Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/shoojit-sircars-october-pedro-almodovars-talk-to-her-and-the-mystery-of-pure-romanticism-4442259.html
When a rapturously received film doesn’t quite incite the same kind of rapture in you, it can make you feel somewhat guilty – especially if you are a critic. I felt this guilt, recently, while watching (and later, reviewing) Shoojit Sircar’s October. It’s such a different film, with a mainstream star (Varun Dhawan) taking on such a different role, and the rhythms of the writing (Juhi Chaturvedi) are so different… I wanted to love it, and I felt guilty about merely liking parts of it: the sum of these beautiful parts did not add up to a satisfying whole. It was a tough film to write about, because putting my finger on why exactly I had these reservations was… difficult. There’s so much left unsaid, that saying something precise about the film turned into a formidable challenge.
So after writing my review, I re-watched Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk to Her (2002), to see if this film I love (I think it’s one of his flat-out masterpieces) could tell me more about the film I merely liked. Talk to Her tells a vaguely similar story, about two men – Benigno and Marco – who strike up a friendship in the hospital where two women – Alicia and Lydia – lie comatose. As in October, we don’t get too much backstory about the women, but we do know what they did before they ended up in this state (Alicia was a dancer, Lydia a bullfighter), and this adds an invisible layer of emotion. This is not a whose-plight-is-sadder comparison with October’s heroine, Shiuli, a hotel-management trainee who ends up in a coma. But to see two women whose identities were defined by movement, now lying so still…
Continued at the link above.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Vikram S
April 23, 2018
BR, thanks for the article. Almodovar is a favorite of mine, but then there is the problem of access. I haven’t checked on Netflix yet but the other apps don’t have anything by Almodovar. If I may ask, what is your source 🙂 thanks in advance (I will understand if you don’t want to provide a precise answer 🙂 )
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Naveen
April 23, 2018
Waiting for your Beyond The Clouds review boss.
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brangan
April 23, 2018
Vikram S: I have lots of DVDs… Every time someone comes from abroad, they know what to get me 🙂
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Anu Warrier
April 23, 2018
In any case, for there to be a loving relationship it is only necessary for one person to love.
I said this on your review of Almodovar’s movie as well – this is scary on so many levels. And no, it’s not just ‘man-made’ rules.
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Vivek narain
April 23, 2018
A lady matador! that’s the height of machoism. There is the Chase’s Cade where a top matador is bewitched by Juana and is gored by bull, and there is a Saint story,again a retired top matador is slyly lured to spar with a rhino by his movie star wife and a friend, only that Saint takes over the sparring and rescues the matador.And i thought romanticism is, Scarlett O’ Hara descending the stairs in all her finery, watched by a group of admirers waiting for her in the big hall.
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brangan
April 23, 2018
Anu Warrier: It is a scary thing. No doubts about that. The point I am talking about is that such a character is being treated with empathy….
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Prashila
April 23, 2018
BR, loved, loved this piece.
But…
A similarly complicated scene occurs in October,
I haven’t watched October, but purely on face value of the action that follows in this sentence, the complication here is nothing similar to the silent horror in Talk to Her. Dan hires a beautician to do her eyebrows. No. 1, Shiuli is a modern trendy young woman who clearly must have had done her eyebrows before, so this is not an experience that would take her by shock in her comatose state. No. 2, Dan hires a professional to do it, doesn’t try doing it himself (ah, well, then the movie would be a Judwaesque comedy, but still… 🙂 ) . The violation of personal space is there, absolutely, but Talk to Her’s ‘romanticism’ is intrusive, abusive, disturbing and so hardly romanticism. And making Benigno benign does not help in making his actions any more empathetic. It has been years since I watched Talk to Her. But that scene where Benigno is sponging Alicia’s limp but well tended-to (of course by Benigno) body, as her morose father watches them both, continues to bother me till date. Benigno treating her like she is his property. Her disturbed father not venting out his displeasure because he thinks Benigno is gay and so ‘harmless’ and just doing his job. Terrifying on so many levels, especially after what follows, And the fantasy ‘movie’ scene even more disturbing.
