Javier Cámara is mesmerizing in Pedro Almodóvar’s unforgettable TALK TO HER
HABLE CON ELLE (TALK TO HER) (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday, August 28, 6:15
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
Pedro Almodóvar followed up his Oscar-winning Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) with the 2002 New York Film Festival selection Talk to Her, a remarkable story of two men who become friends as they take care of two female coma patients in a private facility. You won’t be able to take your eyes off wide-eyed Javier Cámara as the simple-minded and oddly dedicated male nurse Benigno, who oversees the needs of patient-dancer Alicia (Leonor Watling). Darío Grandinetti is excellent as writer Marco Zuloaga, who falls hard for bullfighter and eventual patient Lydia (Rosario Flores). There are long stretches of little or no dialogue, including a riotous silent film-within-the-film, and two performances by Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater, one featuring Bausch herself. A very clever Almodóvar slyly continues the art leitmotif by hiring a Spanish-speaking Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of the great silent-film star. Talk to Her, yet another treasure from one of the world’s most inventive filmmakers, is screening at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the ongoing series “50 Years of the New York Film Festival,” which continues with such fine works as Lars von Trier’s Dogville, Jia Zhang-ke’s The World, Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, and Jafar Panahi’s Offside. Individual tickets for the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Film Festival, which runs September 28 through October 14, go on sale to the general public on September 9.