Details

Release year: 1989

Storyline

An unbalanced but alluring former mental patient takes a porn star prisoner in the hopes of convincing her to marry him.

Top credits

Directors

Pedro Almodóvar

Writers

Pedro Almodóvar

Cast

Victoria Abril — Marina Osorio
Antonio Banderas — Ricky
Loles León — Lola
Julieta Serrano — Alma

See all 32 credits →

Did you know

• One of the films (along with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)) that was instrumental in bringing about the introduction of the NC-17 rating in the U.S., as the film's distributor, Miramax, took the MPAA to court over the X certification it had initially been designated. According to Pedro Almodóvar, the MPAA did not believe an R rating was appropriate, even after cuts, because they were afraid that the film would inspire young men to kidnap young women out of lust. Miramax argued that an X rating implicated pornography and would diminish the film's audience, but they lost the lawsuit and it was released unrated. In September 1990, the MPAA replaced the X rating with the then-newly created NC-17 rating in response to numerous appeals by other filmmakers who had released their films under similar circumstances in the past. Eventually, the film was re-rated NC-17 for its first two (of three) U.S. home video releases (it was re-released unrated the third time; see below), the reason being the explicit scene of a naked Marina taking a bath in her apartment and masturbating in the bathtub under the water with an activated swimming scuba diver wind-up toy.

• The sex scene between Ricky (Antonio Banderas) and Marina (Victoria Abril) took nine takes to get right and about nine hours to film. Pedro Almodóvar chose to use the ninth and last take as, by that time, the two actors had worked themselves up into a sweat, making the scene appear to be even more authentic. Elia Kazan later remarked that he thought it was one of the best sex scenes in a film that he had ever witnessed.

• Almost all of the scenes in this film are colored in various shades of red.