Almodóvar in awe, all over again, of the opposite sex. (Michael Cunningham's novel, The Hours, can be spied at one point as bedside reading, and we might well speculate that Almodóvar would have killed to be the filmmaker who brought it to the screen.) The first half, delineating the central quartet of a male nurse, a bald journalist, a lady bullfighter, and a comatose dancer who embodies the Mystery of Woman, is played with such simplicity and sincerity as to raise the interest and hopes of the director's non-fans, and to sow uneasiness among the faithful. The second half restores order, in particular the ostensible silent-movie pastiche involving an incredibly shrinking man and a foam-rubber vagina. (An image ripped from the reels of another provocateur, Bertrand Blier, Femmes Fatales.) The color, in a warm palette weighted toward red, rust, orange, and yellow, can be appreciated by anyone. Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores, Geraldine Chaplin. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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