Dark Habits

For your attention dear readers: the portrait of a movie as an over-ripe water melon left to the tender mercies of a noon day sun. Something has got to give, my friends. It is only a question of time. Entranced by Fifties melodramas, drunk on technicolour dreaming, Pedro Almodovar is still working towards his own unique style here. There are flashes of the future genius he will become but this is far from his best work.

I’m not saying you won’t have a good old time watching this. Any film where a nun suddenly turns towards a soul in need of saving and asks if she wants to do smack has definitely got my attention. When the nun then rolls up her sleave to show how it’s done, my attention is officially held in place.

Yolanda is a singer whose boyfriend is poisoned by heroin laced with strychnine. The suspicion of murder falls upon her and she flees to a convent. It’s the only place she has to go. There’s this nun there who clearly has a crush on her and once asked her for an autograph.

The convent is in danger of closing because the daughter of its major patron has been eaten by cannibals. The old Mother Superior is dying and her replacement wants to sell the place off to property developers. She had better hurry because the aforementioned junkie nun has been selling off whatever isn’t nailed down in order to finance her drug habits.

From this brief outline, you will not be surprised to hear that the DVD box describes “Dark Habits” as a jet-black comedy. However, in truth, it is a little too black and not quite funny enough. The acting isn’t quite hysterical enough. It relies more on a piling up of absurdities instead of jokes. There’s a nun who drops acid to enhance her religious visions whilst another writes soft porn trash novels. Another has a pet tiger whilst the priest talks sewing to sublimate his love for another. I know. It sounds like it should be hysterical but it never quite lives up to its sacrilegious promise.

Then again, I was never a Catholic.

We still get a couple of bizarre musical interludes, a lot of steamy, sexually repressed moments. There’s great camera work and composition and this clearly shows the promise of the better movies that were to come. If I were a novice to Almodovar’s work, I’d start with “High Heels”, “Tie me up, Tie me Down” or “Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown.” If you are cool with those flicks, then you’ll probably find something to love in this film. If you start with this film, you might not give his better films a chance.

Almodovar has straightened his act up a lot these days. “Talk to Her” and “Live Flesh” may as well come from a different director all together. I am not saying any of these later films are bad because in their own ways they are amazing. It’s just that they ain’t as much fun as his earlier ones. His name above the credits remains the mark of an artist whose work deserves your investigation. What are you reading this shit for when the video shop is already open?

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