Tie me up!

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Tie me up!
Original title ¡Átame!
Country of production Spain
original language Spanish
Publishing year 1990
length 111 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Pedro Almodovar
script Pedro Almodóvar
Yuyi Beringola
production Agustín Almodóvar : executive producer.
Enrique Posner : producer
music Manuel de la Calva ("Resistiré")
Ennio Morricone
camera José Luis Alcaine
cut José Salcedo
occupation

Tie me up! is a film by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar from the year 1990 . For Antonio Banderas , the male lead of Ricky, who kidnaps a woman in the expectation that she would return his love, was the decisive boost for his career as a Hollywood actor. Victoria Abril , his female counterpart, appeared for the first time in a leading role in Almodóvar, replacing his long-time favorite actress Carmen Maura .

Tie me up! was initially only received positively in Almodóvar's homeland and received as a work of art in the director's “typical mixture of comedy and melodrama ”. Outside of Spain, the public and criticism responded more cautiously. In the USA, where the film was considered pornographic due to an X rating , the legal action against this rating did not lead to success, but ultimately contributed to the overall rating being reformed.

action

Ricky is legally released from a closed psychiatric institution at the age of 23. When asked by the director what he intends to do, he purposefully replies: "Work and start a family - like any normal person." She has reason to doubt his plan and his self-image; She does appreciate him as a skilled craftsman, talented painter and, not least, as a lover; what worries her is his lack of awareness of wrongdoing. One thing remains hidden from her: Ricky not only knows exactly what he wants, but also who. Her name is Marina. A year earlier he met her in a one-night stand during one of his outbreaks and has since been determined to make her the lover, wife and mother of his children. He quickly tracks her down through a newspaper article. Marina, an ex-porn actress and drug addict on rehab, stars in the B-movie The Horror Came at Midnight . Ricky sneaks into the studio and takes a moment to get her attention, but fails. He already considered a possible kidnapping and stole some things from the cloakroom, including handcuffs, Marina's address and even her apartment keys. Now he follows her and enters her apartment. Since she defends herself and screams, he knocks her down without further ado and immediately holds her captive - in the naive and sure belief that time will work for him.

Marina doesn't take his plan seriously, which he just as naively presented to her. Ricky fends off her first attempts to free himself without much effort. However, her increasingly severe toothache forces him to leave the house: first when she is accompanied by a doctor she is friends with, then alone to get the drugs on the black market (normal painkillers, as an ex- junkie , don't work for her ). Before that, he tied her to the bed for the first time and covered her mouth with adhesive plaster. Instead of paying the dealer , he forcibly takes the goods from her. That takes revenge the following night when he tries to get Marina drugs; the dealer meets him again by chance and, with the help of two cronies, knocks him out. Marina, who got rid of the shackles in his absence, but only half-heartedly tried to free herself from the apartment, takes care of the injured Ricky who returns. Your pity turns into desire; she sleeps with him and now also remembers her first meeting a year earlier. The morning after, Ricky reveals their central importance to his life with a drawn biography. She learns that he was sent to an orphanage when he was 3, to a reformatory when he was 8, and to psychiatry when he was 16.

The showdown leading to the happy ending finally begins with the threatening discovery of both. To prevent this, Ricky and Marina have stayed in the apartment opposite, which belongs to a neighbor who has been away from home. Marina's sister Lola, who also lives as a promiscuous single, lets her mother raise her daughter in the country and works as a production manager in Marina's film, has the job of looking after the plants while he is away. Ricky first prevents her from noticing them and after they leave the apartment, too, to get a getaway car. In the meantime, however, Lola returns once more, now discovers strange traces and finally also Marina. This is clearly in conflict: Although for the first time without a plaster, she did not call, even admits that she wants to "have" her kidnapper, but does not really resist being led out of the apartment by her sister. Only then does she manage to make Lola - and not least herself - understand that she is serious. Since she knows that Ricky intended to visit his birthplace again next, they drive to where they actually find him, in the ruins of the abandoned village. From there the three of them, singing and obviously happy, drive on to the family of the two sisters.

