Number 199 on IMDb's Top 250
Marco, a journalist grieving for a love affair that ended ten years' ago, falls in love with Lydia, a bullfighter also on the rebound. Benigno, a nurse, dedicates his life to his only patient, Alicia, a young dancer in a coma as a result of an accident four years' before; he talks to her, reads to her, holds photographs in front of her closed eyes. When Lydia is brought comatose to the hospital where Benigno works, he and Marco become friendly, and the nurse encourages the journalist to talk to her and hope for a miracle. Marco is Sancho to Benigno's Quixote, and as Benigno's hopes for his patient become fantasies, Marco tries to inject reality. Does a miracle await? Will hilarity ensue?
Trivia: The character of Benigno is based on Pedro Almodovar's close friend Roberto Benigni. The bulls' bloodiness in the film is real. An ecological group in Madrid tried to sue Pedro Almodovar for ill treatment of animals, not attacking him, as such, but society for accepting it. Almodovar said that he had the permission of the bulls' owners to kill them and that the ecological group was just trying to gain some publicity.
Obsession is not just a perfume. Benigno is obsessed with Alicia to the point where he wants to marry her. He had watched her dance in the studio across from his apartment and at one point stole her hair clip. Then she was in an accident and was comatose and Benigno was hired by her father as one of two nurses to take care of her around the clock (which is where the creepy part of the movie comes into play, they didn't actually show anything, just the results). He also has pictures of her in his apartment. It kind of ended up a little to tidy for me...
Warning Spoilers Below:
...Marco finds out Lydia was about to dump him before she got gored, and he leaves the country, she then dies after 9 months in a coma, Alicia become pregnant (after being in a coma for 4 years, see creepy), Benigno finally admits that he did it and is jailed, Marco finds out Lydia died and calls the clinic where he finds out about Benigno and Alicia and ends up renting Benigno's apartment from him, nobody will tell him what happened to Alicia, who he had come to like through his talks with Benigno, until he sees her in the studio across the street, it seems she has come out of her coma but she lost the baby, Benigno "escapes" by overdosing on drugs intending to put himself in a coma to be united with Alicia (he doesn't know she came out of it) but ends up killing himself, Marco then goes to a ballet recital and runs into Alicia and she seems to know him and it is implied that they get together.
End of Spoilers
Next Up: Heat, From "The Godfather" to "Scent of a Woman". From "Raging Bull" to "Goodfellas". Two of America's celebrated superstars will finally collide. An epic tale of crime and obsession and two men on opposite sides of the law.
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