Customer Reviews

What Have I Done to Deserve This? [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a North American, one is subject to films which are essentially shallow, mindless and repetitious. Rarely is there a film that comes as a surprise. However, Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto offers a completely different cinematic experience. Pedro Almodovar's use of dark humor in Qué he hecho yo is what I found most appealing. The film takes a peek into the lives of the members of a poor working class family and explores their many problems in a tragic but comic way. The film opens with a shot of an enormous apartment complex similar to "the Projects" of the United States defining the films dark aspects and the tragic situation of the family. Soon, the close up takes us into the tiny apartment which is decorated in humorously bad taste, "kitsch". This allows the audience to relax and laugh as it reveals the film's dark humor. Furthermore, the film deals with subjects such as prostitution, child molestation, adultery, murder, drug addiction, and poverty. What I found most interesting was the way in which Almodovar manages to poke fun at these issues. A North American film would never even dare to mention child molestation unless it suggested that the criminal would end up dead, however Qué he hecho yo presents a mother who allows her young son to live with his homosexual dentist after he makes advances towards the boy at his practice. Interestingly, it is one of the films funniest moments. Hence, the film is truly a must see for anyone wishing to escape the monotony of American cinema and who enjoys an unconventional dark comedy.

Though the films by one of our geniuses of filmmaking in our times, Pedro Almodóvar, is making films now that are polished to perfection - Volver (2006), La Mala educación (2004), Hable con ella (2002), and Todo sobre mi madre (1999) - his early films such as this one '¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!!' in retrospect contained all the identifying marks that would establish him as not only one of the bad boys of cinema, but also one of the sensitive cinematic psychologists. And everything he touches gleams.

In this 1984 story of a wildly dysfunctional family co-habiting in Madrid, the star is Gloria (Carmen Maura), a No-Doz addicted maid living in a tiny flat with her taxi driver/forger husband who perseverates on an aging German chanteuse for whom he once worked, two sons - one a hustler and the other a drug peddler - and a wacko mother-in-law who treats food like contraband, selling what she chooses to the family members. The turning point in this raucously fragile but funny family is the chance to make money: the father is coerced into forging Hitler's memoirs with a little help from his German chanteuse's influence,
Gloria bargains with a dentist for her hustler son's possession, ad infinitum!

But leave it to Almodóvar to pull it all off with just the right amount of madness and mayhem, and a jolly dollop of psychology about family interaction and women thrown in for good measure. The cast is a delight (including Almodóvar regulars Cecilia Roth and Verónica Forqué!) and the movie is so fast paced that it feels like a carnival ride - which is very much the way this marvelous director sees his early work. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 06

This is certainly not his first film(Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del monton, is his first film). It's a great film that deals with one, if not his favorite subject, women, but not ordinary ones. This housewife(the extraordinary Carmen Maura) deals with all sorts of problems such as her son's preferences for older men, her mother in law's new mascot( a lizard called dinero, money in Spanish) and her husband's murder all in a very hard financial situation and with the help of a very original neighbor. This is certainly one of Almodovar's best films!

This movie can and will make you laugh. Picture the highly disfunctional family living in Madrid in the mid-eighties: the overworked mom who is addicted to amphetamines; a chauvinistic cab-driving dad, who is infatuated with a love of his younger years, and beats his wife; a crazy grandma with a pet lizard, who is obsessed with going back to the town where she came from; the drug-dealing 14 year-old son who makes more money than both his parents combined; and the youngest son who gives sexual favors to men of age. Take them, add the wackiest neighbors (a chatty prostitute who has the most unexpected customers; and a childbeating single-mother with a daughter with special powers), and you are bound to be shocked left and right, unless you are able to see beyond the obvious. Almodovar's making a statement (or an over-statement at that), about how urban life is bound to deteriorate family life as the bread providers struggle to make ends meet.

With a more humorous approach to moviemaking than in his recent movies, "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" is a black comedy that can stand well on its own. However, the one problem I have with it is that, in spite of the clear point he's trying to make, too many plot lines are started, many of which are not fully developed. You wonder why such or such scene had to be in the movie, if the character didn't end up being taken anywhere. Either this is the case or this version edited out some important moments in the stories of the different characters, but toward the end, you have an inevitable feel that you missed something in the movie, even if you "get it". Also, I have a problem with some of the elements presented (spoiler ahead), namely the highly surreal way in which the mom gives away her son to his dentist, a man in his thirties who is a clear sexual predator with an obsession for children.

This is why I give it 3 stars. It is far from his best movies, such as "Talk To Her", "All About My Mother", "Bad Education" and "Live Flesh".

This Almodovar classic from the early 80's is an excellent dark comedy. Great characters such as the next door prostitute, the little redhead girl with telekinetic powers, the cheap grandma, the impotent policeman, the gay dentist, the two writers, and so on make for an interesting watch. Many classic lines are found in this one, like the newlywed who gets her face burnt from her husband spilling coffee on her "I'll never forget that cup of coffee" and "I'm diabetic? oh, I always forget at dinner time?"
This film is not really driven by plot, but rather by the characters' lives. Like all Almodovar movies, it is a piece of art, a meditation and a comical look at life, sexual orientation, coincidence, destiny and love.

One reviewer has reassured me that I was not alone in one experience here. After I'd seen the whole thing, parts that didn't make sense came into focus. That's a very enjoyable experience. In between, it's manic and clever and just fun. It's very different from the usual Hollywood fare, and it's wonderful.

