Bad Education

Imdb synopsis: An examination on the effect of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on the lives of two longtime friends.

Whoa. This movie was kind of outside our regular realm of movies, but it's a Thursday night and we're making enchiladas so Spanish foreign film it was.

I really enjoy Almodovar movies- he has a way of making long movies engaging and he likes to lead his viewer into a false sense of security before revealing his coup de grace. His stories are simple and very character-driven- minimal sets and/or changes but lots of contact between his characters. I really enjoyed Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Volver, so we assumed Bad Education would be just as good.

And it was. But the content wasn't something we were entirely prepared for.

Knowing nothing about this movie except that Gael Garcia Bernal was in the cast, we popped it in and sat back only to start playing chicken fifteen minutes in- I can handle this, can you? Bad Education is complicated movie about the lasting effects of child molestation, first love and blackmail. And transvestites.

Overall, I thought this was a good movie. It was interesting to see another culture's take on cross-dressing and homo-sexuality and I think the difference is that these plot points weren't only used for the shock-value (though that was there), it was actually a useful device to further the story. Also, Bernal is a fabulous cross-dresser. 

I looked over at Mr. E at the end and asked him how he felt about the movie and he responded, "As a film director...you have to watch a lot of different movies. Even one's you don't normally watch."