Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

Don’t ever let someone give you grief for watching trashy films and television. There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure. If something gives you pleasure, then there is something worthwhile in it. And in the right hands anything can become high art - just look at the career of Quentin Tarantino! What is Django Unchained if not a Spaghetti Western transposed the American South during slavery? Simply sprinkle in some high-brow film references and suddenly exploitive “trash” becomes “art” worthy of Oscars! The same could be said of Pedro Almodóvar’s career.

At their heart, all of his films are essentially telenovelas. Take Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown for an example. All the ingredients of a soap are there: melodrama, infidelity, an estranged son, a lunatic mother, etc. The only thing that really distinguishes this film from something you’d come across in the middle of the night on cable, is that it is filtered through the stylistic sensibilities and obsessions of Almodóvar. His colors and camera movements alone make it into something more. Admittedly, there’s nothing overly profound going on below the surface in this particular film, but you can also clearly tell that he is well on his way towards the equally soapy masterpieces that are All About My Mother and Talk To Her. Like Jean-Luc Godard said: It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.