This is a paper I had to write for one of my theatre classes on a film from the Spanish Golden Age. Like the huge dork I am, the more I worked on the paper, the more stoked I got about the movie I chose--so much so that I actually want to post the paper on here.
I include this here with a very reserved recommendation. While I thought the movie was incredible, there is a
great deal of sexual content, so this definitely isn't something I'd recommend to most people I know. But for those of you art weirdos who dig bizzaro stuff like this, it's worth Netflixing (though I don't know if you can get it on DVD). Make sure you look for the 1986 version.
“To Stop Killing is to Stop Living”
The central force driving Diego Montes in Pedro Almodovar’s Matador could be summed up by this infamous line by Montes, a retired matador whose love for bull-fighting and sexual passion overlap in his fetish for killing his lovers during sex. When his mentally disturbed bullfighting student, Angel, turns himself in for several unsolved murders about which he hallucinates, Diego discovers his equal in the woman representing Angel’s case. An avid follower of Diego’s career, Maria, Angel’s lawyer, developed her murder technique, which involves stabbing her victims in the neck with a hairpin, to mimic Diego’s perfect bullfighting form. While the police investigate Angel’s case, Diego and Maria investigate each other, and all parties succeed in discovering the truth. The murders that Angel claimed were not his own, but visions of Diego’s crimes. As police follow Angel’s strange hallucinations to find the disappeared Diego, they come to Maria’s secret home—a shrine to Diego’s career—where the lovers have fled to consummate their passion. The story climaxes as they do. While Diego and Maria peak, the moon comes into full eclipse, and they watch each other die—mutual victims, mutual lovers.
Though released in 1986, Matador is a picturesque Spanish Golden Age production. As its plot dances through the mystery of a duel, a bullfight, and a love scene, Almodovar reveals the strong Spanish ideals that continue to drive present-day society, thus proving that such a mentality is not quite as archaic as one might think.
Even as the opening credits roll, Matador instantly establishes the connection between sex, murder, dance, and a bullfight. The film switches between clips of Diego explaining proper bullfighting technique and a woman, who we later learn is the lawyer Maria, seducing, sleeping with, and then slaying her lover, a terrible but beautiful “Dance of Death.” To a flamenco underscore, Diego and Maria perform nearly identical steps, building up to the moment where both victims, man and bull, die from a perfectly placed stab in the back of the neck. Maria’s obsession with Diego, fueled by the way his performances both arouse and inspire her, develops into her own style of bullfighting. The lovers even mimic a bullfight with each other, including horns and cape, as a part of their foreplay in the final scene. Like Spanish Golden Age theatre, sexuality permeates the piece in a way that challenges the boundaries of social acceptability. Though the Golden Age Spanish did not include full sex scenes in their plays, bringing out a blood soaked woman in nothing but a nightgown in Love After Death, was equally raunchy for the time. Besides blatant sexuality, Matador also includes strong innuendos. For example, Diego is well known for making amazing sausages, which he holds during the scene in which he initially sees Maria, then offers to her during their first meeting. Along with sex, Almodovar does not shy away from gore and violence, another strikingly Spanish element. Angel’s disturbing visions are filled with slaughter and dead bodies. While the violence and sexuality portrayed are initially shocking, the erotic undertone to the scenes makes them both repulsive and compelling. Like the Golden Age audience, a modern viewer is inappropriately turned on by the same material that he knows should be offensive.
As a balance to the passion and sexuality, Almodovar, like his theatrical ancestors, builds the story upon the foundational ideals of honor and the Catholic faith. While nearly all of the characters profess to be religious, only a few, like Angel’s mother, follow Catholicism closely. When pressed, most consider honor and passion to be more important than following all of the rules—better to live now and repent later. Also like multi-cultural Spain, this community adopts superstitions from traditions outside the church, like the idea that an eclipse portends danger. Especially for the central lovers, though, honor trumps religion. For instance, Maria, a traditional dama character type, holds such power through her intelligence and strength that the media considers her a “cold-blooded feminist,” and Angel’s mother accuses her of being an atheist. Like a Golden Age Spaniard, she prefers to die in the peak of glory than to be dishonored. In a way, Maria’s reputation as a lawyer and the secret pleasure she gets as a sexual matador constitute her honor, so as a way of preserving it, she prefers dying while taking her prize bull over being discovered for her crimes. For Montes, the same holds true. As he begins to understand that he will soon be charged for Angel’s alleged murders, Diego craves a dramatic, blazing finale. From their perspective, the lovers die well. Moreover, Diego’s dishonoring Angel by questioning his sexuality ignites the main action of the play. In a desperate response to prove himself a man, Angel tries to rape Diego’s girlfriend, Eva, in a darkly comical scene where he threatens her with a pocket knife. After several failed attempts to locate which part of the device is the actual knife, Angel ejaculates prematurely between her legs, a comically pathetic moment in an otherwise dramatic scene. Such Spanish blending of comedic elements into a tragedy helps balance the intensity of the subject matter.
Lastly, Matador includes the classic Don Juan archetype in both the characters of Diego and Angel, and to a strong degree in Maria. Diego Montes, however, exemplifies the most pure version of Don Juan as a famous, retired matador, who achieves greatness in all his ventures. Still as suave as ever, fans adore Montes. He succeeds as a bullfighting instructor and sausage maker, an obvious innuendo suggesting his sexual prowess, which is further confirmed by his utterly addicted girlfriend, the famous model Eva Soler. Like Tirso de Molina’s Don Juan, Diego seduces many women to the point that they recklessly submit to him. However, to more strongly shock his audiences, Almodovar allows Diego’s women to surrender more than just their sexual purity. In writing the story thus, Almodovar modifies the classic Spanish concept in order to test the boundaries of social toleration in the same way that parallel subjects would challenge Golden Age viewers. To further qualify Diego’s status, Almodovar uses Angel as a foil. As a “wannabe” Don Juan, Angel definitely has the sexual appeal, evidenced in how the psychiatric nurses are seduced by his charms despite the fact that he is rumored to be a serial murderer. Like Don Juan, they know his reputation, but fall for him anyway. However, unlike the teacher he idolizes, Angel’s weak stomach at the sight of blood undermines his masculinity. Arguably, Maria surpasses Angel in this, and though a woman, proves a powerful Don Juan herself. Clearly equal to Montes in seduction and murder, Maria even confronts Diego while using the men’s restroom and seems to take the lead in their double suicide. Bringing Montes into her chosen location and actually executing both suicides, she exemplifies a commanding Don Juan.
Still, comparisons of Almodovar’s classic could fill pages more. The “aggressively different” style defines classic “Spanish-ness” as it continues to pertain today. Forget Shakespeare, the Spanish have a truer grasp on romance. With lines like, “I’ve looked for you in all the men I’ve loved,” and “Nobody has ever kissed me like this—before now I’ve always made love alone,” viewers could only hope to find a love so intense. The lovers’ passion and eroticism nearly glorify their heinous crimes, solidifying this film within the ranks of Golden Age greats from centuries ago.
