Love and death are two most popular subjects in the works of art, but there are only a few artists ready to explore the connection between the two. This is especially so in the world of seventh art - connection between Eros and Tanathos was often exploited, but never explicitly portrayed. In 1980s, decade that witnessed such exploitation in the form of horror films featuring horny teenagers turned into knife-fodder, one Spanish author based his entire film on this particular concept. This film was Matador, 1986 black comedy directed by Pedro Almodovar.
Almodovar pays ironic homage to slasher films in the very first scene, which features the protagonist, ex-bullfighter Diego Montes (played by Nacho Martinez), masturbating while watching scenes of women being killed and disfigured on video. Diego might be pervert, but he seems quite normal compared to Maria Cardenal (played by Assumpta Serna), beautiful lady lawyer who seduces young men only to fatally stab them with a hairpin in the moment of orgasm. Angel (played by Antonio Banderas), young student in Diego's bullfighter school, has another set of problems - due to hyper-religious upbringing, he is still a virgin. When Diego hints about his possible homosexuality, Angel reacts by raping Diego's girlfriend and fashion model Eva (played by Eva Cobo). Afterwards he goes to police and confesses not only this crime, but also a whole series of sexually motivated murders that occurred in Madrid during previous months. Angel is represented by Maria, who sees his client and the whole case as a way to start sexual relationship with his former tutor. In the same time, police inspector (played by Eusebio Poncela) is not utterly convinced of Diego's guilt and decides to continue investigation.
Few critics in 1990s used to compare this film to Basic Instinct, mainly because of the murder scenes that take place in the beginnings of both films. However, the similarities between Matador and Verhoeven's mother of all erotic thrillers are only superficial. While Verhoeven used sexually motivated killings as nothing more than an excuse to compensate weak murder mystery with images of sex and nudity, Almodovar is quite explicit in equating sexual lust and death wish - two of the most powerful instincts from the depths of human subconscious. This is hardly surprising, because Almodovar grew up in Spain, country where Eros and Tanathos often get intertwined in various forms of national culture. This is especially case with bullfighting, traditional phenomenon in which ritualistic killing is associated with the thrill that is often erotic in its nature. Almodovar decided not to be very subtle about this, probably trying to compensate decades in which his countrymen, bound by fascist dictatorship and ultra reactionary Catholic Church, had to suppress both their progressive ideas and their secret desires. With new freedoms, those desires found the way to express themselves in forms that might be bizarre, shocking, and, like in the case of this film's protagonists, downright pathological. Almodovar is, however, quite sympathetic to his characters, and he rewards their uncompromising loyalty to passion with the melodramatic, stylish finale which transcends traditional morality. Almodovar, however, nevertheless pays attention to those viewers who might feel squeamish about characters' actions, so he deliberately makes all of them over the top, sometimes even cartoonish, and thus bringing the necessary humour to this macabre tale.
Of course, Almodovar couldn't have made such impact without using his talent of the Spain's greatest director. Campiness and kitsch of the whole story is accentuated with the use of bright colours and outlandish costumes, dominated by red. However, the ironic distance, necessary for us to see this film as a black comedy, is achieved through clever casting of very talented actors. Non-Spanish audience today would hardly recognise anyone except Banderas in his early age and Assumpta Serna as very different version of Stone's archetypal killer woman in Basic Instinct. However, the best casting decision was Nacho Martinez as bullfighter; although he looks more like a wimpish clone of Jeremy Irons and therefore rather unsuitable for the role of ultra macho toreador, Martinez used this image with great comedic effect. Eva Cobo and Eusebio Poncela are also quite fine in their, rather understated performances, but some other actors have their roles either overextended (like Almodovar himself as director of fashion show) or not developed enough (like Carmen Maura as forensic psychiatrist who falls in love with Angel). The ending of the film seems somewhat rushed, with some plot developments, like Angel's psychic abilities, being brought as distracting deus ex machina in the last minute. However, even with that, Matador as outrageous, "artsy", morbid yet incredibly funny piece of cinema must be recommended as one of the best European films of the 1980s.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on October 20th 2000)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/8047-matador?language=en-US Critic: AAA
