For me, Dark Habits is Pedro Almodóvar's first great film and still stands as one of his best. It's wickedly funny from the outset and just gets funnier and funnier, I think even the staunchest catholics would find it hard not to smirk at at least one joke. Almodóvar is Spanish though, and being brought up in Calzada
de Calatrava his upbringing was about as Catholic as it gets, so he very knowingly parades the lives of Nuns but he also does so with just enough affection so as not to be too offended by it. The film is never nasty in any way, not do i think is it anti-catholic/anti-religious/blasphemous etc. Dark Habits is also noted as being his first commercially produced film. He has distanced himself from the film lately stating that he felt it isn't the film it should have been due to these commercial obligations. Makes you wonder what the original was like then when producers in a deeply Catholic country allow Nuns to be shown indulging in drug taking and masochism but yeah, Viva Espania!
October 24, 2011
