As a successful romantic novelist, Leo Macías (Paredes) lives on an easy street of Madrid, but middle-age crisis starts kicking in, the relationship with her husband Paco (Arias), a military officer who goes out of his way to be stationed in foreign countries (a typical cop-out move of the guilty part), is on the rocks, which significantly cripples her output of cloying love stories, and under contractual obligation and a nom-de-plume clause which gives her the freedom of anonymity, her high-flying career might take a sea change when she seeks to publish her latest anti-romantic works through a newspaper editor Angel (Echanove), who begins to take a shine for her.

THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET, Almodóvar’s 11th feature, might as well echo his own creativity struggle at that mid-point in his life, between churning out familiar stories that promise stability or breaking out from his comfort zone to map out new territory, an artist’s perpetual dilemma, that is.

Leo’s latent desire to shucking off her status quo and persistent loneliness is comically symbolized by a pair of shoes that Paco bought for her years ago that now becomes too tight for her to take it off, and cannot reach her maid Blanca (flamenco dancer Vargas, who will not exeunt without a fiery rendition), she has to cross the city to ask her best friend Betty (Elias) for help. Tellingly, female friendship is never simply a friend-or-foe dichotomy in Almodóvar’s understanding, here it is complicated by secrets, conflicted by feelings but ultimately benevolent, and men, on the other hand, are less so, Paco’s egotistic ultimatum prompts Leo to suicidal actions, Angel’s banal affection looks more like a stopgap than a soul-mate for her, and Blanca’s son Antonio (Cortés), is stripped down to a dunderhead with an improbable sense of naiveté, to whom Leo symbolically grants a gratitude than taking advantage of his corporeal gesture.

Thankfully, the school of hard knocks is graced by Marisa Paredes’ commandingly doleful star turn in the center, to incarnate a woman who is aspiring to burn the bridge and plow on over a dead-end marriage with a renewed direction of life, and the most ebullient parts are those with her mother and sister (Lampreave and de Palma respectively), when motormouth meets loudmouth, both are extraordinarily funny as the bickering duo, plus we must give the mother the credit for doling out her cracker-barrel philosophies and Lampreave is particularly swell in delivering her lines with a delicious cadence.

At any rate, THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET is Almodóvar’s more conventional and sympathetic practice of his slant on female emotional provenance, it might stem from love (even a lopsided one), family (even it is affixed with constant squabbling) or friendship (even if contains betrayal), but most of all, there is a form of vitality as immanent as a woman’s tears, vulnerable it seems, but the operative word here is “indissoluble”.

referential entries: Almodóvar’s JULIETA (2016, 7.0/10), WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS? (1984, 7.0/10).

