Bad Education

Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, know love, the movies and fear in a religious school at the beginning of the 60's. Father Manolo, director of the school and its professor of literature, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three are followed through the next few decades, their reunion marking life and death.

La Mala Educacion is a fascinating, dark crime film by Pedro Almodovar, in which he once again confirms that he is the master of style, pure and simple. Everything in La Mala Educacion is stylized, even though everything and everyone is rather seedy and obscure. Almodovar makes excellent use of bright colors that pop from the screen, a Hitchcockian score, and excellent cinematography to lead his audience into this mysterious, bizarre world created by the characters.

I loved the storyline because Almodovar incorporated the movie-in-a-movie sub-plot and it works really well. Besides, it's impossible to get lost because he augments the width of the image to mark when we are watching the movie and when we are watching what is really happening. An inventive technique... don't think you're getting Inland Empire-style narration or anything. Other than that, the plot is very noir, it's very classic but with certain Almodovar touches to make it even darker.

Gael Garcia Bernal is great as Ignacio/Juan/Zahara. He plays eccentric characters, or characters with secrets, and he does it with great talent and credibility. But Fele Martinez plays a much more "ordinary" character, one would say, managing to make it much more extraordinary -his vulnerability and his indignation are so well portrayed. Both actors deliver incredible performances, and they're the highlights of the film.