Bad Education Essay Example

script he recently met was actually Ignacio’s younger brother Juan. Intrigued to find out more about what is actually going on he agrees to do the movie with Juan in the lead role. On the set of The Visit, a man named Manuel Berenguer comes to Enrique to reveal that he is the real Father Manolo and that he knows what really happened between Ignacio and Juan.

Bad Education then leaps back into the nearer past to reveal that Juan and Berenguer together murdered Ignacio with a strain of particularly pure heroin. Ignacio dies while writing a letter to Enrique. Back in the present the movie ends as Enrique kicks Juan out of his house, as Juan gives him Ignacio’s half finished letter. Enrique releases the movie but severs his relationship with Juan. This convoluted narrative is purposefully done this way in order to have the viewer guessing at all times what is truly going on in the movie.

If told in a linear fashion this movie would have no intrigue and no twists, it would just be the story of how a movie came into being. Instead the viewer of Bad Education has very little idea of the characters’ motivations throughout the movie. At first the character of Ignacio as played by Juan is deserving of sympathy, it seems as though he is the target of molestation by Father Manolo at a young age but rises above this early tragedy to pen a movie that a respected filmmaker has taken an interest in making.

However as the film reveals more and more of the past timelines, he becomes a despicable character murdered his only brother with the

help of his brother’s molester, stole his brother’s identity, and defrauded his way into a movie deal. The single character of Father Manolo and Manuel Berenguer also go through a transformation, albeit a less drastic one, that would only be possible with the movie’s disjointed timeline. Father Manolo is the film’s villain early on, one character that simply cannot be identified with by the viewer.

However while Berenguer tells his story to Enrique, the stance on his character softens, although there is still no sympathy for him due to multiple reprehensible acts. With this being said, he begins to be portrayed as a man that continues to be taken advantage of in the story. The real Ignacio first blackmails him, followed by Juan seducing him into a plot to kill Ignacio, and quickly cutting ties with him forever. The viewer also finds out in the epilogue that Juan later kills him in a hit-and-run.

While the character of Father Manolo and Manuel Berenguer is undoubtedly a contemptible, dreadful person, his continually being fooled and exploited in his final portrayal in the film makes him out to be more of an evil dolt or doofus than a calculated mastermind. The transitions of these characters could not be done as successfully without Almodovar’s use of the nonlinear timeline. If done chronologically we would know all the characters’ motivations as they happened instead of being continuously unsure of whether the character is acting or genuine.

The film’s use of the narrative device of a film-within-a-film also works to misconstrue the characters’ true motivations. For example, when the viewer is first introduced to Zahara it is never clear that this is a

different character from Ignacio/Juan. The viewer is led to believe that Zahara is an alter ego of Ignacio/Juan that he is not yet ready to show Enrique. The viewer is led to believe this up until the point that Enrique is shown filming Zahara on set. This revelation forces the audience to mentally go back through the movie and interpret the characters of Ignacio/Juan and Zahara differently.

This is another example of how Pedro Almodovar uses the story’s narrative to keep the audience on its toes throughout the film. One of the social issues of the movie Bad Education is the timeline in which the movie is set and how that effected how it was perceived when it came out. Bad Education is set in 1980 while The Visit is set in 1977, and the scenes centered around the Catholic boys school takes place in 1964. These timelines affect the atmosphere of those times in Spain even though they are not specifically mentioned.

Spain in 1964 was ruled by the dictator Francisco Franco. Franco led a fascist regime that attempted to control the thoughts and actions of the Spanish people. All opposition to Francisco Franco were either thrown in jail or killed. Children in schools were taught that God had sent him to save Spain. However, the most oppressive rule in regards to the social issues of this movie was that homosexuality was outlawed. Homosexuals were part of the oppressed people of Spain that would be thrown in jail for doing what came naturally to them.

This helps explain the absolute fear and trepidation with which the young Ignacio and Enrique responded with when they were caught in

the bathroom by Father Manolo. They had been caught in an act that was not only forbidden and wrong in the eyes of the Catholic priest who caught them but also the state had determined that this was wrong and could therefore be punished by the forces of a dictatorship. It is also useful to note that this part of the film is semi-autobiographical for Almodovar, since he, a now openly gay man, attended an all boy boarding school where many children were molested.

The latter parts of this story take place after the reign of Franco had come to an end and Spain had shifted to the democracy it is today. This is an explanation for the more open homosexuality exhibited in these scenes. The characters have no qualms about being as flamboyant to walk around in drag in daylight just a few years after the cruel dictatorship was thrown out. It is as though Almodovar depicts this period as a long exhale for the gay population of Spain after a lengthy term of oppression.

This theme in the timeline also has to do with the country of Spain’s enthusiastic reception for this film. Bad Education was a critical and commercial hit in its country of origin, making well over six million Euros. After its strong oppression only a short time ago, homosexuality is now widely accepted in Spain with same-sex marriage being legalized a year after this film’s release. This liberal acceptance of homosexuality in Spain when much of the world does not follow may have something to do with the government’s oppression that occurred in some of this film’s timeline.

Just as Zahara felt relaxed

enough to walk down the street in drag after years of being forbidden to, maybe the Spanish population as a whole finally felt comfortable recognizing gay marriage after it had been forcefully suppressed for so long. The formal issue of the nonlinear narrative and the social issue of its timeline in Spain’s history shape Bad Education from a good movie to a great one. It is these two issues that separate this film and other, less imaginative films.