Broken Embraces : un film de Almodovar

Saturday. A free Saturday. Clearly there's only one thing to do...go to the cinema. If it's a Saturday then it's usually the Barbican Centre - only (only?) £8, and the chance to walk around somewhere that's a cross between the United Nations building and Fox Base Alpha, and that's even before you descend to cinema 1, deep in the volcanic bowels of the Barbican.

And what to see? Given the size of the screen it's got to be something beautiful, lush and cinematic - so it's Almodovar.

Broken Embraces is a film about a film. Most people at that point have probably given it the 'jeez' response or shouted 'self regarding nonsense'. However, it's also Almodovar and is therefore something close to genius. You know roughly that certain elements will always feature. Blood, death, nudity, upper ladies' areas aplenty. And you also know that there will be wide-eyed, storyboard moments when you gasp or wince but are surrendered to the beauty of what you've just seen. No families are as simple or as complicated as Almodovar's - something will generally be revealed or go wrong, and yet everyone seems to take it in their stride - I suppose we all do that a bit in real life though (he said profoundly).

White sand, black sand, sunshine, drinks in a bar, drugs and sexualities. You'll get a series of wonderful performances, an ambiguous ending, a visually sumptuous red velvetty feeling thing of beauty. You'll be hooked by 2 films, by the jealousy and by the references to cinema throughout.

One slightly odd thing is that the Lottery has funded the release of a Warners distributed film, if I read all the logos in the right order. This seems a bit strange. Always good to see the 'you're at the Barbican' film, as well as the Eurocinemas thing at the start as well. I likes things like that. The more logos the better I say.