Casting

With Victoria Abril in the role of Marina, Almodóvar chose an actress who was much younger than the now 44-year-old Carmen Maura , his declared muse and leading actress in most of his previous films. Tie me up! therefore marked his break with her, which did not heal until many years later due to private implications, and at the same time ushered in a phase of fruitful collaboration with Victoria Abril, who had already established herself in the film business as a 30-year-old, not least through embodiment "Strong" female characters. - For Antonio Banderas , who played Ricky, the fifth role in an Almodóvar film marked the breakthrough in his career as a Hollywood actor. - Almodóvar's own mother, Francisca Caballero, can be seen in the role of Marina's mother.

reception

At its international premiere at the Berlinale 1990, Fessle mich! booed loudly. It did not receive any of the awards, but was mentioned as one of two exceptions by commentators, who were generally dissatisfied with the quality of the European films shown. In Gwyne Edwards' view, Almodóvar's films generally met with little understanding in Germany. Manfred Riepe quotes several critical voices and connects them with the fact that Almodóvar ostensibly disappointed expectations for another film with “strong” women. The daily wrote : “Pedro Almodóvar, the director of women on the verge of a nervous breakdown , turns out to be in chains! unfortunately as macho . ”The Catholic lexicon of international film stated:“ The film […] is […] at its core nothing more than a cynical love story that unreflectively propagates violence as a source of sexual pleasure. ”Analogous to the comment Almodóvar himself: "Many were against the film because they thought my story was sadomasochistic , which it is not at the moment."

In his Spanish homeland Fessle was me! Well received by the audience and critics. In 1990 it became the most successful local film of the year in cinemas. With over a million viewers, he had twice as many as Carlos Sauras Ay Carmela! , in which Carmen Maura, whom Almodóvar had just split up, played the leading role and which Spanish critics considered the best film of local production in 1990. But Almodóvar also received their approval - “for the first time”, as Manfred Riepe says, and with the “consistent” judgment, tie me up! is a "tender love story".

In the USA, where the film achieved a respectable result at the box office, its explicitly sexual and other scenes that were perceived as offensive were met with opposition and led to a controversial dispute that also preoccupied the courts and ultimately contributed to a general change in the rating .

Controversy in the US

MPAA , responsible for the classification of films in the USA, had contacted Fessle mich! opted for an X rating , which was usually reserved for hard pornography . Such a label restricted the distribution of a film and reduced its chances of success in the cinemas. Miramax , the North American rental company for Tie Me Up! , took legal action against the X-Rating. In the process, this led to a fundamental debate about cinema, censorship and sexuality in the USA. One of the arguments put forward by Miramax was that serious violence and drug use in films are more lenient, while sex is generally harsh.

Miramax lost the lawsuit, but the fact that there were also complaints against the X rating of various films in numerous other cases prompted MPAA to drop it altogether and instead introduce an NC-17 rating. Henry & June was the first film to be released with this new label in September 1990. Tie me up! appeared without a rating.

analysis

covers

Some formal parallels between Ricky and the monster from the B-Movie, during which he tracks down Marina while filming, illuminate the frame of reference in which Tie me up! moves. The wig with shoulder-length black hair, for example, that Ricky steals from the cloakroom, makes him look like a monster himself when he chases Marina in the studio. The words with which the monster lures Marina: "I come [...] to carry you away from here [...] to a place without fear, where we will both be happy", reflect his own naive view of his plan. And finally, like the monster, he forcibly enters Marina at witching hour.

Examples of literary and cinematic works that are the frame of reference for Fessle mich! are The Phantom of the Opera , King Kong , Tarzan, the Ape Man and - above all - Beauty and the Beast , of which the title alone contains important similarities. It is also worth mentioning the echo of a major work in Spanish literature, Calderón's Life is a Dream , in which the raw violence of the protagonist, released into reality after 20 years of innocent imprisonment, is tamed by feminine beauty.

In William Wyler's thriller The Catcher , due to the similarity of the kidnapping, one suspected a direct source of inspiration for Fessle mich! There, too, a "madman" comes up with the idea of ​​trying to force the love of a woman he is fixated on by kidnapping her, and justifies the violent detention by saying that he wants to give her time to know and love him learn. When asked about the influence of the film, Almodóvar left open how strong it was and referred to another work by Wyler, On a Day Like Any Other , in which an entire family is taken hostage.

title

Marina's request "Tie me up!", To which the film owes its title (also in the Spanish original), belongs in one of the last scenes: immediately after the unexpected appearance of her sister Lola. At that point Marina is moving around the apartment as freely as Ricky, they are basically a couple and the next day's departure together is a done deal; the new situation, and they quickly agree on this, too, makes it necessary immediately; the shock leaves a residue of irritation for both of them. Hence Ricky's question if she would run away while he cracks a getaway car, hence her request: "Tie me up!" Nevertheless, the film leaves no doubt that Marina would have waited for Ricky if she had not been discovered by Lola, even without Shackles that he had only put on symbolically anyway. The cinematic statement beforehand is just as clear: At no point in time is there any sense of a desire to be tied up; there is also no connection between bondage and eroticism. Marina's request does not describe anything that is inherent in her. It is a snapshot, expressed in a moment when shackles are no longer necessary, a gesture that can express more clearly than anything else that she is committed to him. A Spanish critic saw this scene as proof of the “greatest intensity of love” and, like others of his colleagues, followed Almodóvar's judgment that it was the best in the film.

