I’M SO EXCITED

Spain, 2013, 91 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Pedro Almodovar.

For many fans of the films of Pedro Almodovar, Spain’s leading director for more than a quarter of a century, with some great cinematic achievements, they might wish they were able to say with some conviction, ‘I’m so excited’. The characters in the film are over-excited, many of the audience much less so.

When Almodovar first began directing films in the 1980s, he had small budgets, but he had very good casts and plenty of imagination. In the post-Franco era, there was plenty of room for opening up dramas as well as humour, especially with satire. And that is what Almodovar did. Cheeky. He was cheeky. He was rude, capitalising on sending up sexual behaviour and attitudes and capitalising on his own gay sensibility.

With I’m So Excited, he seems to be returning to the style of 30 years earlier. For those who are happy to indulge in it, there will be plenty of enjoyment. For those who find the characters in the film overly over-excited, it becomes a bit tiresome, not as funny as all that.

He does start brightly, literally with all the pastel colours during the credits, then with cameo performances from Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz. Then they vanish from the film and we go aboard a flight to Mexico which, in the circumstances, has to circle around Spain and finally try to land at the La Mancha airport, something of a white elephant airport in the film as in real life.

It is important to say at this moment that many of the commentators have pointed out that the broad parody and satire is it the expense of Spanish society today, of the government, of people’s responses, of attitudes towards communication, towards crime, both financial and violent, about clairvoyants and drug dealers. Audiences who know Spain well and can make the connections will probably find that there is deeper comedy and meaning in the characters and events. Others might be at a loss and be surprised when such connections are made.

It is also a very gay film. The three male flight attendants are as camp as a row of tents. This is in their demeanor, their way of speaking, interests, relationships, the jokes with more than a touch of crassness at times, and the miming to the Pointer Sisters singing Cole porter’s ‘I’m so excited’. The two pilots are bisexual, leading to a lot of discussions about their relationships, a married man having to accept his preferences and the other being forced to acknowledge his preferences.

The stewards have drugged everybody in economy class as well as the flight attendants. Is this meant to portray Spanish society asleep and authorities keeping them asleep?

Then there are the half dozen passengers in first class who have not been drugged. One is a naive and over-eager clairvoyant, a middle-aged woman will who is anxious to lose her virginity, and achieves her ambition with an unconscious economy passenger. She has a sense of death around the plane and around one or other of the passengers. There it is the ageing film star who, it emerges, is really a madame and has made porn films. Next to her is a tall, dark handsome man to whom she’s attracted, only to find that there is more to his sinister character that she might have dreamed. There is a businessman who wants to contact his mistress who is being taken away to an institution and contacts another who relates to him what has happened and meets him at the airport when they land. There is another businessman, looking mightily suspicious, as well he might because of the reports of a bank going bust with the double dealings of this manager. Then there is a young couple, allegedly on a honeymoon, the groom keeping the woman unconscious by slipping her drugs throughout the flight.

Lots of goings on, lots of sexual behaviour, lots of jokes, but all at a very, one might say, superficial level, no matter what the satiric levels underneath. Perhaps this is Almodovar relaxing before he makes his next serious film.

1. The films of Pedro Almodovar? Comic, sardonic? Some allegories of Spanish society? The Hispanic world?

2. The title, the flight attendants, their singing the Pointer Sisters’ song? The economy passengers? First-class?

3. The airport, the plane, Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz and their jobs at the airport, not doing well, the danger with the wheel? Taking off, needing to land, circling, the final landing at the white elephant airport?

4. The stewards, the camp style, appearance, manner of talking, chat and gossip, sex interests, the bisexual pilot, the other pilot, the relationship with the steward, talk about the wife?

5. The passengers, the economy class, all drugged and unconscious? Meaning?

6. The first class passengers, caricatures or real?

7. The clairvoyant, middle-aged, her virginity, preoccupation with sex, premonition of death, the sex with the drugged man from economy class?

8. The financier, fraud, escaping, contact with his estranged daughter?

9. The alleged actress, really a dominatrix, her clients, sitting next to the charming man, the irony that he was a hitman with her as target?

10. The actor, his affairs, the phone calls, the mistress on the viaduct, suicidal, dropping the phone, the other lover catching it, talking with the actor, meeting him on landing?

11. The hitman, sitting next to the dominatrix, his target, yet falling in love?

12. The honeymoon couple, the husband and his drugged his wife, the sexual atmosphere?

13. The continued drinks, the mescalin, the talking, the confession, psychological striptease?

14. The landing, the empty airport? The film as an entertainment, a criticism, an allegory?