La Mala Educacion is the 2004 Spanish film from director Pedro Almodovar. Almodovar being one of the most successful Spanish directors of his generation,This international cinematic success follows two reunited school friends throughout a tale of Drug addiction, molestation in the Catholic Church, and effects of traumatic events in one’s childhood. The film begins in the 1980’s with the boys being in their mid to late twenties. Enrique Goded who is a Spanish filmmaker has resorted to scouring newspapers to find an idea for his next film. In doing so, a young man who claims to be his childhood friend Ignacio shows up at his door. Enrique mentions that Ignacio was his first love and is very overjoyed to see him. Ignacio is an aspiring young actor who prefers to be called “Angel”. He brings with him a novel which he hopes Enrique will make into a film, with him playing the lead role.
The novel recounts Enrique and Ignacio’s traumatic experiences of child molestation at a Catholic boys’ school in the 1960s. Enrique agrees to read the novel and the audience is thrown into the story. Enrique becomes more and more interested and captivated by the novel as it is a real life account of his childhood with his former love Ignocio. Enrique wants to adapt Ignacio's story into a film, but Ignacio's “Angel’s” condition is that he play the part of Zahara, the transsexual lead. Enrique doesn't agree with this as he feels that the Ignacio whom he loved and the Ignacio of today would be two different people.
During a flashback in the film, Ignacio allowed himself to be raped by his teacher Father Manolo so that the priest would not expel Enrique.
Manolo found the two boys together and discovered their romance, and wanted Ignacio all to himself. So Enrique was expelled anyway, and for the past fifteen years Ignacio has been overcome with the thought of getting his revenge against the man who corrupted and abused him. The novel ends with Ignacio, now a drug addicted transvestite, returning to his former school to blackmail Father Manolo. Suspicious that Angel is not who he claims to be, Enrique pays a call on Ignacio’s mother and learns that Ignacio died four years ago. It transpires that Angel is in fact his younger brother, Juan. Curious to discover what Angel is after, Enrique agrees to make the film with Ángel playing the lead. However, he changes the ending, so that Ignacio is murdered by the Catholic priests he is trying to blackmail. As the scene wraps , Angel is crying uncontrollably and is overcome with grief.
Enrique discovers a man in office on the movie set who is Manuel Berenguer. This man turns out to be the real life Father Manolo who has committed these horrendous acts against these boys. He tells Enrique that his endning to the film mirrors real life substantially as Ignacio did blackmail him. AS it turned out Manolo had turned his sights onto Ignocio’s younger brother Juan “Angel” and started a relationship with him. Angel and Father Manolo wanted to see Ignacio out of the picture so the two conspired to kill him with a lethal dose of heroin which Ignacio shot up , overdosed and died
Erique storms away from the two men not wanting to her Juan justifiy his actions and grievances about what he had done to his brother. Juan gives Enrique an letter from Ignacio that he was writing before he had passed away.
Some of the themes throughout Bad education that I felt were prominent were molestation in the Catholic Church, and effects of traumatic events in one’s childhood.
In the United States, half of the 4392 priests who were found to have been credibly accused of abusing minors were 35 years of age or younger at the time of the first instance of alleged abuse. Fewer than 7% of the priests were reported to have themselves been victims of physical, sexual or emotional abuse as children. Although 19% of the accused priests had alcohol or substance abuse problems, only 9% were reported to have been using drugs or alcohol during the alleged instances of abuse. Almost 70% of the abusive priests were ordained before 1970. This is a very taboo subject the Aldomor head on attacked in this film fearlessly. As a catholic myself some scenes made me feel kind of on edge , but this is a reality that we all have to accept. The scary thing that found out is that most of the time , not unlike the film these encounters are not reported and the Priests get away with these abuses. the Catholic hierarchy sometimes did not report the crimes to legal authorities and reassigned the offenders to other locations where they continued to have contact with minors, giving them the opportunity to continue their sexual abuse.
Another main theme in Bad education was Child molestation trama. One fact that I found that was young adults and older adolescents will describe flashbacks or dissociative symptoms. Some adolescents try to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs to compensate for flashbacks and major emotional disturbances. This associated to how Pedro Almodovor shot and edited the film , because it is filled with flashbacks which could serve as emotion triggers. Also Ignacio turned to drugs in his life as he was seen snorting cocaine early in the picture and even lost his life due to a hot dose of heroin.
Bad Education was excellent film with a multilayered narrative, and serious themes with a comedic undertone . One aspect of the film I particularly enjoyed was the structure in which it was presented to the audience. It wasn’t a boring linear narrative, I like how Pedro Almodovor took the audience in and out of the novel . It was a surprise to me at the scene where Ignacio gets killed by the priest, that the entire time it was the film being shot. I was never at anytime bored with the story line, and the pacing of the film was very fast, so I was on the edge of my seat throughout the viewing to see what would happen next. I also enjoyed García Bernal in his multiple roles in that film that requirer him to be innocent, desperate, and in the same breath I vicious and cold Femme Fatal.
Thumbs Up!!
