Customer Reviews

Kika

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This is not the best film by Almodovar. But it is yet a true one,and as nearly all others the subject is about human destiny. How human beings can act or react to the gifts of destiny .All the baroque aspects of his first period enchant obviously, but the violence is not yet mastered, quieted and in fact made powerful as it is the case for CARNE TREMULA or his last extraordinary one: ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (I ignore the spanish title and propose here an english translation of the french title).To be seen in spanish version in a good movie theater before buying the DVD on Amazon.com. OLGA

This is not the easiest film to understand. I think it makes sense if you see it as a transition film for Almodovar. In his earlier films he was so visually audacious that his content seemed secondary to his style, and even though his men and women had very dark desires Almodovars absurdist sensibility kept his films in the comic category. In Kika I think he is leaving behind that comic sensibility and digging deeper beneath that visual audacity and presenting his characters as people not just with absurd desires but with real lives and experiences which are not so easily overcome. perhaps the best character in Kika is Victoria Abril(with dark hair) who plays a tabloid journalist always on the prowl for the next big sex scandal breaking on the horizon. She is both literally and figuratively scarred from a failed love and seems to have gone over the edge. The only way she can get turned on now is by relishing in others tragedies. So of course she is attracted to the dark American writer(Coyote)who seems to leave a trail of dead bodies in his wake. The title character Kika (Veronica Forque) is a make-up artist who meets Coyote becomes his lover first and then his sons lover but she never leaves Coyote. She is not really the central character in this film so its odd that the film is titled Kika. but then the whole film is a little uncertain as to just what direction it should take. Almodovars seems to be experincing some creative indirection and it shows. This film has some of Almodovars bold visual trademark antics like outrageouly costumed and hyper sexual women but as the film progresses it becomes less and less like one of the older kind of Almodovar films and more and more like a new kind of Almodovar film which is to say this is a step toward a new kind of Almodovar film-- a Spanish noir,perhaps--which he will later perfect with the classic LIVE FLESH. In Kika he has not perfected his new style yet but if you are a filmgoer who likes to follow a filmakers progress this is a key film. Many of Almovodar bests films deal with women relating with women ( I would not call these films "noirs") but when he deals with the relation between the sexes he is evolving a style which derives from noir. Far from being a limit the genre seems to have liberated Almodovar from other kinds of constraints. In Kika he is struggling to free himself of some of his own cliches and the noir genre seems to have been just the thing to give his talents a new kind of focus. Live Flesh is his noir masterpiece but Kika was a key step in getting there.

I guess the right way to watch Almodovar's movies is to see them chronologically, according to the time of their creation. This is not what I did. I started watching his work with "Talk to Her" moved on to "All about my mother" and then watched "Kika". In a way, this order of viewing indeed affected my judgment. After watching the first two, "Kika" is indeed a disappointment and does not come up to the standard of his later creations. However, I am willing to admit that I might have misjudged this film as the reason for my low rating is that I find "Kika" to be very perplexing and I always find it hard to enjoy something I do not totally understand. However, this might be my own problem. Maybe you do not need to understand everything. Its not that I did not understand what I saw in the movie. Indeed, the characters are peculiar and the plot is amazing. However, what you truly do not understand is what did Almodovar want to tell you? What are the characters motives and where are they coming from? What seems to be the glue that made Almodovar put all these characters together? I have several vague ideas, but am totally uncertain about them. Although other viewers laughed and thought the movie was a comedy, my personal reaction was sitting with my mouth wide open at what went on the screen asking myself was it my problem for not understanding or was it a feeling Almodovar wanted to create on purpose....Maybe he did want the viewers to feel disgusted over the media's interests and the power of rating and wanted to make it as extreme and shocking as possible (the first shock is from Andrea's clothes...).
In spite of what I have written above, this is indeed an Almodovar movie and as such has a lot of his personal traits - including the Almodovar charm. In this movie as his other films I saw, you manage to remain not critical towards all characters and there is no one you totally hate or dislike in spite of all the horrible things they do (off course one can say that you do not care about the characters enough to really mind...). You do like Kika. She is not a strong character that stays with you after the movie ends, however, is sweet and charming with a lot of "love of life" and vivacity about her. I found her naivety and even ignorance as something that was easy for me to accept. Sort of a defense mechanism for staying in her own world.
It is interesting that even the rapist is not someone you totally hate or despise. The same can be said about Andrea, a sort of Television reporter, who is the "bad" character of the movie. She is revolting in her actions and yet, you do not feel any strong resentment towards her and in a way accept her "murder madness". This acceptance that Almodovar creates is especially important as the movie is filled with ugly disgusting things (whipping of the back, etc.) which do cause a feeling of uneasiness although you have a sense of "this can not be truly happening".
Another striking character is that of Juana who is Kika's lesbian maid. This woman has such an extraordinary face, which in my eyes is some of the Almodovar appeal. She can be said to be a true ugly person and on the other hand, has some amazing features. Her total look is one of the "Adams Family".
Reading my review over and again I find it to be somewhat confused. This is indeed how I feel after watching this movie. Many impressions, several thoughts, but all in all not a movie I would like to see again.

