All About Almodóvar: High Heels

Almodóvar gives free rein to his most outrageous impulses in High Heels, a delectably tasteless postmodern soap opera. Irreverently channelling sordid Old Hollywood sagas like Mommie Dearest, this art-damaged cocktail of glamour, resentment, sex, pills and murder teeters wildly between ludicrous melodrama and lacerating satire. High Heels may not be Almodóvar’s most revered effort, but it boasts two perfectly pitched leads (Marisa Paredes as a man-eating, globe-trotting pop star; Victoria Abril as her unstable, long-neglected daughter) and the scarlet stamp of its director’s caustic wit. It may come on like an old-fashioned tearjerker, but when it really gets unhinged–an astonishing live TV confession translated into sign language, an out-of-nowhere song and dance number in the most fashionable women’s prison in film history–you’re more likely to be crying of laughter. Dir. Pedro Almodóvar, 1991, DCP, 112 min.