<나쁜교육>과 <그녀에게 말하기>에서 페드로 알모도바르의 새로운 내러티브 동력

Abstract

Almodóvar’s desire is idiosyncratic in that it is both concretized and parodied through the subversiveness of the human body as well as the adoption of female characters as protagonists as a tool of narrative dynamics. Almodóvar uses extensive voice-over narration, a non-chronological presentation of time, mise-en-abyme (film-in-film structure), and relatively strong male characters, and additionally, he foregrounds acts of telling and writing as crucial motifs and tools of narrative movement in his presentation of characters’ desires. In Bad Education (2004), narrative desire proceeds through the act of writing along with adopting the subversive body as the narrative medium. Almodóvar foregrounds desire as a crucial motif with a subverted gendered body: the transsexual body The act of talking is a driving force of propelling the narrative in Talk to Her. The structure and content of mise-en-abyme goes hand in hand with the film’s narrative. In addition to spatial narrative technology, this film includes a non-chronological order – flashbacks – which are rare in Almodóvar’s previous films. Just as talking is the crucial motif of character’s desire in Talk to Her (2002) as a narrative tool, so in this film, writing and reading play the same pivotal role as motifs in this film’s narrative dynamics. In Bad Education (2004), we see a different kind of mise-en-abyme compared with that of Talk to Her (2002). There is no embedded film text as structurally detached from embedding the main text here. Rather, the embedded text is assimilated into a part of narrative of this film. Voice-overs, in this film, unlike those of the act of talking to narratee in Talk to Her (2002), are done mainly through the form of reading of the written text Also, instead of strong female characters, this film foregrounds and visualizes marginalized sexualities like homosexuality, transvestitism, and trans-sexuality. Almodóvar and his films are the products of Spanish culture liberated from restraints of conservative cultural and social hegemony. As a postmodern director after 1980s when there was “the acceleration of Spain’s integration into the European community and into the emerging configurations of global mass media.” (Marsha Kinder, 1993: 7), his record of performances subverts the traditional conventions focusing on sexuality associated with gender dichotomy.