Pedro y Carmen

Last night I went to the NFT to see ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto! (What have I done to deserve this?!).

There is a Pedro Almodóvar/Carmen Maura series being shown there at the moment and being one of my favourite Almodóvar movies it was well worth it to go and see it in the big screen. [Unfortunately the copy was a bit worn out and the subtitles were indeed very poor - I could have translated it better]

This was in fact the first Almodóvar movie I ever saw and the first movie I ever taped from the telly when I bought my first VCR when I was about 15 years old. RTP2 - Portuguese public television - was doing an Almodóvar week (and of course I also taped The Law Of Desire). Both movies sure helped to mould my character.

¿Qué he hecho yo... is the most realistic of all Almodóvar movies and I remember thinking when I first saw it how that could have been set up in any suburb of Lisbon, and how similar must Spanish and Portuguese be. The suburbs were very alike, domestic violence and male dominance was common, lots of families lived with their grandmothers from this small hidden village, and kids would usually end up doing/selling drugs. My family wasn't like this, but I could have thought of several of our neighbours.

The NFT will be showing Entre Tinieblas (Dark Habits), Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo), Pepi, Luci, Bom..., ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto! (What have I done to deserve this?!), Matador, and Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown).

Volver is also being shown as part of a special preview for members. The movie will start in the UK at the end of the month.