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Kika
1993 Crime / Drama / Comedy
Review
Anyone who hasn’t quite worked out yet why Pedro Almodóvar is
referred to as the enfant terrible
of Spanish cinema should watch this film. Kika is a film that shocks and
entertains in roughly equal measure, and even scenes that are
hilariously funny – notably the seemingly interminable rape sequence – leave an
unpleasant aftertaste. Viewed in the right frame of mind, Kika is an insightful, albeit
highly provocative, satire on society’s double standards when it comes
to sex and violence. As every TV executive knows, the things that
shock us most – rape, murder and people who think they can sing but
can’t – are what also fascinate us most. These abominations are
what draw massive television audiences, nurturing the hypocritical
little voyeur (or masochist) that sits inside each one of
us.
Kika has a serious subtext and some important social messages, but its narrative and visual excesses, to say nothing of the in-your-face (ahem) sex jokes, obscure these somewhat. The film lacks focus and is structurally something of a mess, feeling more like a series of cobbled together sketches rather than a coherent whole. None of this prevents it from being an entertaining romp, the usual Almodóvar concoction of kitsch melodrama and near-the-knuckle black comedy. The only other thing the film has to offer is Victoria Abril in the campest costume ever. Clad from head-to-foot in tight-fitting leather, with a camera mounted on her head and spotlights in her beasts, Abril looks like a cross between a dominatrix robocop and a human speed trap. You’ll never look at a CCTV camera in quite the same way again. © CinemaForever.com 2009 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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Director:
Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Verónica Forqué, Peter Coyote, Victoria Abril, Àlex Casanovas, Rossy de Palma Synopsis
Returning to his family home, Ramón, a talented young
photographer, is shocked to learn that his mother has just committed
suicide. When he collapses, his stepfather, Nicolas, an American
writer, believes he too has died and immediately calls a beautician,
Kika, to make up his face. Kika is moved by Ramón’s beauty
and the fact that he died so young. She is even more moved when
he suddenly regains consciousness. Some months later, Kika
and Ramón are in a relationship, although Kika’s needs are
barely satisfied by Ramón and so she begins an affair with his
womanising stepfather. At this point, Ramón’s ex-girlfriend,
Andrea, makes an unwelcome return into Ramón’s life. She
hosts a TV crime show in which she hunts down killers and other social
deviants so that she can extort a confession from them, in front of a
primetime audience. Meanwhile, ex-porn star Pablo escapes from
prison and calls on his sister, Juana, who happens to be Ramón’s
housemaid. Pablo, a sex maniac with an insatiable libido, cannot resist Kika when he sees
her lying on her bed and immediately sets about raping her. All
this is seen by a peeping Tom neighbour, who alerts the police.
Although all ends well, footage of the rape somehow ends up in Andrea’s
exploitative little hands and makes it onto her next show.
Unbeknown to Ramón, Nicolas is writing material for Andrea,
which prompts the latter to suspect Nicolas has a darker side.
Nicholas’ accounts of the exploits of a serial killer appear less like
fiction and more like a confession...
Credits
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© CinemaForever.com 2009