coma, Benigno, a thirty-year old virgin Momma's boy, from habit. Both are in love, too (Benigno, a male nurse at the clinic, slavishly tends Alicia, a comatose accident victim, for a living). It is he who gives Marco, with whom he strikes up a friendship, the eponymous advice: talk, and your heartfelt monologue will be more meaningful and therapeutic than any marital dialogue.

Seeing Almodóvar's latest film was one of the most pleasurable cinema experiences I have had for some time. He has over the years amassed the technical skill and maturity to put across quite complex stories in a deceptively simple language. From the shock tactics and punk aesthetics of Pepi, Luci, Bom, y otras chicas del montón (1980), to the Oscar-winning melodrama of All About My Mother (1999), he had already come a long way. Here, finally, was an interweaving of the lives of disparate characters that was not only unabashed in its excess (it always had been), it actually made you care – deeply.

More bullfighting

At first sight Hable con ella looks like being another case study in that famously offbeat, not to say queer, book of life according to Pedro. Almodóvar's scenarios have been no strangers to sex, drugs, and heartrending canción (a particular brand of overwrought singing which knows no real Anglo-Saxon equivalent). In Hable con ella we have bullfighting, a theme he used as an excuse for kinky sex in Matador, given a contemporary treatment in the person of 'torera', Lydia (female bullfighters are indeed beginning to compete in a man's profession). Here too we have the apparently off-the-wall and by now notorious scene from the film-within-the-film, El Amante Minguante, in which a shrunken hero takes refuge in his lover's vagina for protection. But neither is gratuitous gesture: Lydia is designed to counterpoint Marco's almost feminine sensitivity, and the latter sequence, far from being there to shock, is a metaphor to spare us a far more harrowing, and morally problematic, plot truth. The ability to turn kitsch into art is increasingly one of Almodóvar's defining features.

Post-modern?

While he often refers to other artforms in his films (reality TV in Kika, Ruth Rendell in Live Flesh, canción in High Heels), since All About My Mother the technique has become more assured. Where that film was a paean to female suffering, via All About Eve and A Streetcar Named Desire, in Hable con ella we have two men sharing a tear over a performance by the dancer Pina Bausch. Other references are the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso, who sings at a party attended by (uncredited) Cecilia Roth and Marisa Paredes (from Mother), and Michael Cunningham, whose novel The Hours similarly has a tripartite structure where each section deepens and sheds light on the others ('tunnels in caves'). In other words the post-modernist borrowing is rendered invisible by being absorbed into the drama: it is not post-modern any more.

Almodóvar's choice to make a film about the loneliness and longing of men is a courageous one for a very private celebrity, a gamble to follow what might have been the peak of his career, and one which whets our appetite for what is to come.

Rating **** out of ****

Spanish Writer-Director Pedro Almodovar is a filmmaker that always captures strange, and honest moments within his characters emotions-especially women. Such films as "All About My Mother", and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" support this, but in Almodovar's latest film "Talk To Her"--he does something a little different by making men the protagasnits. It's brilliant, unique, and creative filmmaking at its best. However beneath all the brilliance is a lovely, sweet film that is charming in its own little way.

Almodovar crafts "Talk to Her" with a style that is unique in color and tone, and it has behavioral exposition that is far more mature and tonally sustained than anything he's done before. But the plot is insane as anything that Almodovar's has done before, which makes the movie more of a career-peak change, its a masterpiece constructed on the solid foundation of everything he's previously tried and learned. The movie's great, bad-boy conceit is that its two heroes, wounded-in-love journalist Marco (Dario Grandinetti) and naive nurse Benigno (Javier Camara), are hopelessly in love with women they can't communicate with -- and that really gives the two guys something to talk about, as well as a base for the strongest of friendships. Not that their women are intentionally unreachable; both, you see, are in comas.

By the end of this crazy, heart-thrilling tale, Almodovar has delivered us through un unexpecting film of humor, human emotions, specific human connections, remorse, and philosophies. "Talk to Her" is more than just a run of a talked about foreign film, and having Oscar-Nomination potential-it is one of the best movies of 2002.

This film from director Pedro Almodóvar is centred on two men; Benigno Martín and Marco Zuluaga. They first meet when they are seated next to each other in a theatre; they don't exchange a word but Benigno notices Marco's emotional reaction to the piece. We then see how Benigno works at a clinic where he cares for Alicia, a ballerina, who has been in a coma for four years. Meanwhile Marco, a journalist, is trying to secure an interview with Lydia, a matador. They become friends but then she is gored in the bullring and ends up in a coma; Marco is told there is almost no chance that she will ever recover. As he visits her he meets Benigno in the clinic. He encourages Marco to talk to Lydia but he doesn't see the point. In the events that follow we discover secrets and events take a sinister turn as we learn more about one of the men.

