'Matador' (NR)

'Matador' (NR)

Early in Pedro Almodvar's "Matador," a woman (Assumpta Serna) dressed in a cape, with sleek black hair, picks up a man on the street and retires to a nearly empty office, where, as they reach the end of their lovemaking, she removes the pin holding up her hair and plunges it into the base of his neck, killing him instantly.

Intercut with this scene are shots in which Diego (Nacho Martinez), a bullfighter so famous he's become a national hero, teaches the students in his class the various techniques for thrusting a sword into a bull for the kill.

A doctorate in semiology isn't required to decipher the connection being made here. In fact, the director's lack of subtlety in making it is part of the high comic beauty of the moment. And this basic link only serves to set the stage for even wilder, more hilarious flights. It situates us in the symbolic landscape where Almodvar's films take place -- in the terrain where camp and pornography and poetry converge.

This is a heady combination and perhaps, for those who haven't seen any of the director's other films, a shockingly new one. "Matador" is about characters who, for various reasons, have moved outside the customary sexual arenas in search of kickier thrills. The matador, who because of a near-fatal goring has retired from the ring, is seen at the beginning of the film arousing himself with grisly excerpts from slasher videos, and later in bed, he can respond to his girlfriend (Eva Cobo) only after she has agreed to play dead.

Also, women students from his bullfighting class begin to drop out of sight. And to up the ante, another of Diego's students, a virginal young romantic named Angel (Antonio Banderas), tries to impress his master by raping the older man's girlfriend and, after botching the job, confesses his crime to the police. Once he starts confessing, though, he can't stop, and before he's through, he's claimed responsibility for a whole string of murders, including those perpetrated by both Diego and Maria Cardinal, the hairpin killer.

The motives behind the actions of the characters here aren't explored -- their behavior is merely laid out for you to marvel at. And at times, you can't quite believe your eyes. Almodvar, who directed "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" and the recently released "Law of Desire," isn't interested in normalcy; instead he aims for exaggeration, unreality, obsession. And where other directors would turn back, he pushes on, all the way to the lunatic edge.

"Matador" isn't as complex as "Law of Desire," and the characters aren't so much real figures as embodiments of psychological drives and impulses. They represent places in the head Almodo'var would like to visit.

Still, the director and his screen-writing partner, Jesus Ferrero, draw them with great conviction. There's sincerity even in the final scene when Diego and Maria -- clearly a match made in Heaven -- spread out a cape in front of the fire and sprinkle it with rose petals in preparation for their final pleasure. But the sincerity here is of a special cracked sort -- the brand that induces laughter but is undiminished by it.

"Matador" contains all manner of weirdnesses, sexual and otherwise.

Copyright The Washington Post

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