"Talk to Her" (Language - Spanish) (2002) - Movie Review

Marco Zuluaga (Darío Grandinetti) cries for an emotionally stunning dance performance but shies away when he was asked to express his feelings to his comatose girl friend Lydia (Rosario Flores) by Benigno (Javier Cámara). Benigno thinks they can hear and very well react to them even though scientifically they are in a state of sedation. In fact he has been doing that with his patient/love Alicia (Leonor Watling). “Talk to Her” is the film of how different people handle their loneliness, love, rejection and also their obsessive affection over other person.

With the above gist of a small situation, the film is good enough to be left unsaid. There are cob webs of inter related broken hearts in the story. The characterization is done with care and detail. Marco is finding it hard to get out of the relation he had been bearing for a long time. Something about Lydia strikes him during a television interview of her. He is puzzled by her that he takes up the assignment of interviewing her who is a bull fighter. He is a man of soft skills. He does not force or even show signs of aggression unnecessarily.

The movie shows different angles of loneliness. Each angle is through the viewing of the three main characters. Marco, Benigno and Alicia. Lydia is the only one constantly in touch with a partner but finds it tough to accommodate the softness of Marco and having her mind boggled in previous relation. Marco is the guy who gets absorbed by every one but lives inside his pain of losing the loved one to some one else. He does not share it with any one and that forms the strained relationship with Lydia which is not been shown but observed by me.

Benigno is the cheerful lonely man. He knows deep inside that he does not have a dialogue with any one and in a way does not want to. As the psychiatrist says, his “special” adolescence gets missed. He misses it because he took the responsibility of taking care of his mother at a very young age. His mother dies and his ogling love becomes his object of untold obsession. Alicia learns dancing opposite to his house and she gets into coma by an accident. It is the field of Benigno, to be honest. He enjoys the four years day in and day out taking care of her. It is the purity of love he shares with her and painting it in the screen is amazingly done. He is tormented by the unreciprocated soul of her but gets consoled himself. His character is full of energy and does not shy away as Marco to express himself.

Alicia partly in her bubbling dances and a two line scene impresses not only Benigno but the audiences too. Those two sentences are the life of Benigno. He lives the life for her. He finds enjoyment in it. The film does not shed unnecessary sympathy for Benigno rather depicts hope and joy through him. It is not mentioned whether he is the one who raped Alicia or not, and leaves it to the viewers. Either way it becomes obsolete since the character is so pure for the love towards Alicia. The feeling is not making the action right but it is neglected as it gets comfortably super imposed by the emotions of him. Marco does not question him of this and this is where the movie takes its time to beautifully lay out the love in between these two men. The final meeting in between these two is the best sequence of friend ship filled with love and sympathy.

The film’s impressive ness lies in the performance and artistic transformation of it. Performance in between Darío Grandinetti and Javier Cámara forms the crux of this movie. The way they carry their character’s emotion and empathy makes the piece a subtle love story of two men who are not gay. It is kind of getting mandatory in movies to explain a relation ship between two men if they are not sexually intimate. While it is sad, if the movie demands it, it becomes necessary. This movie has delivered it with such terse ness and intensity that nobody cares about it. There is no reason to explain the emotions of two human beings as that of shared by Benigno and Marco. Pedro Almodóvar has given the new definition of depicting those through this film.

As for the artistic transformation of the movie, it is the way the pace of the movie gets it agility and beauty. The screenplay and editing needs to be high credited, since it picks up as an independent movie and races as a thriller at the end. But the writer/editor did not get held up in negating the emotions and subtleties. They glorify it with this speeding story at the end and thereby accomplishing the impossible, an independent/fast paced thriller.

The film can be viewed with multiple tones of pain. A person insanely in love with another person loses his hope when it was the most crucial time he should have had it. Benigno losing himself for the love over Alicia. It is this pain which may affect a viewer. A person who is insanely in love with a person does an action of love which is so touching and tragic. Another angle of Benigno showing his affection over Alicia. This is another reason for the pain which may affect a viewer. A person who forms an unusual bond with another person who is his complete opposite in every aspect and he continuously loses his loved ones now and then. Marco losing his last contact of being loved, that is Benigno. This is another deliverance of pain by the film. But of all, it is also the hope which exists in between Marco and Alicia, whom after so many ordeal and torment have some thing in common and “Talk to Her” opens it up to the viewers.