Gay Bullshit : Matador, Laberinto de pasiones & Ley del deseo

They're all three "guion y direccion Pablo Almodovar" from his early period, back before we fixed sex. Back when he still sucked. Back in the 80s, the years de mierda.

They're all depicting a derpy if untalented twink you might know as the "sex symbol" Antonio Banderas. Because that's the sort of utterly ignare nobodies you are, picking your food off the dirty flooring of obscure porn industries.

They're all meanⁱ to a staggering, shocking degree, production values unseen in the cheapest pornos are a bridge too far for early Almodovar.

They're all utterly unwatchable.

They're all nonsensical, poorly written, worse acted, miserable miseries with no head or tail or much in betweenⁱⁱ, completely bereft of redeeming features whatsoever.

They're what exploitative attempts at cultural appropriation would look like if, instead of being driven by commercial interest and all the intelligence that usually chases money, they were driven by simple, decerebrated stupidity. Unreflective, structurally incapable of meaning, Almodovar's productions are cinematographic smegma -- it's not impossible for someone to like them, but such a circumstance would be descriptive of the liker's psychopathologies and not much more besides.

That's it.

1. In the proper sense of that term : "of the common man, typical for the common man". Like poverty, like "cleverness" aka sheer stupidity, like body odour. Like something from Balzac, mean as opposed to grand. [↩]
2. Occasional tidbits, such as the overcontrolling, overcatholic mother ; or such as the girl that refuses to file rape charges because the guy didn't even manage, but merely tried (came in between her legs, she says) and who the hell cares anyway, it's like the third time this year (her mother, present and aware, comments that "this isn't a plate of choice") ; or such as the little girl that confesses her love for the married, adult neighbour to her mother, who has no problem speaking of it to the neighbour in question, to the mortification of the loving little girl -- universally sound much better recounted than they work on film. It takes a special talent to turn good ideas into shitty VHS tape, and Almodovar's got just the very special talent needed. Oodles of it! [↩]