Pedro Almodóvar is another kind of genius. If you have been reading our team’s articles this past week or if you’re a fan of his filmography, you already know this. It takes someone very special to do what he does and make it look effortless and fluid. When he made Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), the film that got him recognized internationally, he already had a dozen of short films and seven feature films to his name. The success of this film plus the experience he already had was enough warranty for people to bet on him no matter how out of the ordinary his story ideas were.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! was Almodóvar’s follow-up to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and it was born from a desire to show his audience how a movie works behind the scene. He achieves it 15 minutes into the movie, when we see a sequence of a B-Movie being made.
However, this film is not at all about the making of another film, you’ll have to search elsewhere for that. The real story here involves Ricky (Antonio Banderas), a young mental patient recently released from the hospital who decides to search for Marina (Victoria Abril), kidnap her, make her fall in love with him, and form a family with her. Crazy, right?
While watching the film all I kept thinking about was if a story like this one would be greenlit by a studio today. It involves kidnapping, subordination, toxic masculinity, objectifying women, all of this in the name of love and happiness. What was Almodóvar thinking!?
This is the trap. This is where his cleverness shows, because somehow he is able to makes us sympathize with someone doing something so wrong. How he does it? With clever writing and direction, accompanied by two wonderful performances from Abril and Banderas.
First detail I quickly noticed from the writing was how fresh and real the dialogue seemed. It never felt unnecessary nor dull, as if the actors were ad-libbing their lines. In part, that it’s true. Although they did have a script, and the main ideas of the films were there, cast-members from this and other Almodóvar’s films have confirmed through interviews that the director sometimes changes scenes and lines while filming.
Loles León (Marina’s sister, Lola, in this film) has said that sometimes she went with an idea of what she was going to do, just for the director to change everything the very next day. This must be nerve-wracking for most of them, but the director always got the best from them because of it, and this film is an example of that.
Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril, having worked in various films before this one, had a lot of chemistry in their performances, something Almodóvar took advantage of. He asked of them for more than what they were accustomed to give, especially from Abril whom for me is the stand-out of this movie.
She had to perform most of the time tied up and with her mouth taped, basically using only her eyes to express her emotions. She’s very natural with her reactions, even the most ordinary ones, never exaggerating or getting out of tone. Banderas is as good too. His performance sells us that this young man is not as bad as he seems, although what he’s doing is very wrong.
Another element of the writing that got my attention was the story behind Bandera’s Ricky and the motivation of his actions. When we learn why he’s kidnapping Marina, the way they met, and how he turned into the man he’s in that moment, we kind of sympathize with him and understand him better. His actions make sense towards this particular story that Almodóvar is telling us.
It is in this world where this tale should make sense though, because it’s fictional and that’s the power only films, plays, and other literary works have. In no way Almodóvar is condoning this type of behavior in the real world.
On the contrary, I suspect he’s showing us a cautionary tale of what could happen when obsession dominates your common sense. He’s telling us, especially to men, that this illusion that women like to be tied up figuratively and literally to us is only that, an illusion. That he makes it as a narrative film, where everything is fantasy, makes it more brilliant.
Almodóvar is essentially saying to those men who think they can dominate women and make them work their way: only in a fantasy their dreams can come true. In the real world women will always have more power.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! was heavily criticized, not only because of some sexual situations (including one of the best intimate scenes made in film) that almost gave it an X-Rating to the film, but also because some people thought that the film apparently would motivate other young men to kidnap the women they like. Almodóvar responded to this elegantly saying: “When I write and direct a film, I never assume that my viewers are complete psychopaths.” This reaffirms his posture that he doesn’t condone any of the actions done by Ricky in the film.
I didn’t like the film as much as other films I’ve wrote about, but I’ll admit it’s bold and brilliant in some aspects. Acting-wise is great, not only because of Abril’s and Banderas’s performances, but also the supporting cast is good too. Almodóvar shines as both a writer and a director. His story is different and makes you reflect on today’s society and how much men must improve their relations with women or their significant other.
It’s also a tale of what can happen when a person doesn’t have a stable home in their childhood, which is not an excuse to do harmful things, but it’s still a reality of this world. Directing-wise it’s very evident Almodóvar is in full command of his film, letting know actors what he wants from them, and also leaving his mark in elements, such as the colorful scenery, and the craziness of a world only his genius can imagine.