Pepi, Luci, Bom (1981)

I'll tell you why so serious

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Actually this is my favorite Almodóvar film because he wasn't trying to please or appease anyone with this movie, he just says what he wants to say and does it in a very original and (at the time) provocative way. A bit dated now but still a brilliant deconstruction of Spanish culture with zany characters taken straight out of a John Waters movie. It's also the only one of his movies where Almodóvar (looking VERY young) makes an appearance himself (as the judge of a penis size competition no less). Considering that this movie was made in less than a week with a budget of around $5,000, it's actually quite well done. The cinematography is probably the weak point but the story is great and the characters a parody of everything good and bad about Spain in the 80's. It is full of in-your-face-irreverent kind of humor as well as great little cultural bits and references that only native Spanish speakers or people familiar with Spanish culture will get. One of my favorites is the song "Murciana Marrana" that Alaska and her punk rock band sing as an ode to her new found lesbian lover and repressed house wife - hilarious lyrics and pure 80s punk rock at its best. The movie itself is really genius and despite some technical shortcomings, it's a real gem.

Almodovar was an employer in a very important telephonical center when he directed this film. He was like in Doctor Jeckyll and Hyde, a man with a double life: a young and shy worker during the day, and a crazy artist in the night. The mytical Rockola Discotheque, where Almodovar and his friend Fabio McNamara has singed songs so greatest as "Satanasa", "Gran Ganga" or "Suck it to me", there was la "movida madrileña", years when Madrid was similar to Paris in 1900, a mix of cultures and young artists, a bohemian atmosphere, another world that Almodovar showed in his cult movie. When Pedro filmed this film, he had never seen a John Waters`film, he didn`t know anything about John Waters and Pink Flamingos! but he was friend of Alaska, the greatest spanish diva who debut in this film as an actress. Alaska is one of the most intelligent girls in the world, she knows everything about King Arthur, Comics, Universal Monsters, Troma, 70`s Music and, of course, she has discovered the John Waters movies before anyone in Spain. Alaska showed a tape of "Pink Flamingos" to Pedro Almodovar and, after this, Pedro was shocked, and though "I want to make movies as badtasted as it is"... and I believed he has got it, with "Pepi, Luci, Bom..." Almodovar became to the Spanish King of Trash Cinema. As crazy and cool director as John Waters, but Almodovar has got an Oscar!!!

An excellent document of La Movida Madrilen~a (the Newave movement in Madrid, Spain). Bom is played by Spanish pop star, Alaska, when she was the teenage queen of Madrid's punk scene. Great performances by Alaska y Los Pegamoides in their beginning stage. Follow this film with Almodovar's second, "Laberinto de pasiones" (another great document of La Movida) for more great Nueva Ola!!

When seeing this film you try to say: OK, Almodóvar is improving his films with time and this (his first one)could be the best of his earlier films. However, you begin to disappoint with the first dialogue (silly and absurd, no provocative), and it's better if we don't talk about the papers and acting (what happend to great Carmen Maura?!!).If you take the challenge and go on seeing the film, it's full of bad directing, worse cinematography and the worst story and dialogues I've ever heard and seen. In sum, it's rubish.