Pedro Almodóvar is quick to point out that he loves women. Especially his mother. Indeed his films feature women in prominent roles. But taking a closer look at these roles, it is clear that the women he loves are often aesthetic and fetishized constructions. Women’s groups in Spain have long protested his films. What Almodóvar loves about women seems to be beauty and style. He loves to dress and film women, exemplified by actresses such as Victoria Abril, Penélope Cruz, Cecila Roth and Carmen Maura. (Like fashion designers.) But it’s clear women are often cast in stereotypical and clichéd roles. In addition to playing mothers and daughters in complicated relationships such as in High Heels (1990), Almodóvar's women are often portrayed as prostitutes and junkies or both. The mother/daughter relationships are a little like the ones in Mildred Pierce (1945) or All About Eve (1950) in which there is identity theft, impersonation of the mother by the daughter or those around her, or stealing of the romantic partners of the mother by the daughter. Drag queens and MTFs – male-to-female transgenders are also part of his pantheon of female characters who do a fair amount of female impersonation. The road to making films like his latest Embraces (2009) at Cannes has not always been as campy and kitschy and populated by heavenly LGBT creatures, which by now are his trademarks. But divas in some form of captivity have been there from the beginning.

In Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), Victoria Abril plays Marina, a prostitute and drug addict who is abducted by a man (Antonio Banderas) just released from a mental institution. His release in part has to do with having sex with the hospital psychiatrist. Ricky is 23 and determined to be a good father and husband to the woman he captures and ties up. Ricky breaks Marina's jaw when she protests, which he dismisses as an "accident", and later even she agrees. Eventually she does fall in love with him after having repeated sex with him, which was part of his original plan. Later even her sister approves because he is such a "nice good looking man" and forgives him for stealing from the dressing room where she and her sister work.

Probably one of Almodóvar's most disturbing films, Talk to Her (2002) is about a repressed male nurse who dreams about having sex with a woman. In real life he sleeps with a patient in the hospital who turns out to be a young woman in a coma. He is praised for bringing her back to life when she becomes pregnant and gives birth. Almodóvar expressed his worry that the film would not be accepted in America, but it was!

In All About My Mother (1999) there are many female characters, both conventional and stereotypical. A young nun played by Penélope Cruz has sex with a drag queen and dies of AIDS.

Nearly the only clearly identifiable lesbian in his films, Huma Roja (Marisa Paredes), is unhappily in love with a woman who is a drug addict. Fan worship has taken the life of a young boy who was enraptured by her and she tries to atone for that in the end.

Women feel compelled to act out in some kind of earthy depravity either as mothers and daughters or prostitutes and junkies: madonnas and whores. Pedro adores a certain caricature of woman, a certain kind of female trope. Often his women suffer from some liability or have some dark secret that requires atonement or settling of the score. Actresses who love him for his films have been made famous, such as Penélope Cruz. But for nearly two decades there was a conspicuous silence with Carmen Maura after their collaboration in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1987). In Volver (2006) Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) kills her abusive husband and is aided by Regina, a local prostitute. Men have minor roles and Carmen Maura spends most of her time under the bed, playing the dead mother of Raimunda.

Almodóvar has certainly enjoyed the praise of cineastes, and his film creations beyond the stereotypes are cleverly constructed narratives with exquisite art direction, brilliant mise en scene and use of sound and image. His bending of the conventions of melodrama and his sense of farce are extremely engaging. There is no finger pointing when it comes to morality even to the Catholic Church. He claims he does not judge rapists, prostitutes, addicts and criminals in his films but gives them humanity. This would explain the compassion given to both the orderly in Talk to Me and the former resident of a psych ward in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!. "The way to humanity" for Pedro is always transmitted through sex, often heterosexual. His films confront and address the repression of sexuality in the Catholic upbringing, but LGBT sex and lifestyle are always implied. Transgenders may have sex with men or women but clearly developed lesbian and gay characters are rare. It would not seem possible that Almodóvar could be so popular in Spain if his LGBT characters were front stage and center, so they enjoy an ambiguous role in the narratives.

Bad Education (2004) an autobiographical story of the Spanish director's education in a Catholic school, has virtually no women at all nor fully developed gay characters. A priest is seduced by a transvestite who had once abused his brother and the gay film director who had a crush on this brother during school. Almodóvar says he grew up with frightening men and was raised by women. This partially explains why for a gay man there are few gay men in his films.

In Broken Embraces (2009), Almodóvar's latest film, Penélope Cruz appears more than once as an actress/prostitute in love with the movie business and movie people, in a film about a film, which is an homage to film. She plays three characters: Lena/Magdena/Pina.

Almodóvar says he dislikes gender roles. His films disrupt heteronormativity in specific ways. There is an absence of strong males and the aestheticized and fetishized female is created by transgenders and female divas. No one seems to do this quite like Almodóvar. His films are entertaining and life affirming no matter how complicated the roster of his colorful characters may be. If he has succeeded in renewing popular Spanish film after Franco it is because he has given film an enriching iconography of fantastic contrasts, and embodied his films with endearing and tragic characters. There is not only a melody in his melodrama with tears that are tragic-comic but a trajectory for the imaginary in the bizarre and weird that is mesmerizing and enchanting. Though images that are clearly reactionary and often inappropriate may not strike an accord given the historical subordination of women, there is a lot of emotional terrain to sift through. This is what makes Almodóvar unique and one of the best international directors today.

Contributor details
Moira Sullivan, PhD, is a member of the Swedish Film Critics Association and a staff writer for Movie Magazine International, based in San Francisco.