High Heels (1991 film)
High Heels | |
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Spanish | Tacones lejanos |
Directed by | Pedro Almodóvar |
Written by | Pedro Almodóvar |
Produced by | Agustín Almodóvar |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Alfredo Mayo |
Edited by | José Salcedo |
Music by | Ryuichi Sakamoto |
Production companies | |
Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 112 minutes |
Countries |
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Language | Spanish |
Box office | $16 million (Spain/France/US) |
High Heels (
The film has the feel of other mother–daughter melodramas like Stella Dallas (1937), Mildred Pierce (1945), Imitation of Life (1959) and particularly Autumn Sonata (1978), which is quoted directly in the film.
Despite mixed reviews, the film was a commercial success. It was selected as the Spanish entry for the
Plot
Rebeca, a television news broadcaster, waits anxiously at a
Rebeca has since become a newsreader for a television station owned by her husband Manuel. The intensity of the family reunion is heightened because, many years ago, Manuel was one of Becky's lovers. On the night of her return, Becky, Rebeca and Manuel have supper and then go out to see Letal, a female impersonator whose
A month later, Manuel is murdered in his villa. He had spent the evening first with his mistress Isabel (also Rebeca's sign language interpreter on the news) and then with Becky who, having become his lover again, had come to announce it was over between them because she had learnt about his other mistress. It was Rebeca who discovered the body. The investigating magistrate, Judge Domínguez, knows that their relationship has not recovered since Rebeca found out Becky was seeing Manuel, and centres his suspicions on both mother and daughter.
On the day of Manuel's funeral, Rebeca confesses to his murder live on television, while reading the news. She is immediately imprisoned, but the investigating judge seems desperate to prove her innocence despite all the evidence. Becky makes her return to the Madrid stage while Rebeca spends her first night in prison. In jail, she listens on the radio as her mother dedicates the first songs of her triumphant concert performance to Rebeca. A social worker, Paula, takes a special interest in Rebeca; like her, she is heartbroken, grieving the loss of her boyfriend Hugo. Rebeca sees a nude picture of Hugo that Paula carries with her, and thinks that Letal and Hugo are the same person.
The judge arranges for Becky to see her daughter, and Rebeca now denies the murder of Manuel. Mother and daughter confess their lack of love, their jealousy, and their secrets to each other. Rebeca draws a comparison between herself and the daughter in the film Autumn Sonata, in which the girl's mother, an outstanding pianist, asks her to play the piano and then humiliates her by telling her how to improve her performance. Rebeca suggests that she too has always felt inferior to Becky, and has been forced to compete with her, winning only once by marrying Manuel. But even this victory was finally denied her, when Becky started an affair with Manuel. Rebeca admits that fifteen years ago, her desire to be closer to Becky led her to murder her stepfather, and also played some part in her murder of Manuel, whom she saw as usurping her mother's affection. The extent of Rebeca's fixation and the limitlessness of her adoration are too much for Becky's frail heart, and her condition worsens. Back in prison, Rebeca discovers she is pregnant – carrying Letal's child. At once, the judge releases her from prison despite the lack of any fresh evidence.
Rebeca goes to see Letal's final drag performance. In the dressing room, she discovers that he is the judge, with Letal being one of his disguises and Hugo being another. He explains that his dressing up was just an investigative strategy and, knowing about her pregnancy, asks her to marry him. As Rebeca struggles to take this in, they see a television broadcast relating to Becky's sudden heart attack. They rush to the hospital, where Rebeca confesses to murdering Manuel, but Becky decides to take the blame in order for her daughter to go free. When Becky is taken home to die, Rebeca gives her the gun and Becky leaves her fingerprints on it, thereby incriminating herself and establishing Rebeca's innocence. When Rebeca hears the high heels of the women passing in the street, she tells her mother the sound reminds her of her mother coming home when she was little. She turns around, and realises her mother has died while she was talking.