As one would expect from Almodóvar this film is more about characters than events. The events we do see are there to advance character development and bring the two men together. The two main characters are interesting with Javier Cámara and Darío Grandinetti impressing as Benigno and Marco respectively. Over the course of the film the characters develop in ways one might not expect as we see what a first appears to be tender love is really dangerous obsession. This is all the more disturbing as we are initially encouraged to like the character. The film is shot in a naturalistic way that suits the material. It must be admitted that there is material in the film that will bother some viewers; most notably scenes of bullfighting and a film within the film that includes a scene of a 'miniature man' climbing over then entering a woman's naked body. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of Almodóvar's other films but it certainly won't be for everybody.

These comments are based on watching in Spanish with English subtitles.

On watching "Talk To Her", one of the first things you will notice is the beauty of film-work involved. The colours are rich and saturated, the image is crisp and the camera work is superb. Smooth panning shots and steady zooms guide you safely though s slightly fractured narrative, cutting between the past, present and future on occasions.

This discontinuity, however, isn't confusing to the viewer and is, in fact, far from it. The cast act and speak so clearly that it is a perfect introduction to anyone new to foreign language film and, aside from the minor plot-line of bullfighting, there aren't an abundance of Spanish cultural references.

This film, essentially, is a complex story laid out in an extremely simple form. It is not a film you will forget and, no doubt, will think about a lot after watching it. Also, unlike a lot of critically acclaimed films, you will not be cogitating over the events that took place in the film, you will be asking yourself how they apply to your life and relationships with others. Despite "Talk To Her"'s tragic story, it is an incredibly fun film to watch and discuss with others and a film I am extremely glad I added to my collection, having heard little about it at the time I bought it. 9/10

I'll tell you a secret: I was born in spain. Thus, I grew up with the name of this director ringing in my ears all the time, since he was so "different" and "special". I couldn't watch any of his movies for long, I find them pretentious, boring and terrible.

Why, oh, why, did he have to receive an Oscar? Alright, for people who don't care about the mainstream, that means little. However, that only encouraged him more, and the Spanish media was ever so proud of him. More ringing in my ears.

Now, we have another piece of rubbish from this individual. One in which 6 bulls are actually tortured and killed FOR REAL. Just for the sake of this **** movie. It seems like the director doesn't believe 35000 bulls tortured and killed every year in spain is enough. He needed more, for the sake of a stupid movie. Or to satisfy his ego, perhaps.

I find the fact of taking a creature life for the purpose of shooting a film simply disgusting. I can tell you: most spaniards hate bullfighting. It's movies like this that give a bad name to the country I was born. And I'm not from Catalunya.

Pedro Almodovar's latest film is a welcome change of pace. Instead of making a woman's picture, this is a film that sees the action through the eyes of grown up men.

Benigno is a misfit. How can any hospital employs him to attend a coma patient, is beyond understanding. More so, when the patient is the beautiful and well endowed Alicia? Didn't anyone in management see that they were only courting trouble by letting him be in that ward.?

Marco, on the other hand, is always crying. Any little thing sets him off. His relationship with Lydia, the lady bullfighter, is interrupted by the accident she suffers and that brings him and Benigno to the same hospital at the same time.

Benigno is the one that brings the story to a happy conclusion by leaving in a tragic manner. That means no more tears for Marco, only happiness after having suffered so much throughout the film.

The acting is very good. Javier Camara is incredible as Benigno. He has a deadpan face and he says the most incredible things with a straight face. Dario Grandinetti is also very effective as Marco although the crying at times get to be too much because it happens without reason apparent.

Leonor Watling doesn't have much to say since she's in a coma most of the time. Rosario Flores makes a better impression as the bullfighter. She has a very expressive face.

The film has an interesting look that's very easy to take and enjoy. This is a surprise as Mr. Almodovar chills out after his recent films.

Have you ever noticed that only european cinema, especially french & spanish, seem able to produce this kind of black whimsical film which engages you intellectually and leaves you awakened, intrigued and excited?

Pedro Almodovar's Hable con ella (Talk to Her) will likely be one of the best film's I'll have seen from the director, if not the best so far out of (regrettably) only the handful so far. This is the kind of crazy, tragic masterpiece that good directors wish they could try for and just aren't able to totally accomplish, where dicey subject matter is handled with just the right amount of humanity to look on these people without a heap of manipulative judgment. This is a credit to Almodovar's actors, some of them he's worked with other times (the best being Javier Camera as Beningo, a supporting character who's at the part of the aching, disturbing heart of the film). But the film's success is also in how Almodovar does so much with style while sticking close to the essential parts of the story.