In the English version, the title was chosen Tie me up !, Tie me down! , analogously: “Tie me up! Tie me up!” The latter, similar to German, suggests a wish to be bound in a figurative sense, basically marriage. This is clear to Ricky from the start, not to Marina. However, the film gives an indication that such a wish is latent in her as well, even before she meets it. This shows Manfred Riepe's interpretation of the scene (judged as "incoherent" by other critics) in which she lets herself be sexually stimulated in the bathtub by a battery-powered Playmobil diver. It ends with Marina lovingly placing the toy between her breasts - a gesture that, in the Freudian sense, is an expression of her unconscious desire for children, according to Riepe.

The eponymous “shackles” also play an important role in connection with the B-movie, both in the original and figurative sense. For the director it is metaphorical : He is just as “tied up” by Marina's charms as Ricky, which torments him all the more because he is also “tied” to a wheelchair after a stroke. For the film itself, it is more palpable at first: The monster that came to fetch her at midnight fends off Marina by throwing a telephone cord tied in a loop around his neck, the rope in hands over the top The balcony parapet falls and the monster is strangled by its weight. The following film shot makes it clear, of course, that with her - grotesquely exaggerated - rescue operation she does not completely free herself: Dramatically hanging on the swinging rope in the lashing rain, she remains "tied up" herself.

main characters

The comparison between Tie Me Up! and Wyler's The Catcher in each case the look at the differences; This is particularly productive in Manfred Riepe's analysis with regard to the male protagonists. With the completely penniless Ricky, he does not find any contradiction between what he declares to the kidnapped woman as his intention and what he actually wants. Unlike his counterpart Freddie, a hobby butterfly collector and small bank clerk who made his fortune through a tote win. He turns out to be fundamentally incapable of love; Physical closeness and even sex scare him, he doesn't want marriage or children. It is only logical that his kidnapping should escalate; he is badly injured and his hostage dies. By nature, Freddie is a shy loner, melancholy and uptight; it is dangerous precisely because of its weakness and only apparently "normal". Ricky, on the other hand, is basically really "normal". It is not without danger, but it is easier to calculate and control; he is impulsive, vital and naive, which also includes the fact that he prides himself on his “erotic natural talent” with childlike pride. - Riepe sums up: Wyler drew an "authentic" psychopath , while Almodóvar drew a typical fictional character for him. - Almodóvar himself describes Ricky as follows: “If you have nothing, like my protagonist, you have to force everything. Love too. Ricky only has (as the flamenco singers say) the night, the day and the vitality of an animal. “ Rossy de Palma , the one in bondage! Marina includes the drug dealer in a similar-sounding assessment when she thinks that the kidnapping shown in the film is only justified by the “extraordinary nature of the characters”.

Marina, the protagonist, is similar to her male counterpart Ricky in many ways, especially in temperament. What she has ahead of him follows from her completely different biographies: She has solid social roots, especially in her family. Her porn film career and her drug use appear more like aberrations of someone who seeks life experience and, after having acquired enough, is able to break away from it. In a short scene you can see that she knows something about horses; she also worked in the circus. There is no question that she is resolutely resisting Ricky's act of violence. It is uncertain to what extent Stockholm Syndrome plays a role in her emotional change . Again, it is undoubted that the impulse to make love comes from her and does not arise from any calculation - just as there is no predicament when she, escaping the kidnapping, follows Ricky of her own free will. That it really is she who “follows” is only apparently correct. It is more likely that he “follows” - her or “them”. The final picture shows him in double female company (Marina and sister Lola), on the way to a place where she doubles up again (her mother and Lola's daughter). It cannot be ruled out that he will fall “under the slipper” several times. So Ricky is by no means the " macho " that he initially seems to be, just as Marina does not embody a "weak" woman.

genre

The shooting of the B-movie The horror came at midnight also give a hint to the development of the genre of Fessle mich! Sitting at the editing table, the assistant realizes that it is more of a love than a horror film . The director replies that sometimes you just can't tell apart. What the assistant remarks about the film-in-film is not so different from what Almodóvar himself says about his film as a whole: he says it is “almost a romantic fairy tale” and “basically a love story”.

