Tacones lejanos (VHS) (eng subs) [1991] Almodovar

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Tacones lejanos (1991)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103030/

This is a full screen VHS transfer of this film, which has never been released in the USA on DVD. Torrents currently available of this film do not have subtitles in English, and the .srt files available are laughably poor. Apologies up front for the poor picture quality.

High Heels (Spanish: Tacones lejanos, meaning "Distant Heels") is a 1991 melodrama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Marisa Paredes, Victoria Abril and Miguel Bosé. The plot follows the fractured relationship between a self-involved mother who is a famous torch song singer and the grown daughter she had abandoned as a child. The daughter, who works as TV newscaster, has married her mother's ex-lover and has befriended a female impersonator of her mother. A murder further complicates this web of relationships.

The film has the feel of other mother-daughter melodramas like Stella Dallas, Mildred Pierce, Imitation of Life and particularly Autumn Sonata, which is quoted directly in the film.


Victoria Abril ... Rebeca Giner
Marisa Paredes ... Becky del Páramo
Miguel Bosé ...
Anna Lizaran ... Margarita (as Ana Lizaran)
Mayrata O'Wisiedo ... Madre del Juez Domínguez (as Mairata O'Wisiedo)
Cristina Marcos ... Paula
Féodor Atkine ... Manuel (as Feodor Atkine)
Pedro Díez del Corral ... Alberto
Bibiana Fernández ... Susana (as Bibi Andersen)
Nacho Martínez ... Juan
Miriam Díaz Aroca ... Isabel
Rocío Muñoz ... Rebeca niña
Lupe Barrado ... Luisa
Juan José Otegui ... Capellán Hospital (as Juan Jose Otegui)
Paula Soldevila ... Enfermera Hospital

High Heels, Almodóvar’s ninth film, was co-produced by El Deseo and Ciby 2000 and was released in Spain in October 1991. It was enormously successful in Spain. By the end of 1991, it had attracted an audience of more than 1.5 million, and eventually it came second in terms of box-office takings to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown among Almodóvar’s films released up to that point.

The reaction of Spanish critics to the film was on the whole, hostile. Antonio Castro, writing in Dirigido por, felt that: Almodóvar’s desire to create a more straightforward narrative had merely led to a greater loss of vigor. Angel Fernandez Santos in El Pais, concluded that: in comparison with Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life, which he regarded as an Everest, High Heels was a mere hill. And in Expansión Eduardo Torres Dulce was firmly of the opinion that: Almodóvar had had his day. David Thomson , in Sight and Sound, concluded that in general High Heels did not measure up to much of Almodóvar’s earlier work. For him the homage to the other film – including Autumn Sonata – is counter productive, for it merely suggests the inferiority of High Heels.

High Heels was very successful in Italy and reviews were both heartfelt and moving. In France the film was a huge success. The film did less well in other countries, such as Germany where Almodovar’s films have not been well understood. 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 “.

High Heels was less successful in the United States than many others of Almodóvar’s films. [ Like Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, High Heels was especially attacked on moral grounds, notably by certain women’s groups. Almodóvar also complained that Miramax, the distributor of the film in the U.S.A, did not understand the film and had no idea what to do with it .

The movie-review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes lists a 64% favorable rating on its "Tomatometer" (based on 11 reviews). The aggregator Metacritic lists a 51% favorable rating, (based on 12 published reviews). The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote that High Heels has no real mirth and not even enough energy to keep it lively. Critic Roger Ebert said that "Pedro Almodóvar's films are an acquired taste, and with High Heels I am at last beginning to acquire it."


The original title of the film 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 was able to hear the sound of her mother's heels as she left, walking down the hallway. 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. The Spanish title ("Distant Heels") is a reference to Raoul Walsh's 1951 film Distant Drums .


The film High Heels which Almodovar eventually made was not the one he had intended to make after the completion of Law of Desire in 1986. That film would have been a variation on Garcia Lorca’s classic play The House of Bernarda Alba and would have been set in rural Spain, not in Madrid. The story would have involved a domineering mother and her two daughters, both of whom leave home in order to escape her tyranny. The mother is subsequently thought to have perished in a fire but continues to pursue one of the girls for fifteen years. The proposed film did not come to fruition for a variety of reason. Almodovar turned instead to a project (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) which could be conveniently be shot in Madrid, and when he eventually made High Heels it was fundamentally different from his original idea. Only the title remained. The plot was developed around the idea of someone confessing a crime on a live television news bulletin.

High Heels relates to the American tradition of melodrama and the so called Woman’s picture. Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life, made in 1959, was a major influence and there are some striking parallels between High Heels and Sirk’s film. In both films, the mother is a performer – Becky a singer, the Lana Turner character in Sirk’s film 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 the Sirk’s film. Imitation of Life was both a remake and a reinterpretation of an earlier film – John M. Stahl’s version of 1934 - so High Heels is very much Almodovar’s own film, distinguished throughout by his particular style and concerns.