Here it's in looking at two male friends, a journalist (Dario Grandinetti) who has a relationship with a female bullfighter who has her own trauma after getting into the arena. The other is Benigno, who as a male-nurse looks after an ex-dancer who's in a coma. The two become close as friends, even as Benigno gets into a situation that has him in way over his head with the, yes, woman in the coma. Some of the dramatic scenes are very well handled in tone, as all the actors make this the kind of connection that draws us into characters that could in lesser hands be almost akin to a soap opera. But there are surprisingly touching scenes amid some keenly subtler ones in the film with these characters that stick with you once it's over (towards the end after Benigno's met his fate between him and Marco is one such scene). The best scenes in the film, however, are those that are given completely to Almodovar's unique use of the camera, and his imagination, as well as combining a very alarming, challenging psychological viewpoint.

The sequence with Beningo's daydream of a silent film, and a very peculiar way to get to know the intimate side of a woman is shown in such a wild, surreal way that it's on par with the insane miraculous nature of Bunuel. Scenes like this could steal the show if there wasn't a dramatic base to cover it. As it is, Almodovar's Oscar winning film has a side that is of the fantastic, but also that leaning to the realm of humanism like Renoir. You can't hate these people, ever, no matter how fragmented or torn apart or just plain wrong they might be. It's a uniquely small, identifiable world where it pops up again for me on lonely nights, wondering what it's like to be Beningo or the bullfighter. A+

"Talk to Her" tells of two men who share a common bond - female love interests in comas in the same hospital. One couple offers a baseline of normalcy with the female, a bullfighter, having been gored with important words left unspoken. The other couple is contrastingly aberrant as the one-sided relationship was spawned while the comatose female was in the care of a sexually immature male nurse who falls in love with her. The story which flows from this premise is intriguingly complex and strangely fascinating. Not the usual Hollyweird film fare, "Talk to Her" is austere and understated allowing the masterful crafting of characters and story to fuel viewer interest with realism in lieu of sensationalism. Not for hype junkies, this much lauded flick is well worth a look for those into foreign films, especially Europics, with psychodramatic overtones. (A-)

Critiquing "Hable Con Ella" (translated "Talk to Her") is a difficult task. It is unlike anything in the mainstream I have ever seen. It definitely benefits from Oscar-nominated director/Oscar-winning screenwriter Pedro Almodovar, but this is one of those movies where you know you like it and you are not really sure you know why. In modern-day Spain a beautiful young woman (Leonor Watling) sits in a coma. She has a kind male nurse (Javier Camera) who looks after her, along with other hospital staff, but something about him is off. Enter female bullfighter Rosario Flores who falls in love with journalist Dario Grandinetti and a whirlwind love affair begins. But naturally bullfighting has its occupational hazards and unfortunately the law of average catches up to Flores. Now she is in a coma, a coma she may not wake from. Grandinetti is totally distraught and upset, as you might imagine, but finds comfort in nurse Camera. They start a friendship that is linked by, of all things, their love for women who are in comas. Camera actually knew Watling (a former ballet dancer) before her terrible car accident and developed a crush on her from afar and then finally met her with mixed results. The fact that Camera may have female-dependency issues (after nursing his late mother for many years before her death) and also may have homosexual tendencies only adds more layers to an already complex story mix. But through it all he continues to talk to Watling, in spite of her condition, in the hopes that someday she will indeed reawaken. Grandinetti tries to accept Camera's views with comatose patients in stride, but his faith is not near as strong in spiritual teachings, medical technology or even Flores. Geraldine Chaplin even makes a long appearance here as Watling's former dance instructor and Almodovar pays homage to the silent film era in the most unusual ways with a sequence that is too hard to talk about or explain (you will just have to see it for yourself and draw your own conclusions). "Talk to Her" works because of its two male leads and because of Almodovar's modern cinematic brilliance in his story-telling. Watling is a stunning beauty and her appearance in the film is something truly remarkable throughout. Flores is the weakest link in a strong chain. I just never had any connection to her character and honestly I felt like she was totally wrong for the venture (the part admittedly is a bit under-developed and bland to start with though). Overall "Talk to Her" is a very strong Spanish product that stands extremely high with the slightly better Mexican product "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (both films were released in 2002). Sometimes when talking does not work, just try talking some more. 4.5 out of 5 stars.