An intelligent, sensitive, cruel and ironic reflection about realities intertwined... Past and present, self and alter-ego, movie-in-the-movie and movie-about-the-movie-in-the-movie, all mingle together following a strange and thorough recipe. Almodovar meditates about the condition of the artist, without the melodramatic heroics of so many fore-goers, by choosing a painful paradox - the one of the creator who loses his crucial tool (same as Beethowen grew deaf, same as Luchian lost the control over his hands; here, Mateo Blanco is a movie director who turned blind - and now, fourteen years later, reconsiders everything that happened in the past. The narrative is built with a savvy mastering of all the joints, producing both insight and increasing tension. Definitely, not a movie easy to follow - one than you should see again and again.
Unfortunately, it's true that all the structure is a bit over-long, and the pace tends to lag in certain parts - but, since the concluding impression is that of "I want to come back to this movie", I guess the boring bits will become less so at a second and third viewing. Aftr all, Antonioni's "Blowup" also started by confusing and exasperating me - and, around the seventh of eight time, I was already gushing loving "wow!"s over every shot.
Unfortunately, it's true that all the structure is a bit over-long, and the pace tends to lag in certain parts - but, since the concluding impression is that of "I want to come back to this movie", I guess the boring bits will become less so at a second and third viewing. Aftr all, Antonioni's "Blowup" also started by confusing and exasperating me - and, around the seventh of eight time, I was already gushing loving "wow!"s over every shot.