That bind me! he does not deny that he is also committed to the horror genre. The film quotes ( Invasion of the Body Eater on a poster, The Night of the Living Dead as the opening sequence on TV) are, however, interspersed rather incidentally, and the film-im, designed as a "winking homage to the Spanish B-horror film in the style of Jess Franco " -Film seems so artificial and overdrawn to the viewer that it creates rather comical effects instead of horror; Distance also ensures that the filmed scene is experienced as something made, not as unreflected fiction. The moments that are most likely to make you think of a horror scenario occur in the real action, immediately after the scenes in the film studio. It is the beginning of Rickys kidnapping: the violence of his entry into the apartment, the ruthlessness with which he eliminates Marina's resistance, the seriousness of his threat that he will kill her and himself with a knife if she doesn't do what he wants . This is scary indeed, and not just for Marina; comedy could tip over here.

In the overall view, the director's witty reply turns out to be a statement with a reference character: love and violence can actually "sometimes not be distinguished" if one takes Ricky's perspective. But he can differentiate a bit. For him violence is not a means of bringing about the desired act of love; it is also not a by-product of the time he does it (the extended scene that finally shows it was critically praised as "authentic"; director Elia Kazan even described it as the best sex scene he has seen). What seems completely legitimate and natural to Ricky, on the other hand, is the violent act of deprivation of liberty. Convinced that the end is a good one and will occur, it "justifies" the bad means for him.

In the presentation of the tense contrast between the “objectively wrong” and the “subjectively right”, Manfred Riepe sees me in Fessle! realizes one of the basic principles of comedy - a technique that Almodóvar uses here with virtuosity. Using the example of the scene in which Ricky visits her doctor friend with Marina, Riepe shows that not only the naive protagonist sees the "wrong" as "right", but also sometimes ignorant third parties: the non-verbal signs that Ricky sends to Appearing as a lovable young man is so effective that she does not even suspect when he briefly leaves the room (to reinforce the impression) to look next door to the crying babies, and Marina has the chance for a moment, even verbally to signal the "right thing" - in vain. The "joke" in tie me up! Riepe went on to say that the image that Ricky and Marina convey not only looks normal, but is also normal in the end. While in Wyler's Der Fänger “no right thing can be created in a wrong thing”, in comedy the wrong thing is a mask behind which the right thing is hidden.

Ricky becomes a "comic figure" because he is entangled like a puppet in the causal bond that he has tied himself. Just as he - with the babies in his arms - would like to appear as the good father he has promised to be, he is constantly busy looking after Marina in other respects too, buzzing around her like a satellite and becoming more and more more of a "prisoner" himself because she takes him (and himself) at the word he gave in the beginning. Just as the narrative perspective gradually shifts from him to her, the initially male dominance gradually turns into a female one. The conclusion can therefore also be interpreted in such a way that basically it was not he who found his wife but her husband - that is the "ironically twisted" happy ending of a film which, according to Riepe, is a "typical mixture of comedy and melodrama " for Almodóvar , in which the boundaries of the two genres merge.

Adaptations

  • The stage arrangement by Volker Maria Engel was premiered in a production by Tobias Materna on March 8, 2002 in Bonn-Beuel.

Awards

  • 1991:
    • Cartagena Film Festival (Colombia), Golden India Catalina for Best Actor for Antonio Banderas
    • Fotogramas de Plata
      • Award for Best Spanish Film
    • Sant Jordi Awards, Audience Award for Best Spanish Film

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for tie me up! Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2008 (PDF; test number: 64 374 DVD).
  2. a b c d e Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 121.
  3. Brad Epps and Despina Kakoudaki: All about Almodóvar. University of Minnesota Press, 2009, p. 111.
  4. a b c d e Manfred Riepe : Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 120.
  5. ^ Archive of the Berlinale, 1990 (last accessed on June 13, 2014)
  6. a b Gwyne Edwards: Almodóvar: Labyrinth of Passion. London, Peter Owen, 2001, p. 107. (own translation of the quote)
  7. Tie me up! In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 21, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  8. ^ Marvin D'Lugo: Pedro Almodóvar. University of Illinois Press, 2006, p. 74.
  9. ^ A b Paul Julian Smith: Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar. Verso, 2000, p. 117.
  10. Gwyne Edwards: Almodóvar: Labyrinth of Passion. London, Peter Owen, 2001, p. 109.
  11. a b Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 122.
  12. ^ Paul Julian Smith: Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar. Verso, 2000, p. 114.
  13. a b Jassien Kelm: Tie me up! ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On: filmreporter.de (last accessed on June 14, 2014) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filmreporter.de
  14. ^ Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 125.
  15. ^ Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 126.
  16. ^ Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 123.
  17. ^ A b Paul Julian Smith: Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar. Verso, 2000, p. 107. (own translation of the quote)
  18. ^ Paul Julian Smith: Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar. Verso, 2000, p. 108. (own translation of the quote)
  19. ^ Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 132.
  20. a b Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 124.
  21. a b Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 128.
  22. ^ Manfred Riepe: Intensive care unit longing. Blossoming secrets in the Pedro Almodóvar cinema. Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2004, p. 130.