FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Pedro Almodovar - Matador 

When the German Almodovar box set came on the market, Matador from 1986 was surprisingly missing alongside Pepi, Luci, Bom (...). After all, this is my old partner Skulli's favourite Almodovar film and he immediately complained in horror. In 1986, Almodovar was Spain's most disreputable (and at the same time most respected) filmmaker and he faced that with Matador. In great seriousness, because Matador is nothing other than an attack on all that is considered common conventions. The matador's name is Diego (Nacho Martinez). He limps, his eyes are tired - and yet he is still extremely charismatic. He had to retire from the ring after a bull took him on its horns. Now he runs a school for bullfighters. Maria (Assumpta Serna), on the other hand, is a successful lawyer. We get to know Diego as he watches videos at home in which young beautiful women are beheaded. Scenes that remind Diego of the happiness of the past. Meanwhile, somewhere in Madrid, Maria experiences hot sex with a stranger. At the climax, she pulls out a hatpin and stabs her lover clean in the neck. Like a bullfighter. One may assume that both their lives would have been unfulfilling - if it weren't for Angel (Antonio Banderas) and Eva (Eva Cobo). Angel lives with his mother (who bullies him), is still a virgin at 20. He has second sight. Eva is Diego's young & pretty lover. Once Angel tries to rape Eva. But he does not even succeed in pulling out his pocket knife. A performance so ridiculous that Eva does not press charges. Hurt in his manhood, Angel even confesses to murders he never committed. Murders that apparently Diego and Maria committed - which is why Maria decides to defend Angel for the sake of justice. True love - a cynical game in the world of Pedro Almodovar! In the 80s, the defiant treatment of taboo subjects became Almodovar's trademark. At the same time, he always left a lot of room for interpretation, which - I imagine - must have given Almodovar the greatest pleasure. On the surface, Matador is about the impossible love between male and female bullfighters. Who stabs whom first? But if you look at Spain's past, at Franco's dictatorship, you will draw some parallels. In an interview, Almodovar even once denied that Franco ever existed. Matador is performed with absolute conviction and so we are even inclined to believe that General Franco never existed.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Pier Paolo Pasolini - Edipo Re 

It's never easy to describe Pasolini films, let alone evaluate them. It works like a holding pattern. Maybe next week I'll think Edipo Re is bad. Or maybe I'll decide it's one of the best films by this mysterious director? That's the way it is with this kind of auteur film of the 60s. You leave the cinema and at first you can't think of anything you've just seen. Would the elements of the film then flow together into an overall statement? Summarising the plot is never helpful. There are always political and social questions hidden behind the surface. Pasolini tells his stories in a spare, passive camera style. The music is thin, often eerie. His figures act as if in a trance. And then his films end, well, how? In fear and horror? Or joy? In any case, little Edipo is left to die in the desert (by his own father!) - found and raised like a king. The prophecy that he is chosen to kill his father and marry his mother terrifies him. He flees, colliding with an elderly stranger on the run, whom he kills in a duel.... Pasolini's Edipo is born in 1940s Italy and dies in the present - in 1960s Italy. This is exquisitely illustrated visually, abandoning the classic style of tragedy and telling the story in a more human way. And of course, Pasolini's Epido is a very pretty boy! Pasolini tells the story sparsely and coldly and his characters remain just as rigid. They never really catch fire in the Moroccan desert. And now?