Cast
- Victoria Abril as Rebeca
- Rocío Muñoz as young Rebeca
- Marisa Paredes as Becky del Páramo
- Luz Casal as Becky's singing voice
- Miguel Bosé as Judge Eduardo Dominguez/Letal/Hugo
- Féodor Atkine as Manuel, Rebeca's husband
- Miriam Díaz Aroca as Isabel
- Anna Lizaran as Margarita
- Bibiana Fernández as Chon
- Cristina Marcos as Paula
- Pedro Diez del Corral as Alberto, Rebeca's stepfather
- Mayrata O'Wisiedo as judge's mother
- Nacho Martínez as Juan, Rebeca's father
- Javier Bardem as floor manager at the TV station
Production
High Heels was a tour de force for two essential actresses of the "Almodovarian universe": Marisa Paredes and Victoria Abril. The male lead was difficult to cast. The actor had to be believable in drag and as a judge. The role eventually went to Miguel Bosé, a famous singer in Spain and Latin America.[2] His casting was a cause célèbre of the film publicity.[3]
Music
The combined effects of voice, music and lyrics is one of the most prominent features of Almodóvar as a filmmaker.[4] He finds his most significant musical economy in the highly expressive boleros,[4] which are at the forefront in this film. Almodóvar explained that he listened to an enormous number of songs to find those he used in the film.[5] He finally chose "Piensa en Mí" and "Un Año De Amor". His idea was to find songs that would correspond to a singer such as Becky del Páramo, both at the start and at the end of her career.[5] "Piensa en Mí" is a very famous song in Mexico,[5] composed by Agustín Lara and sung by Lola Beltrán.[5] Almodóvar eventually chose a version by Chavela Vargas, sung as a lament. "Un año de amor", which Letal sings in playback during his performance, is a French song by Nino Ferrer.[5] There is a famous Italian version sung by Mina, for which Almodóvar rewrote the lyrics in Spanish.[5]
Once the two songs were chosen, Almodóvar had to find a voice that suited Becky del Páramo.[5] After trying several voices, he found that of Luz Casal fitted the appearance of Marisa Paredes.[5] Casal, famous in Spain as a rock singer, accepted Almodóvar's offer and the two songs became her most successful.[5] "Piensa en mí" and "Un año de amor", the songs that Casal performed for the film, were both included on her album A contraluz, released in 1991.
The film also contains an unexpected prison yard dance sequence in reference to famous musicals shot in fake prisons, such as Jailhouse Rock (1957) with Elvis Presley and John Waters' Cry-Baby (1990). The song used in High Heels is a merengue: "Pecadora" by Los Hermanos Rosario.
The score, which Almodóvar did not like,[6] was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto. For the title sequence and Rebeca's second confession, Almodóvar used pieces composed by Miles Davis in the 1960s, which were inspired by flamenco. The first piece, heard while Rebeca is alone waiting for her mother, is called "Solea", meaning 'solitude' in Andalusian.[6] After her second confession to Judge Dominguez, when Rebeca goes to the cemetery to throw a handful of earth on her husband's coffin, we hear the second piece, "Saeta", by Gil Evans, from his Sketches of Spain album.
Almodóvar also used two themes composed by George Fenton for Dangerous Liaisons (1988).[6] They are heard when Rebeca leaves prison and goes home, and when she returns to prison in the van.[6]
Title
The original title is Tacones lejanos, which can be translated as Distant Heels and refers to Rebeca's childhood, when she was unable to sleep until her mother entered her bedroom and Rebeca managed to hear the sound of her mother's heels as she left, walking down the hallway.[7] The inaccuracy of the English translation of the title affected the reception of the film, as the English High Heels suggests stylish comedy, whereas the Spanish Distant Heels conveys a feeling of family melodrama.[7] The Spanish title Distant Heels is a reference to Raoul Walsh's film Distant Drums (1951).
Release
Box-office
High Heels, Almodóvar's ninth film, was co-produced by El Deseo and Ciby 2000 and released in Spain on 19 October 1991.[8][9] It was enormously successful in Spain.[8] By the end of 1991, it had attracted an audience of more than 1.5 million and was the highest-grossing Spanish film of the year.[9] It eventually came second, in terms of box-office takings, to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) among Almodóvar's films released up to that point, with a gross of €5.2 million.[8][10] In France, it was one of the top ten highest-grossing films of the year with a gross of $8.7 million.[11] In the United States and Canada it grossed $1.7 million.[12]
Critical response
Spanish critics' reaction was hostile, on the whole.