Black comedy doesn't necessarily have to be "about" anything in particular: it really just needs to express a certain cynicism (healthy or not) about contemporary life and culture. Pedro Almodovar's earliest films have often been described in such terms, but I'm not entirely sure that's correct. Absurdist, to be sure, skeptical--if not completely cynical--certainly, but even at his bleakest, there is a basically loving spirit on display. He shows genuine affection for his characters, even the ones who don't seem to actually deserve it (the chauvinistic husband in this film, for instance, is still shown as a basically principled and decent-in-his-way sort).

It may well be that Almodovar's affection for, as well as his compassion toward, his characters is what grounds his absurdist comedies and what serves to make them more "grey" than completely "black." I've read that he refuses to pronounce judgment on his characters, no matter what kind of trouble they create for themselves or others. One senses that much in this relatively early film (his first international success). Individual viewers may draw their own conclusions (as we all do in real life) about individual characters in the film. I find it a strong point, rather than a weak one, that different viewers will come away from this film with differing impressions of the dramatis personae.

One of Almodovar's favorite leading ladies Carmen Maura appears here as the harried working class housewife Gloria, who's struggling (pretty much in vain) to maintain her family and her dignity by working 18-hour days (the drudgery of "women's work" has seldom been more graphically displayed). Her husband and two sons are anything but supportive, each aware of Gloria's plight on some level but each choosing to remain demanding and difficult and capable of driving this particular woman towards a nervous break-down.

As readers of previous reviews may know, Gloria's husband is a taxi driver whose meagre earnings are not enough to support the family (although it may just be that he refuses to give his wife the money she needs to run the household, it's never made 100% clear). Her adolescent son is already pushing drugs and her pre-teen son is hustling older men. Theirs is a dysfunctional family with a capital "D."

The film's very absurdity would seem to guarantee that most viewers would NOT take its characters actions TOO seriously. But it is interesting to see how some reviewers have commented on Gloria's willingness to hand over her son to the "care" of an obvious pederast (his dentist, who promises him enough to eat and music lessons--to say nothing of free dental work--in exchange for, well, you know). That little plot twist, as well as the neighbor child's CARRIE-esque psychokinetic abilities should make it clear that we are entering the realm of the absurd here.

One of the most intriguing elements of Almodovar's work is his ability to create a zany alt-universe that has its own internal logic and sort of makes sense while we're viewing it. That's certainly the case with this early work (although I could have done without the psychokinesis myself, an effect which almost undermines the bizarro logic of the film). If Almodovar had never gone on to better things, this effort would be a fairly entertaining, quirky indie flick that might have some cult following. It probably would not have been required viewing in anyone's book, however. Given the significance of Pedro Almodovar's later work, though, it can certainly be considered essential viewing for scholars and admirers of the "bad boy" of Spanish cinema.

At a time when most filmmakers seem to live in mortal fear of letting fresh ideas slip in, we should be grateful for Pedro Almodovar. This film is literally full of surprises. Every scene (yes, every single scene) moves in an unexpected direction (even my telling you this will not prepare you for the twists), and the characters constantly reveal new aspects of themselves. Most remarkably, Almodovar does all this without giving any sense of straining for novelty: all the surprises form a coherent whole; each revelation about a character seems after all consistent with what we knew before. Oh, and the film is very, very funny. (I must make one qualification to my claim of the film's originality. Almodovar, late in the film, swipes from a certain story by Roald Dahl. He does, though, put his own spin on these scenes.)

This early, less-commercial film of Almodovar's contains many of his themes that are developed and expanded in his more mature films. Case in point--the murder of Gloria's husband--a similar scenario is explored once again in "Volver". I also observed the influence of John Waters--"What Have I Done to Deserve This" sometimes reminds me of "Polyester". Pedro's early films, especially, feature a Waterseque type of outrageous humour; WHIDTDT also makes me think of Francois Ozon's "Sitcom". Also, Roald Dahl co-wrote the script for WHIDTDT with Almodovar. The look of "What Have I Done to Deserve This" is also striking; for instance, the tacky, brash decor of the crowded apartment containing Gloria and the rest of the dysfunctional family--in contrast to Almodovar's later films with bigger budgets, brighter colors, and more bourgeois settings. Carmen Maura is definitely the star of this film; with her natural style, she is always compelling. Also of note is Almodovar's expansive take on sexuality-- IE the scene with the exhibitionist and the orgasm-faking prostitute. Other highlights include; (1) the portrayals of the streetwise and precocious drug dealing teenage sons, who are also strangely reverent towards their grandmother; (2) the humourous television clips, filmed as visual asides, one featuring Pedro as a character in a soap opera, lip-sinking to a fantastic song that I have yet to locate via Amazon as an MP3; (3) the 10 or 11 year old "Sissy Spacek" à la "Carrie" type--a gifted telekinetic with an abusive mother; (3) the comic subplots--IE one involving Ingrid Muller, the suicidal German woman; and (4) the German songs themselves. I prefer "What Have I Done to Deserve This" to "Matador", and after having seen WHIDTDT, I'm starting to take a fancy to this less polished and more brutally comic side of Almodovar--as opposed to the sensibility of his later, sleeker, and more dramatic works-- IE his films made after 1993.

Stephen C. Bird, author of "Hideous Exuberance: A Satire"

Dark and twisted, but somehow at the same time sweet and human. A very funny look at a very dysfunctional family. Mom ends up killing dad, one kid is a drug dealer, the other is a doctor's teenage gay lover, and their neighbor is a happy hooker. Sort of a family sit-com on acid.

Some wonderful performances, and even moments real emotion sneaking in here and there. It does start to wear down by the end, and doesn't add up to a lot (other than being part off the young Almodovar's stick in the eye of the old repressive Spanish order) , but it's unique and kind of lovable, like it's characters.