Benigno is not a monster, he is even more dangerous, and Almodovar may try to make his viewers feel sorry for him at more than one point, but definitely not sorry at what becomes of him in the end.I can never think of this as a loving relationship, it is a one sided-consuming-obsession-assumed-to-be-a-loving relationship.
A lady matador! that’s the height of machoism.
Vivek Narain, hahaha
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brangan
April 23, 2018
Prashila: I agree. Perhaps the word ‘similarly’ was wrong — I just wanted to talk about the invasion of personal space, though on vastly different levels.
But I do feel a kinship between Dan and Benigno — the way their respective directors treated them.
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Vivek narain
April 23, 2018
Prashila, It’s the most that a hick guy like me can come up with. Most of what you blokes write misses me by a fair margin. Only thing i can add to this thread is, it was the old geezer’s own fault if he was too stupid and doddering to know what was going on around him, that Benigno was doing something screwy to Alicia. I ain’t in the same class as you’ll, to fathom the subtle gestures and i admit it. But the upside is, i don’t flip my lid and i don’t indulge in playing to the gallery. And i don’t oblige when people say; We’re all for you,but you gotta play ball.
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sanjana
April 23, 2018
October inspired by Talk to her? If the roles are reversed?
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ini
April 25, 2018
Hey BR, totally off-topic. I got selected to go to Cannes as a part of the young film buffs programme, I will be there 16-19 May. Are you going this year? I would love to hear some tips from you, or even get a coffee with you. I will probably be in a yellow badge (or even lower haha).
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brangan
April 25, 2018
Sure, ini… I should be there around that time 🙂
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Naveen
April 26, 2018
BR, why are you not reviewing Beyond The Clouds. is it some kind of understanding that the Mumbai and Chennai teams of FC will not review teh same film? Anupama’s and Rajeev masand’s reviews were more of ‘Why i don’t like this movie so much’ which is unfair. wanted your treatment on this amazing movie.
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ramitbajaj01
April 29, 2018
“But to see two women whose identities were defined by movement, now lying so still…”
I was invested more in Shiuli’s fate than in Alicia’s or Lydia’s. In Talk to Her, I didn’t exactly feel a sense of incompletion in the women’s stories. The movie focussed more on the plight of the men. How they felt. What they wanted to talk. I wasn’t invested much in the bed-ridden bodies in Talk to Her, as I was in October. I wanted Shilui to communicate. I wanted her to express her feelings for Dan. There was always a romantic thread lurking in October. I found it missing in Talk to Her (at least in man-woman relationships of the movie).
Moreover, Shiuli also played an instrument. When the doctor enquired Shiuli of her family, she also responded to having played an instrument. She also gazed at her instrument when she was brought back into her home later. She also looked at the stand where she would keep her musical notes.
“there’s the empathy that allows us to see what Dan (the scene with the beautician) and Benigno do as a form of love, even if man-made rules tell us this is wrong”
What Dan did might not be the best example of respecting or caring for others, but I guess I won’t call it wrong. It depends on case to case. If Shiuli were a strongly opinionated person, she would have rightly objected to Dan’s invasion of her space. But Shiuli came across as a submissive person, who was vying for Dan’s attention. So, watching the beautician scene, I felt she smugly enjoyed Dan’s involvement in her looks. [And in general also, there are many successful relationships where couples subtly violate each other’s space, and yet they continue to be genuinely happy. It makes me wonder if moral dogmas can be absolute.]
However, what Benigno did was a psychological disorder. He had poor sense of reality. He felt it okay to marry to a comatose person, who had never shown any interest in their alliance. He also felt entitled to have raped Alicia. Till the end, he had no remorse for his actions. I had sympathy for his state of being, as an observer. But I found it unsettling that the movie empathised with the character by putting a stamp of approval on his action with the statement that “Benigno’s action brought Alicia back to life”. It was scary and repulsive.
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