The film was very successful in Italy, and reviews were both heartfelt and moving.[14] In France, the film was a huge success. It did not fare as well in other countries, such as Germany, where Almodóvar's films have not been well understood.[14] He commented, "My films move very freely and to understand them one must simply allow one's intuition and sensibility free rein... I've never been asked so many irrational questions as in Germany".[14]
It was less successful in the United States than many others of Almodóvar's films.[14] As with Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989), High Heels was especially attacked on moral grounds, notably by certain women's groups.[14] Almodóvar also complained that Miramax, the film's distributor in the United States, did not understand the film and had no idea what to do with it.[14]
On the
Accolades
High Heels received a
- 1991 César Awards as Best Foreign Film
- 1992 Sant Jordi Awards for Best Spanish Actress
DVD release
High Heels has been released on DVD in Region 2, but never issued in Region 1 (US). It received a multi-region DVD release in Mexico in November 2012.
Analysis
The film, which Almodóvar eventually made, was not that which he had intended after completing
High Heels relates to the American tradition of melodrama and the so-called 'woman's picture'. Imitation of Life (1959), directed by Douglas Sirk, was a major influence and there are some striking parallels between High Heels and Sirk's film.[19] In both, the mother is a performer – Becky is a singer, while the Lana Turner character in Sirk's film is an actress – whose career takes precedence over a young daughter; mother and daughter are rivals over a man; both films begin with the child separated from her mother at a holiday resort; and at one point, Rebeca tells her mother to stop acting, a phrase borrowed from Sirk's film.[19] Imitation of Life was both a remake and a reinterpretation of an earlier film – the 1934 version by John M. Stahl – and so High Heels is very much Almodóvar's own film, distinguished throughout by his particular style and concerns.[20]
With its tense mother–daughter dynamic, it also pointedly nods to Michael Curtiz's Mildred Pierce (1945), though in that film it is the mother, a businesswoman, who obsessively loves her daughter.[19] In Stella Dallas (1937), directed by King Vidor, the same kind of relationship is also prominent, though here, the mother Stella is neither an artist nor a businesswoman but a lower-class woman who has social aspirations for her daughter.[19] It alludes both to the films made by Turner and Joan Crawford and to their lives, to the relationship between Turner, whose lover was killed by her daughter,[21] and to the tumultuous relationship between Crawford and her daughter Christina.[21]
Genre
High Heels is a
Thirty-five minutes in, a murder occurs, but the plot does not turn the picture into an investigative narrative.[23] The story follows the conflict between mother and daughter, not the crime investigator. It is clear that Letal is the judge and that Rebeca probably killed her husband. The investigative role of Judge Dominguez is further undermined by the fact that his motivation is love for the murderess Rebeca, rather than solving the crime.[23]
See also
- List of submissions to the 64th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of Spanish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
References
- ^ Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- ^ Strauss 2006, p. 114.
- ^ Allinson 2001, p. 204.
- ^ a b Allinson 2001, p. 201.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Strauss 2006, p. 112.
- ^ a b c d Strauss 2006, p. 115.
- ^ a b Allinson 2001, p. 223.
- ^ a b c Edwards 2001, p. 122.
- ^ ICAA. 1992. p. 121.
- ^ "Tacones Lejanos". The Spanish Film Catalogue. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
- ^ "Statistics". Screen International. 26 March 1993. p. 34.
- ^ High Heels at Box Office Mojo
- ^ a b c d e f g Edwards 2001, p. 124.
- ^ a b c d e f Strauss 2006, p. 118.
- ^ "High Heels". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
- ^ "High Heels Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
- ^ Maslin, Janet (20 December 1991). "Reviews/Film; A Mother, A Daughter And a Murder". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (20 December 1991). "High Heels". Chicago Sun-Times – via RogerEbert.com.
- ^ a b c d e f g Edwards 2001, p. 125.
- ^ Edwards 2001, p. 127.
- ^ a b Strauss 2006, p. 117.
- ^ a b c d Allinson 2001, p. 142.
- ^ a b c Allinson 2001, p. 143.
Bibliography
- Allinson, Mark (2001). A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodóvar. London: ISBN 978-1-8606-4507-5.
- Edwards, Gwyne (2001). Almodóvar: Labyrinths of Passion. London: ISBN 978-0-7206-1121-2.
- Strauss, Frédéric, ed. (2006). Almodóvar on Almodóvar. London: ISBN 978-0-5712-3192-8.
External links
- High Heels at IMDb
- High Heels at AllMovie
- High Heels at Box Office Mojo
- High Heels at Metacritic
- High Heels at Rotten Tomatoes