The Skin Trade: Pedro Almodóvar's Big Screen ->-bleeped-<- Provocation
by Tony Phillips
EDGE Contributor
Monday Oct 17, 2011
http://www.edgeboston.com/entertainment/movies///125803/the_skin_trade:_pedro_almod%C3%B3var’s_big_screen_->-bleeped-<-_provocationLet's face it, transsexuals--along with drug addicts, pimps, thieves and whores--have always been part of the low-life milieu that make up the films of Pedro Almodóvar. When the Spanish director formed his studio in 1987, the first film he released under his new El Deseo banner was "Law of Desire," a torrid, cinematic love-triangle that featured the transsexual Spanish actress Bibi Andersen and Almodóvar veteran Carmen Maura playing a character who undergoes a sex change in order to turn on her father.
There are other trans mile markers along the way. There's Letal in 1991's "High Heels," Agrado in 1999's Oscar-winning film "All About My Mother" and Zahara in 2004's "Bad Education." Over the course of his 18-film career arc, audiences have come to expect the Almodóvar ->-bleeped-<- as a character that, though always out there, is one crafted with love.