生存還是毀滅，這是一個(gè)問題?？墒侨绾翁釂柌拍芨惺苌膶偌旱那猩眢w會(huì)呢？婚姻破裂的女人莉奧看著剛離去的丈夫帕科剛洗完的內(nèi)衣和毛巾還被扔在地上，往事浮上心頭，已往付出的愛有多深如今刺在心頭就有多痛。莉奧認(rèn)為自己難以承受這一切，也不可能想出什么辦法。唯一的出路就是殺人，自己殺死自己以此結(jié)束這無止境的痛苦。 但是作為旁觀者，我覺得我們不會(huì)比兩個(gè)長白卦的醫(yī)生更清楚結(jié)束的分界線。每一段感情的過往都像是一次腦死亡，雖然能夠呼吸，但醫(yī)生清楚你已經(jīng)死了，可是正是因?yàn)檫€有呼吸，真正愛它的人是難以接受這樣無情的世界的。我痛苦，我悲傷，但我活著。40多歲的女人曼努埃拉中年喪子，像一頭失去鈴鐺的牛，她渴望被世界輕柔以待而并非只是告訴她實(shí)情。凡花色鮮艷且芳香馥郁之處，秘密就會(huì)落腳并待下來，小故事嵌套著大結(jié)構(gòu)，阿爾莫多瓦以此細(xì)微窺探著女人的秘密。 女作家莉奧敏感多疑又藏著諸多的秘密。以筆名阿曼達(dá)·格麗斯寫作“純真的愛情”小說，要求出版社保證不泄露個(gè)人隱私并拒絕任何媒體采訪。在大街上看到“巖石”牌衛(wèi)生潔具的廣告語“我愛你，巖石”就與丈夫帕科發(fā)明了兩個(gè)人使用的特殊語言。愛的這種場域中充滿了對(duì)秘密的保衛(wèi)與分享。秘密恪守著一個(gè)人的孤獨(dú)和寂寞的分界線，莉奧只向特定的人傳遞，如今丈夫拿著她讓渡的權(quán)力。她期盼著丈夫的電話，報(bào)紙刊登了自己的文章第一時(shí)間就想要與他分享。可是就這樣的一個(gè)人，她的婚姻究竟發(fā)生了什么？ “面對(duì)著瘋狂，無能為力?！? “痛苦地驚呆住……” “容易發(fā)怒的樣子” 對(duì)于一個(gè)善于掩飾自己的莉奧來說，除了文字你發(fā)現(xiàn)不了她婚姻中更多的秘密。除了一動(dòng)不動(dòng)的身體，觀眾至少應(yīng)該確診婚姻的“腦死亡”。也許丈夫與閨蜜貝蒂出軌算是鐵證，可是作為心理醫(yī)生的貝蒂擅長的是如何以最能接受的方式告訴當(dāng)事人最壞的消息，實(shí)質(zhì)上，出軌前婚姻就已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)了問題。很難說莉奧自身就沒有什么問題，沒有更多的表達(dá)，但是脫鞋的隱喻已經(jīng)展現(xiàn)了某種焦灼，她敏感但她卻視而不見，已經(jīng)死了卻聽不得任何一聲呼吸。她就像一個(gè)脆弱的傻女人一樣跌跌撞撞，面對(duì)生存還是毀滅，她感到前所未有的無力。 “純真的愛情”雖美，但卻可能并不真實(shí)，《冷藏庫》中，她描寫到: 女兒因被父親強(qiáng)奸后，而殺死了她的父親，母親得知后，為了不讓別人發(fā)現(xiàn)女兒的罪行，還把尸體藏在了隔壁餐館的冷藏庫里。毀尸滅跡并不容易，重要的是，母親要救女兒。 婚姻的衰亡不是某種是非對(duì)錯(cuò)所能完全涵蓋，不是一個(gè)人對(duì)和一個(gè)人錯(cuò)，往往是兩個(gè)人都對(duì)，或者兩個(gè)人都錯(cuò)，或者是某種居間的東西，它像自然生命，有新陳代謝也有生老病死，它的死亡是不可抗拒的力量。你愛我，我愛你，是揮霍它；我痛苦，我悲傷，是挽救它。只有經(jīng)歷過車禍的人諸神才給予她這樣的獎(jiǎng)賞:靈魂從哈得斯再返回。死亡路上母親恍惚的一聲喊叫，雖然狼狽不堪，卻揪住了真實(shí)的生命力。 所有人都知道它死了，閨蜜貝蒂，女傭布蘭卡，丈夫帕科，編輯安吉爾，母親，妹妹，包括莉奧自己的文字，查貝拉用沙啞嗓音唱起: “今天晚上我對(duì)你毫無所求，今天晚上你真的離去。盡管我明白你已不再愛我了，但我卻很難將你忘懷?！? 我背叛了我的人格，我吶喊，我舞蹈，我在所有的親朋面前進(jìn)行著拙劣的表演，他們都知道我的婚姻已經(jīng)死了，我卻假裝它仍然活著，看上去像布蘭卡的弗拉明戈起舞，聽上去像小時(shí)候?qū)懡o村莊的詩歌: 清晨多么美麗，莉奧。 陽光燦爛， 花兒芬香， 河邊的小樹沙沙作響。 …… 《我的秘密之花》不是“我愛你，巖石”如此生硬啞默的腦死亡，《我的秘密之花》是孕育著生命呼吸的一聲回應(yīng)與不死: 那天你穿著藍(lán)色衣服，逃避著你的生活，但卻闖進(jìn)我的生命里。