There’s no contest in the competition for the best new DVD release of the week.
Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces” arrived on Tuesday with terrific extras.
The DVD includes deleted scenes; a mini-documentary on the relationship between Almodovar and his current muse Penelope Cruz; footage from the film’s U.S. premiere at last fall’s New York Film Festival; and an interesting interview with Cruz.
“Broken Embraces” was not cited at the recent Academy Awards, which was due more to the peculiar way the best foreign language film category is run, than the film itself.
In the run-up to the nominations, a panel in each country is put together to submit one film to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Those choices are then boiled down to five nominations by an Oscar committee.
Almodovar has been the Spanish choice several times — and he won in the category for his great 1999 film “All About My Mother” — so there is probably pressure within film circles in his country not to keep choosing his movies at the expense of all of the other directors in Spain. (Imagine the uproar in the United States if only one film could be submitted for an international film prize!)
So, “Broken Embraces” was not nominated which means the movie did not receive the attention it deserved when it was in theatrical release a few months ago.
Almodovar has been making great films for such a long time that he is starting to be taken for granted by critics and moviegoers. The shock now would be if he made a dud.
For more than two decades, the Spanish director has put out one memorable movie after another, and “Broken Embraces” maintains his consistently high level of achievement.
The 60-year-old artist made his first feature film in 1980 (“Pepi, Luci, Born y otras chicas del monton”), but he didn’t really break through internationally until “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” opened in 1988.
The success of that movie at the New York Film Festival and in art houses across the country led to the U.S. re-release of two very strong earlier Almodovar movies — “Law of Desire” (1987) and “Matador” (1986).
Since the late 1980s, Almodovar has won two Academy Awards — an original screenplay prize for “Talk to Her” (2002) and the best foreign language film Oscar for “All About My Mother” — and delivered such modern masterpieces as “Volver” (2006) and “Bad Education” (2004).
Almodovar has also advanced the international careers of the Spanish actors Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem — who received early career boosts from the filmmaker— and, of course, Penelope Cruz.
Cruz was a rare recipient of a best actress Oscar nomination for a foreign language performance for her work in “Volver” and she stars in “Broken Embraces.”
Almodovar has resisted the temptation to make movies in the United States (Jane Fonda tried and failed to lure him here for an English version of “Women on the Verge” 20 years ago). The director’s dedication to his work and his ability to explore new and personal material in each movie sets him apart from American peers like Martin Scorsese and Brian DePalma who have been spinning their wheels since they moved into the Hollywood mainstream.
“Broken Embraces” digs into some of the same themes as earlier Almodovar pictures — the difference between moviemaking and “real life,” the dangers of obsessive romantic love — but the gay filmmaker examines heterosexual relationships with a new depth and seriousness.
In an age when global corporations have absorbed much of the international filmmaking scene — stripping a lot of “foreign” films of their regional identity — Almodovar has managed to continue making films his way in his country for more than two decades. His persistence is as impressive as his artistry.
