ITESM-CEM

Arantxa María López Méndez

967305
Literature of New Media
Jochen Siess
Monday, August 17th, 2009.

Homework #2 : Favorite Movie Short Essay

People communicate. They communicate with their words, feelings and actions.
Although saying this would mean that everybody understands each other; and
that’s a lie. “Talk to her” is one of my favorites movies, with its original title
“Hable con ella”, it treats about the miscommunication between men and
women, how the messages they try to convey to the other party do not always
reach or reach in an appropriate way and how feeling and obsessions can
worsen those intents to communicate.

One of the aspects that makes “Talk to her” one of my favorite movies is the
great representation or meaning of existence of the characters in the work.
Although we may not see represented the most conventional characters of
what they are representing they sure do show you that meaning and let you
see the other part of that type of character. They have a great flaw that usually
is completely opposite of that type of character, making them more human.
Lyda may be taken as the portrait of a strong woman because of her work as
matador but she has a phobia for rats diminishing his supposed to be strong
character.

Other aspect is the great acting and use of backgrounds within the movie.
Acting properly conveys the feelings and the intentions of the characters at the
time. Javier Cámara who acts as Benigno is a great example to that, showing
how a person sick of loneliness and social retracted would live their live, and
although the character really doesn’t make great actions at the beginning that
show his instability you know something is really twisted in him. The colors of
the background utility, as a tradition for Almodóvar, have very bright colors.
Those bright colors and contrasts go according to the feelings of the characters
and they made it easier to convey them to you, like when they are interviewing
Lydia about her past love, all the background of the T.V. set was of bright
colors, showing the confrontation to be between Lydia and the interviewer.

Lastly, that there are elements that are supposed to be background elements,
but in fact they are elements representing the whole movie itself or a
significant part of it. One of them is the music, but not the background one.
Caetano Veloso’s “Cuccuruccu Paloma” is the example to that. The lyrics talk
about the longing for another person despite the impossible meaning of it
which is represented in the movie by the feelings of longing for Alicia and Lydia
the men have, how they want them, but they cannot reach them anymore. The
second one is the ballet play that is performed in the movie. It shows how with
every soldier that falls a dancer arises to replace them and it is shown in the
movie because when Benigno dies, Alicia rises too (awakes from the comma).

“Talk to her” is a great movie, even the original title hits you with the purpose
of the movie since its verb is in past tense, showing that the action have
already occurred be it successful or not. The great acting and the use of the
elements that are not that usually exploited to their maximum capacity like
music and background events makes this one of my favorite movies.