Entre tinieblas
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| Entre Tinieblas | |
|---|---|
 Original Spanish poster |
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| Directed by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Written by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Starring | Cristina Sánchez Pascual Julieta Serrano Marisa Paredes Carmen Maura Chus Lampreave |
| Release date(s) | 1983 (Spain) May 6, 1988 (USA) |
| Running time | 114 Min |
| Language | Spanish |
| IMDb profile | |
Entre tinieblas (English: Dark Habits) is a black comedy from director Pedro Almodóvar. It is set in a convent where nuns are sadomasochistic lesbians that push and take drugs, write erotic novels, raise a tiger in the back garden, and idolize the greatest sinners of history.
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[edit] Plot
When her lover dies of overdose, the nightclub singer Yolanda takes a chance to escape and retires in the convent that a strange couple of nuns recommended her to visit. There she finds shelter and gentle caring, while she gets to know a world made of contradictions, unusual habits and lies, totally different from the image she had of religious communities. Also, the abbess Julia falls in love with her, as she had done with each girl who lived there in the past. As the nuns' life comes to a crucial point, where everyone decides what to do of their own passions, the love story between Julia and Yolanda remains impossible, and everything leads to a powerful, harshly ironic and at the same time deeply sad conclusion.
Academy Award winner Pedro Almodóvar's irreverent and biting comedy focuses on Yolanda (Cristina S. Pascual), a nightclub singer and junkie. When her boyfriend accidentally dies from a drug overdose, she decides it is better to hide out than face the cops who are looking for her. She winds up at a convent that specializes in saving women from the street. However, this is not your average group of nuns... the off-beat sisters include a heroin using abbess who is in love with Yolanda, a soft-core romance novelist and another who is raising tigers in the convent yard. When the nuns face the possibility of their convent closing, they throw a final and extravagant party starring Yolanda to try to persuade their wealthy patron not to abandon them.
[edit] Analysis
Apart from the rough desecration of Catholic morals, Entre tinieblas also showcases the contradictions of church in a deeper and less flamboyant way, through the theme of love and its power of reducing everything to the basics.
In one scene a nun offers Yolanda a dose of heroin in the name of the Bible, where one is often instructed to feed the hungry. This is an example of Almodóvar's shocking humour.
[edit] Other Versions
The early Italian version was heavily cut, while a recent DVD from RaroVideo includes the deleted scenes.
[edit] Trivia
- The nuns have names depicting their perversion or habit (Sor Rata De Callejón, Sor Sórdida, etc.).
- Characters secretly writing novels (erotic and non) are frequent in the director's movies. The main character of La flor de mi secreto writes prose with a pseudonym and also works as a critic for a newspaper, heavily accusing herself of being a cheap writer. A characther from ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? is a writer who begins to develop interest in sadomasochism and wants to write a book about it.
Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (1980) • Laberinto de pasiones (1982) • Entre tinieblas (1983) • ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984) • Matador (1986) • La ley del deseo (1987) • Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988) • ¡Átame! (1990) • Tacones lejanos (1991) • Kika (1993) • La flor de mi secreto (1995) • Carne trémula (1997) • Todo sobre mi madre (1999) • Hable con ella (2002) • La mala educación (2004) • Volver (2006)
