Spain: Bad Education (La mala educación); 2004; directed by Pedro Almodovar

This film’s plot starts out straightforward enough. Enrique is a temporarily struggling young filmmaker who receives a surprise visit from an old friend whom he does not physically recognize. This, we later learn, is significant. Ignacio, who now wishes to be known as Angel, is in turn a struggling young actor, and has come to see his old friend bearing a script he has written, in which he wants to play a specific role (‘Zahara.’) The script reveals secrets of the two men’s past: They became friends at a Catholic boarding school and began to discover sexuality in one another’s company. Ignacio was, however, lusted after by the priest, Father Manolo. Upon finding the two boys locked in a stall together one night, simply because they could not sleep and feared being caught out of bed, Manolo took the opportunity to expel Enrique, despite promising Ignacio otherwise when the boy “sold himself” to him.

Years later, Ignacio returns to Manolo’s life, disguised as his own sister, blackmailing the priest with his threats of publishing the tale of what happened during his childhood. Manolo pretends not to feel threatened but is not fooled by the disguise. Still later, we see Ignacio, aka Angel, re-involving himself in Enrique’s life. However, things take an enormous twist when the suspicious Enrique visits Ignacio’s mother and discovers that Ignacio has, in fact, been dead for years. Father Manolo, now called Mr. Berenguer, observes the shooting of the sad and dramatic climax of “Ignacio”’s and Enrique’s ultimately successful film, in which Zahara is killed while issuing a threat in exactly the same manner Ignacio had. We begin to gather why “Angel” had been so intent on playing that role; it is that of his dead brother, and Zahara happened to be Ignacio’s identity the last time he saw Enrique, passed out on a motel bed.


He then reveals to Enrique the entire story, explaining who this current “Ignacio/Angel” really is and why he was unrecognizable. As it now turns out, Ignacio’s brother Juan is the one who’s been assuming his identity all along and finally publicizing their story. Ignacio had become a transsexual and heroin addict as an adult, and waited endlessly for large sums of money from Manolo. Meanwhile, Juan and Ignacio’s former instructor had become infatuated with each other. The Father spent a lot of time with the brothers, but when he was alone in Ignacio’s apartment with Juan, they engaged in their intimate relationship. Finally, the two decided that they could never get on with their life as long as Ignacio was alive, and Juan gave Berenguer a deadly dosage to deliver to his brother in place of his usual drugs. Ignacio then shot up and fell dead onto his typewriter.

The two got away with the murder, but did not remain together, allowing Juan to eventually decide to come back in his brother’s place (the movie’s starting point.)  This “working backwards” structure essentially makes the story a mystery. The complex truth is hidden until certain revelations occur for Enrique and the audience. In the end, much is still unknown or uncertain. One can assume that the enigmatic Juan, who has multiple faces and goes by different names at different times, must have experienced guilt over the murder of his brother and came back to finish getting revenge. What started as a fairly simple and easily followed story grew into a more difficult puzzle, the challenge increased through the use of different actors in the same roles and many jumps back and forth through time.

One of the film’s most prominent themes is, obviously, sexuality—but mainly in a physical sense. Despite the steamy relationship between Juan and Manolo, and the definite tension between Enrique and both brothers, no real love story developed here. Ignacio may have had feelings for Enrique, and vice versa, but if so, little ever came of them. Mostly there was pure physical attraction and desire. Drug addiction factored in as well.

 Another important theme to pick up on is the abuse of innocent children by authority figures, entrusted by families with the care and education of their kids. Many would assume a priest, or any holy man, to be a model of goodness and purity. Alas, this “loosely autobiographical” movie borrows that plot element from well known real-life occurrences. Even before being killed, Ignacio believed that Manolo had ruined his life and was determined to make the child molester pay. Perhaps remorse and a feeling of being haunted by his past actions drove Manolo to finally confess the truth. The “movie-scene-within-a-movie-scene” created by “The Visit” was reminiscent of the “play within a play” scene from “Hamlet.” Seeing it acted out, even though it wasn’t the precise manner of Ignacio’s death, appeared to precipitate his revelation to Enrique.



 But he was not, as it seemed all along, the only villain. Juan clearly had a thin grasp on morality which allowed him to kill his own brother, justifying it flimsily. In the end he also kills the former priest, seemingly his final attempt to redeem himself.

“Bad Education” would likely be of particular interest to Spanish cinema fans and/or the GLBT community, but I think that it can also make an interesting and thought-provoking viewing experience for most other people. With its deceptively simple beginning and increasingly unconventional, non-linear narrative structure, the film effectively blurs the lines among characters and time periods, and between reality and the movies. Scenes we had perceived as objective reality may have been part of a character’s own film, and therefore we’re never quite certain through whose perspective we are getting this story, how many versions there are, or precisely what the whole truth is. Viewers probably have to retrace their steps backward through what they’ve seen, and perhaps watch more than once, in order to finally piece it all together and gather their interpretation of this fine, intriguing film.