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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
SIMPLY FASCINATING....., October 7, 2002
This is my personal favorite of Almodovar's films. Those unfamiliar with Almodovar's work should take heed...this is a totally off-the-wall adult film. He is famous for pushing the boundaries of taste and outrageousness to the extreme and beyond. However, his movies entertain nonetheless. "Kika" is a cosmotologist on a quest for love and happiness. The film chronicles her (mis)adventures and encounters with all sorts of people who either don't understand her or seek to use her. She ,like Lulu in "Pandora's Box", is a free spirit adrift in a sea of miscreants. Almodovar deftly blends slapstick and drama together with his trademark color motifs, bizarre costumes (by Gaultier), over-the-top dialogue and stock cast members to enliven a fairy tale that, to me, stands unique among his other films. Of course, without Veronica Forque as Kika there would be no film. She is a total delight from start to finish and carries a difficult film soley on her bravura performance and irrepressable personality. And don't miss Victoria Abril as a reporter with an unusual way of getting the scoop on film! There is much to relish here and "Kika" can be watched again and again and still remain fresh and entertaining. A must for Almodovar fans.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, Erotic, & Endlessly Enjoyable, October 20, 2004
I've learned to accept Almodovar as he has (ahem) matured & gotten serious. He is my favorite director so I support all his progressions. However! I'm deeply & irrevocably in love with the movie Kika, its colors, its actors, its characters, its music, its dialogue, its spell. Having watched it as much as I have, I've analyzed scenes & themes that otherwise would have escaped a one time viewing only. For example, notice how Ramon kneels in front of three women, for different purposes. First the model in the opening credits as he photographs her in bed. Next, he kneels in front of his dead mother as he opens her blouse to reveal her wound. Finally, in front of Kika as he makes love to her. The posters throughout the film hint at the action to take place in the future scenes. The dialogue is hilarious beyond belief & is not all translated or not translated acurately in the subtitles. If you are an Almodovar fan, you owe it to yourself to study Spanish & brush up on Castillian regionalisms to get the fully, mordant sinuousness of the dialogue. Kika is a black comedy & must be enjoyed as such, otherwise one would not laugh at the bizarre costumes, the multiple deaths, the rape as much-needed outlet for the retarded ex-porn star, the fickleness of love, the unfaitfulness throughout. Finally, I suspect that public taste or America's increasing discomfort with black comedy when its applied to rape, is delaying or preventing the rerelease of Kika on dvd. Its available in Brazil, but, of course not with English subtitles.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
challenging every step of the way, September 24, 2000
Kika, surely a girl who just wants to have fun, a make up artist with little fluffy clouds for brains. She attempts to pursaude her class of student make up girls to attend to the corpse of a client's mother. None will take the job, and the film drifts off into a tale of what happened to her when she took on the same type of task in the past. All in all not a lot to recommend it for Kika from the ensuing yarn, but a great and very dark comedy for us, which slaps you around the face like a wet fish. You'll roar with laughter at a rape scene (excuse me?)! You'll crease up at the death scenes. If hetro, you'll probably find the big blonde woman very sexy (she's a man by the way, the directors boyfriend). Even the director's mum gets a part, and merrily announces that she's in the film because otherwise she'd never see her son (Pedro Almodovar). On the surface this film would seem to be about as unpolitically correct as any you're likely to watch, and one of its great functions is to disturb and upset the very people who should applaud it. For indeed it is a fierce commentary on the state of the media, journalism and macho sexism. Women seem to get the joke, new men cringe and look away. Buy and enjoy.
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