Kika sets up its audience in a manner that few films could achieve. Initially slated by critics for its shocking content and genre, this film breaks all the rules with its apparent trivilisation of the rape of its main protagonist. Veronica Forque carries of the part of Kika wonderfully but is somewhat undershadowed at times by the powerful performance of Victoria Abril, in Gautier rubber suit...and loving it! The strong female cast and the touching realisation that Juana, Rossy de Palma, has a love so strong for Kika she is willing to give herself to the rapist, her brother!, in order to protect her, causes a confusion in the message Almodovar is trying to relay to his audience. This contrast of apparent exploitation of main female characters and yet the strength of their presence throughout the film, makes this an interesting study of the question of Almodovar as mysogonist. One to watch, if not for the moral implications, then for a look at kitsch at its best!

The title says it all. I can't even write a decent review of the movie itself because the subtitle is white and whenever there is a light background in the scene, you basically stop following the dialogue. This is sloppy DVD transfer and is just a cheap way to cash in on Almodovar's popularity. There was absolutely no effort to provide value to the DVD. If you MUST own this movie, buy the VHS version instead. Why pay more for the DVD when it provides no value added?

Esta es una comedia, donde se exponen las crudas experiencias de personas que laboran en los medios de comunicación. El humor negro es la cualidad sobresaliente de esta película. Sin entrar en los detalles que a veces caen en lo ofensivo, es genial y magistral la forma en que Almodóvar maneja las situaciones. Kika mujer madura con mentalidad ingenua, arranca carcajadas por sus ocurrencias. Como víctima de la manipulación y hasta el abuso de los "machos" de la película, se deja llevar, para al fin y al cabo salirse con la suya. Realmente es una comedia que deliciosa es un insulto al recato.

I think most amazon.com patrons would be thinking about 'Kika' only if, like me, they saw "All About My Mother" or "Woman on the Verge..." or some other Almdovar masterpiece and thought, "Gee, I ought to rent/buy some of his other works." With that in mind, here's where "Kika" ranks in my estimation:

1. "All About My Mother"

2. "Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown"

3. "Live Flesh" (early Bardem!! Don't miss it.)

4. "High Heels"

5. Every other Almodovar film except "Kika" (includes anything he ever did at film school, plus birthday celebrations where he might have held a video camera).

6. "Kika"

The only reason to watch this film - and this is for pure comedic value only - is to witness the train wreck of Peter Coyote in this film. I don't mean to slam him as an actor. He doesn't look *that* out of place or anything, but Almodovar has dubbed in a preposterous-sounding Castillian accent over Coyote's real voice...who knows if the actor was speaking his original lines in English or whether he really gave Spanish a whirl. Anyway, the dubbing - in my mind - became a heck of a lot more fun to watch than the movie.

Gave it three stars instead of two because, hey, it's got Victoria Abril, so it can't be that bad. She completely overshadows Veronica Forque, who is totally inconsequential as the lead character. The only thing that will stick with you from Forque's performance is her voice, which sounds like someone who has sucked on helium since Nixon went to China.