THE MOVIE

A few months back, I got a chance to review a film about the love and relationships of 4 people. That movie was called Married/Unmarried. Talk To Her (or Hable Con Ella in its original Spanish) is also about the love and relationships of 4 people. But these two films couldn’t be more different.

Married/Unmarried is a vulgar, dull, extremely pretentious mess. Talk to Her is a beautiful, engrossing character study with a story that is truly engaging, and a finale that will both sadden, and uplift you.

The four main characters at the heart of Talk To Her are Benigno (Javier Cámara), Marco (Darío Grandinetti), Alicia (Leonor Watling), and Lydia (Rosario Flores).

Alicia is a beautiful young woman who is in a coma, the victim of a car accident. She is cared for by Benigno, who has deep feelings for her.

Marco is a journalist who falls for the majestic bullfighter Lydia, and after they meet, they soon form a relationship. Unfortunately, during a bullfight Lydia is gored and falls into a coma herself. This is where Marco and Benigno meet for the first time, and a friendship develops between the two men who are each caring for the women they love.

During this time, a disturbing rape occurs, which will change the lives of our characters forever, and test a strong friendship.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to see much of the work of Pedro Almodóvar, and after viewing Talk To Her I firmly believe that as a filmmaker he is just getting better and better.

The characters here are wonderful and painfully realistic, and the actors’ performances in bringing them to life top notch. The work of cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe is just gorgeous. And as usual with Almodóvar, this film is both sensual and sexual, but Talk To Her is never crass or crude.

And I simply can’t finish talking about this film without mentioning the wonderful score. The music of Alberto Iglesias is magnificent, combining original elements with contributions from artists such as Caetano Veloso (responsible for Cucurrucucú Paloma here), into a score which will leave you wonderfully moved.

Talk To Her is the sort of special film that doesn’t come around too often, and while I won’t call it a masterpiece, it is an excellent piece of cinema.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Talk To Her is presented at its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

Like the movie itself, it’s a beautiful transfer.

Almodóvar loves to make use of the width that the 2.35:1 frame offers, often placing important elements right on the edges of each frame. I’d hate to think what this would look like 4:3 pan & scan.

Colours in the film are naturally lovely (check out Lydia’s stunning bullfighter attire for a simple example), and I’m pleased to say this transfer does them justice.

Film artefacts pop up from time to time but are small and never distracting. Black levels are strong. Aliasing is extremely minor and there are no problems with excessive grain in this transfer at all.

This is an RSDL disc with the layer change taking place at 39.33. It’s a reasonable place for a change during a quick scene transition.

I do have one issue though, and that’s with the subtitles. As far as the English translation goes, I believe a very good job has been done. However, we don’t get a set of plain English subtitles. We get English for the hearing impaired instead. This means we are constantly told things such as [LYDIA SCREAMS] or [DOG BARKS] or [DOOR OPENS], etc, etc, etc.

While it’s good to have these subtitles, they should have been an option only and not the default. The fact that a plain English subtitle stream isn’t available did slightly effect my enjoyment of this film, and is about the only substantially negative thing I can say about this DVD.

Maybe I should just shut up and learn Spanish, eh?

Audio:

Talk To Her is presented with one audio option. It is an original language Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 track at 384 kpbs.

I’m pleased to say the audio on offer is just as good as the video.

As I mentioned earlier, the score is quite wonderful. For the most part however, it is also understated, meaning that you shouldn’t expect copious use of the surrounds and subwoofer.

They do come to life on the odd occasion, but remember that this is a dialogue driven film, which is always clean and clear (even if I didn’t understand 99% of it).

Overall, an excellent audio transfer.

THE EXTRAS

That generic Fox menu usually spells death for extras, but whaddya know…there is actually a special features section here!

Don’t get too excited though, there’s nothing of real substance to sink your teeth into.

THEATRICAL TRAILER

A first-rate trailer that (for the most part) lets the music do the talking and contains burned in subtitles that look FAR, FAR better than my butt-ugly player generated ones.

It runs for 1.20, is presented at 2.35:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio, and is NOT 16x9 enhanced.

TV SPOT

Basically a shortened (and slightly altered) version of the theatrical trailer. It flies by in 22 seconds, is surprisingly presented at 2.35:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio, and is NOT 16x9 enhanced.

Unfortunately, this Region 4 version does not contain the audio commentary with director Pedro Almodóvar and actress Geraldine Chaplin that is present on the Region 1 release of this disc. A real shame.

SUMMARY

Talk To Her is simply wonderful. With believable characters brought to life by fabulous performances in a tragic story that is both sad and uplifting, this film should not be missed.

Add to that, beautiful video and audio presentations (which are only slightly ruined by a lack of plain English subtitles) and you have a DVD that deserves to be part of your collection.