User Reviews

I watched this film only because I had a list of foreign language films I was working through. As a previous reviewer mentioned, this is not a film for feminists - or for persons with any degree of compassion or good taste. Both sensibilities will be offended. At least the sets don't wiggle. A woman, Natalia, gets raped after offering an injured motorcyclist a ride and becomes obsessed with finding the motorcyclist because it turns out she's now in love with him. Cute. In the process of searching, she gets raped two more times by two thugs fighting over who gets to rape her first (I guess that was the 'erotic' part). An onlooker to this event is a bizarre man going by the nickname 'Salamander' who falls in love with Natalia. Salamander is an unattractive but sympathetic character who has a cabaret act involving him wearing a Dr. Frankenfurter-esque outfit and breathing fire. Apparently Salamander is so naturally hot he can heat cups of cold coffee with his bare hands and then bursts into flames later on out of his passion for Natalia. Natalia of course can't fall in love back since Salamander is unattractive (nice guys don't win, etc). Other goofy motifs include: 1) astrology readings set to annoying classical music, 2) slot machines with Nintendo-esque musical accompaniment, 3) a wo/man bartender who was herself raped and later started growing a beard out of primal self-defense, 4) and Natalia's husband who hasn't the faintest idea or care as to why his wife is out every night, never goes to work anymore, etc. The most level-headed and least annoying character is a woman taxi-driver who befriends Natalia. A movie for MST3K if only foreign-language rape-as-love-story films were in their repertoire.

This is one story by noted author Gabriel Garcia Marquez that never should have left the printed page: a pretentious and questionable drama following the victim of a brutal rape in her growing obsession for the rapist, inviting several anonymous attacks along the way. At best the film is reminiscent of Fassbinder on an Iberian holiday, exploring the sordid underbelly of Barcelona though various freakish peripheral characters, like a gentle transvestite prone to spontaneous combustion or a barmaid who grows a beard to repel any unwanted male attention. At worst it's a facile argument that all men are sexual predators and all (attractive) women victims (worse: willing victims) of gender aggression, told with an element of black humor difficult to reconcile with the act of rape. Opaque symbolism is everywhere, but the only real controversy about the film is whether director Jaime Chavarri wanted it to be deliberately ambivalent or just plain vague.

It is ten years since I saw this erotic, original and cheerfully irresponsible comedy-drama. I loved most of it, only the ending seemed arbitrary. Not recommended for feminists, who will be offended by the light-hearted attitude to rape.