Saturday March 19 - movies
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 14, 2011
Black Butterfly(2006) SBS Two, 11.15pmAs in real life, being an incorruptible magistrate in the celluloid world is tantamount to a death wish. So it is for Guido Pazos, a Peruvian judge brutally relieved of his life by the forces of darkness when he refuses to accede to their agenda. Angela, a hard-bitten journalist with a Lima tabloid, has no compunction when it comes to acceding to her editor's insistence that the judge's death be reported in the most lurid fashion. Is her sense of ethics compromised by the fact that she has been having it off with the boss? She's not a hypocrite but a realist who accepts immorality as an inevitability. "Gay Judge Dies In Faggot Orgy" is the headline to her story. Needless to say this outrageous example of literary licence doesn't go down well with the late judge's fiancee, Gabriela. She kicks up a fuss and demands the paper restore her late partner's reputation. Stung by guilt and a belated burst of ethical remorse, the hard-partying Angela ingratiates herself with Gabriela and together they hatch a plan for vengeance that leads them to the upper echelons of Peru's powerful elite and the Fujimori regime's security topcat, the man ultimately responsible for Guido's murder and mutilation.Volver(2006) SBS One, 10.05pmRaimunda (Penelope Cruz), accompanied by her daughter Paula and sister Sole (Lola Duenas), travels from Madrid to the town of Alcanfor de las Infantas where their mother, father and aunt Irene, who all perished in a fire some years ago, are buried. A senile old aunt who raised the sisters tells them that Irene didn't die in the fire with their parents. Long-standing village rivalries emerge and later, back in the capital, Paula meets her mother at the bus stop and tells her there's been big trouble back home. Her unemployed dad, drunk and randy, has tried to rape her and she has killed him in self defence. Sound like a lunchtime sudser? Yes, but this is Pedro Almodovar, meaning a fierce feminism is at work alongside the notion of restless ghosts and, perhaps, reincarnation. The motif of women cleaning tombstones in the dusty La Mancha bone orchard is memorable, suggesting a timeless continuity that women seem to accept. Is Almodovar overtly paying tribute to the women in his life through Cruz's cleavage. "I am a gay man," he says, "but I love breasts."
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