So much average

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Beautiful, moving film.

Blistering performances.

An ex-bullfighter who gets turned on by killing, a lady lawyer with the same fetish and a young man driven insane by his religious upbringing - these are the main characters in this stylish black comedy about dark sides of human nature.This film is just full of interesting scenes and scenarios: a man excited by Italian horror films, a rapist who turns himself in even though the victim does not care... and the unorthodox attorney who is the bridge between them both. This is definitely "black comedy" that is so very European -- where else can you actually make jokes about "three or four" rape attempts? It shouldn't be humorous, but somehow it happens here.According to IMDb, someone thinks this film influenced "Nekromantik". I understand why they would think that, but has this been confirmed? I have a hard time believing that this film -- which is boundary-pushing but still artistic -- was a big influence on a movie about a guy who physically loves corpses. But what do I know?

Of the dozen-or-so Almodovar films I've seen, Matador is the least satisfying and most disturbing. "Disturbing," not as in provocative, but in revealing the director's infantile obsession with Eros and Thanatos--eroticism and death. It's treated merely as something to drag the viewer through, like Mike Leigh or Peter Greenaway would do...or Leos Carax at his most insouciant. Gratuitousness masquerading as something substantive. Stay away, unless you want to ponder the alchemical potentiality of mixing blood and semen. Ugh! Now, that is not to say that there aren't some good performances. But, I'll take Bunuel or Emil Jannings honestly examining how the 'release' and 'rupture in consciousness' in sexual arousal/fulfillment and violent passion are similar and how the confuse us--and the camera. Try Antonioni's "Desert Rose" or Val Lewton.

The NFT in London are currently holding an Almodovar season - what else would pseuds do - and the best you can give it is that at least it's not New Voices From The Rain Forest: Some Recent Films From Jivaro Directors, which is probably scheduled for Next year. Having failed to 'see' anything in Almodovar's recent titles I thought perhaps his earlier titles would have something going for them. Alas, I have to conclude not much. His first film, screened last week, and this one from six years later are apparently based on the theory that if it's outrageous enough it will be good. T'ain't so, honey, t'ain't so. This time around we have a Black Widow spider of a lawyer who kills her partners at the moment of orgasm, an ex-matador who likes his girl friend to pretend to be a stiff every time HE gets stiff, a 'psychic' virgin with a penchant for confessing to serial killing, etc, put them together and what do you get? Bibbety-Bobbity-Poo or pretentious crap, whichever's the greater. If it's a choice between this and being force-fed ALL the Carry On titles whilst Elton John brays from a speaker system I know which I'd choose.

I absolutely agree with the comment above. This movie is degrading. I also loved Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and saw this film and god I wish I wouldn't because I felt traumatized. Such a lack of sensibility. It's very violent. I cant understand how a human being with feelings can watch this. It should be advised for everybody before watching it. This film is trash. You wont even get a good story if you forget about the explicit and extreme violence shown. You feel dirty after having watched this film. I don't understand why Pedro Almodovar did this. What's the sense? Scandalize? I mean, I don't understand, we all scandalize and make a public protest because we watch too much violence on TV (just wrestling programmes where people hit themselves hard) and we are so cynical that find normal to show brutal decapitations, massive murders on screen? Whatever.