Arnon Grunberg

Disappointments

The lusts

I mostly liked Almodóvar’s movies, but I never loved them.
Anthony Lane is critical about Almodóvar’s latest movie “Broken Embraces”: "The clarity and sheen of the film are typically startling, and no living director is more expert in the weaving of matching details; this time, however, the lusts and disappointments of the characters come close to being smothered—and rendered strangely unmoving—by the surfeit of cleverness and cool.”

I came close to loving “Broken Embraces”. It’s pure melodrama, and it doesn’t claim to be anything else than just that. But it’s refreshing to see that beauty is for Almodóvar more important than morality, which is in contemporary cinema often nothing but a bundle of so-called family values.