A mother-daughter relationship was also central to Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce, made in 1945, though in that film it is the mother, a businesswoman, who is obsessively loves her daughter. In King Vidors’ Stella Dallas, made in 1937, the same kind of relationship is also prominent, thought here the mother, Stella, is neither artist nor businesswoman but a lower class woman who has social aspirations for her daughter.

High Heels alludes both to the films made by Lana Turner and Joan Crawford and to their lives, to the relationship between Lana Turner, whose lover was killed by her daughter, and to the tumultuous relationship between Joan Crawford and her daughter Christina.


High Heels is a melodrama, though its composite narrative (the poster image of a high-heeled shoe which is also a gun) testifies to the combination of two genres, melodrama and crime thriller. The themes are typical of melodrama: family relations dominate the storyline as do relationships between men and women. The narrative charts the reuniting of a long-absent mother with her daughter and their competition over men (one man in particular) and over professional success. All the characters have secrets that the viewer knows. The omniscient narration, typical of melodrama, allows suspense only in terms of how other characters react to revelations the viewer anticipates.


SOUNDTRACK

The mobilization of the combined effects of voice, music and lyrics is one of the most prominent features of Almodóvar as a filmmaker. The director finds his most significant musical economy in the highly expressive boleros, 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[ He finally chose 'Piensa en Mi' and 'Un año De Amor'. His idea was to find songs that would correspond to a singer such as Becky del Paramo both at the start and at the end of her career. 'Piensa en Mi' is a very famous song in Mexico. It was composed by Agustín Lara and sang by Lola Beltrán. The director eventually chose a version by Chavela Vargas, sung as a lament. 'Un Año de amor', which Letal sings in playback during his show, is a French song by Nino Ferrer. There is a famous Italian version sung by Mina. Almodóvar rewrote the lyrics in Spanish.

Once the two songs were chosen Almodóvar had to find a voice that suited Becky del Páramo. After trying several voices, he found Luz Casal's fitted Marisa Paredes appearance. Luz Casal, famous in Spain as a rock singer, accepted and the two songs became her biggest hits.

For the title sequence and Rebeca’s second confession in High Heels Almodóvar used pieces composed by Miles Davis in the Sixties, pieces inspired by Flamenco. The first piece, heard while Rebeca is alone waiting for her mother, is called 'Solea', meaning solitude in Andalusian. 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 'Sketches of Spain'.


"Piensa en mí"
Written by Agustín Lara
Performed by Luz Casal
Editor original Edward B. Marks Music
Por cortesia de Canciones des Munido, S.A.
Artista exclusiva de Hispavox, S.A.



"Un año de amor"
(Un anno d'amore)
Written by Gaby Verlor
Lyrics Adapted by Pedro Almodóvar
Performed by Luz Casal
Artista exclusiva de Hispavox, S.A.

"Soleá"
Written by Gil Evans
Performed by Miles Davis



"Saeta"
Written by Gil Evans
Performed by Miles Davis
Copyright 1984 by Solar Plexus Music
Por cortesia de Sony Music Entertainment (Spain), S.A.


AWARDS

1992 Won Golden India Catalina Best Actress (Mejor Actriz) Marisa Paredes


1992 Won Golden India Catalina Best Film (Mejor Película) Pedro Almodóvar

1993 Won César Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger) Pedro Almodóvar

1992 Won Fotogramas de Plata Best Movie Actress (Mejor Actriz de Cine) Marisa Paredes


1992 Nominated Fotogramas de Plata Best Movie Actress (Mejor Actriz de Cine) Victoria Abril [Also for Amantes (1991) and Sandino (1990).]

1992 Nominated Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film Spain

1992 Nominated Goya Best Costume Design (Mejor Diseño de Vestuario) José María Cossío


1992 Nominated Goya Best Editing (Mejor Montaje) José Salcedo


1992 Nominated Goya Best Make-Up and Hairstyles (Mejor Maquillaje y/o Peluquería) Gregorio Ros Jesús Moncusi


1992 Nominated Goya Best Sound (Mejor Sonido) Jean-Paul Mugel


1992 Nominated Goya Best Supporting Actress (Mejor Actriz de Reparto) Cristina Marcos

1992 Won Golden Kikito Best Actress (Melhor Atriz) Marisa Paredes



1992 Won Golden Kikito Best Director (Melhor Direção) Pedro Almodóvar



1992 Won Golden Kikito Best Score (Melhor Música) Ryuichi Sakamoto


1992 Nominated Golden Kikito Best Ibero-American Film (Melhor Filme) Pedro Almodóvar

1992 Won Sant Jordi Best Spanish Actress (Mejor Actriz Española) Marisa Paredes

1992 Won Award of the Spanish Actors Union Film: Lead Performance (Protagonista Cine) Marisa Paredes