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Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), Audio Commentary, Poster Gallery, Deleted scenes, Previews, English Subtitled
From two-time Academy Award-winner Pedro Almodovar (2002 Best Original Screenplay, Talk to Her, 2000 Best Foreign Language Film, All About My Mother) comes Bad Education, an outrageous tale of desire, revenge and murder. Filmmaker Enrique (Fele Martinez) gets a visit from an aspiring actor claiming to be his old school friend Ignacio (Gael Garcia Bernal, The Motorcycle Diaries, Y Tu Mama Tambien), who has written a story about their traumatic childhood spent at Catholic school. In the story, a drag performer known as Zahara (also played by Bernal) attempts to blackmail a predatory priest by exposing their scandalous past. The tale provides the inspiration for EnriqueÞs next film. But when the villainous priest from their school days arrives on to tell his own version of the events, the truth is wilder than anything anyone could have imagined. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone raves, "Gael Garcia Bernal is dynamite!" and calls the film "a rapturous masterwork!"
"...intoxicating..." Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle
Editor's Note
In this powerful semi-autobiographical film, acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, TALK TO HER) tracks the formative experiences of his coming of age in a Catholic boys school. While the film benefits from Almodovar's limitless range of color, beauty, and moving expression, the themes presented are dark and difficult. Pedophilia, lost love, mistaken identity, manipulation, drug addiction, and desperation prevail, giving this otherwise sexy and vibrant film a chilling subtext.Gael Garcia Bernal gives a jaw-dropping performance, playing two of the main characters. First, he plays a screenwriter named Ignacio, who reunites with his childhood friend, Enrique (Fele Martinez), a filmmaker, to sell him a script called "The Visit." He also plays the star of "The Visit"--a gorgeous cross-dresser and drug addict named Zahara. Enrique instantly realizes that the script is the story of their childhood, where they met and fell in love, only to be torn apart by a jealous pedophilic priest, Father Manolo (Daniel Gimenez-Cacho). However, Ignacio looks nothing like the boy that Enrique remembers as his best friend and first love. As the mystery of their past begins to unfold, layers of lies and deception are peeled away to reveal a delicate core of innocence lost. Almodovar's message is not one of hopelessness--it is rather a recognition of the inevitable hardening of the soul that is fundamental to survival in a less-than-perfect world.
| Features | Audio: Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Interactive Menus | | Making Of Bad Education | | Photo Gallery | | Poster Explorations | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English | | Red Carpet footage from the AFI Film Festival | | Widescreen Presentation | | Making of Bad Education | | Poster Gallery | | Previews | | Audio Commentary with director Pedro Almodovar | | Audio: Spanish Dolby Digital (5.1) | | Deleted scenes | | American Film Institute Tribute |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Columbia Tri-Star |
| Release Date: 11/3/2009 |
| Running Time: 105 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2004 | | Catalog ID: 06946 | | UPC: 00043396069466 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: Spanish | | Available Audio Tracks: Latin, Spanish | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
British Academy Awards (2005) | | | Pedro Almodovar, Nominee, Best Film not in the English Language | |
Independent Spirit (2005) | | | Pedro Almodovar, Nominee, Best Foreign Film |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"[A] voluptuous experience that invites you to gorge on its beauty and vitality." 11/19/2004 p.E17USA Today
"Garcia Bernal exhibits a willingness to be daring. He also is a prodigious talent..." 11/19/2004 p.7E Premiere
"[The] director is unsparing in depicting all the corruption that the passionate are prone to. It's tough stuff, and it's another great achievement by a filmmaker on a roll." 12/01/2004 p.27 Entertainment Weekly
"It's a film noir that grows more potent as its secrets are revealed." 11/26/2004 p.88-90 Rolling Stone
"Garcia Bernal, in and out of drag, gives a juicy, jolting performance....He is the corrupt soul of a mesmeric movie that offers temptations impossible to resist." 12/09/2004 p.190 Los Angeles Times
"Almodovar is at his most breathtakingly complex and mature..." 12/10/2004 p.E6 Chicago Sun-Times
"Almodovar wants to intrigue and entertain us, and he certainly does, proving along the way that Gael Garcia Bernal has the same kind of screen presence that Antonio Banderas brought to Almodovar's earlier movies." 12/22/2004 p.22 James Berardinelli's ReelViews 6 of 10
In recent years, few things have been more certain than the guarantee of something delicious from di - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Whether Almodovar has a message I am not quite sure. The movie is not an attack on sexually abusive - Roger Ebert
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