Symposium to honor Pedro Almodovar’s film portrayal of mind’s desires

Often dealing with subjects like sexual abuse, transsexuality and identity crisis, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s films typically paint a colorful picture of the lives of people on the fringes of society.

Since his first movie, “Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap,” premiered in 1980, Almodóvar has gained a massive audience both in his native country as well as internationally, and now his films have also attracted the attention of the L.A.-based New Center of Psychoanalysis.

On Saturday, the Center will host a one-day symposium at UCLA dedicated exclusively to the films of Almodóvar. The event, titled “Mirrors of the Heart: The Films of Pedro Almodóvar,” will analyze Almodóvar’s entire body of work, using his 2002 Acadamy Award winner “Talk To Her,” as a departure point.

The film is the story about a delusional male nurse who falls in love and has sex with his comatosed patient, Alicia, who cannot physically defend herself.

Dr. Thomas Brod, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and coordinator of the event, said the films serve as the perfect platform to illustrate and discuss various important principles within the many branches of psychoanalysis.

“Almodóvar makes emotionally rich films with an intrinsic dreamlike quality, which both have depth and are delightful in their complexity of the human dilemmas,” Brod said. “He makes it possible for us to identify with characters that the majority of people normally would not identify with.”

Brod said the purpose of the symposium is to explore the main interest of psychoanalysts, namely the desire to move into the deepest corners of the human mind.

“We want to find the personal story, and films are an ideal instrument to do this, because they can cut down to the personal truth without a lot of defenses around it,” Brod said.

During the symposium, several speakers will present on various topics relating to Almodóvar’s films, among them Dr. Jill Lummus, who will address the concept of how Almodóvar “captures the elusive female” in his films.

Lummus, president of the Clinical Associate Organization at the Center, was first drawn to Almodóvar’s films when she was pursuing a masters of fine arts at Rutgers University, before she turned to a career in psychoanalysis.

“I remember skipping school with a bunch of friends to go see “˜Women on the Verge,’ which was being talked about as the film to watch, and it made a huge impression on my young impressionable mind,” Lummus said.

During the symposium, Lummus said her interest will be to focus on the relationship between Almodóvar as a filmmaker and one of his favored topics, women.

“I’m interested in exploring how he portrays the woman you can’t quite have, but you are desperate to capture,” Lummus said. “I will look at how the characters try to capture the woman within the film itself, as well as how Almodóvar captures her on film.”

Stressing that this event is not exclusively for people with Freud posters on their walls or a medical degree, Brod said the symposium will be made up by a lot of film clips as well as the screening of “Talk To Her” in its entirety.

Brod said “Talk To Her” was chosen as the main representative of Almodóvar’s body of work because it seemed to be the favorite Almodóvar film of most people he came across, himself included.

“I remember when I first saw it, I was amazed at how Almodóvar had managed to give me a feeling of real love, when the movie is essentially about a weirdo who has sex with a woman who is not conscious,” Brod said. “It is really a remarkable piece of art.”

Another speaker is Dr. Apurva Shah, who spends half his time practicing in California and half his time teaching in India.

Described by Brod as a real Almodóvar buff, Shah said it is precisely Almodóvar’s uncanny ability to make an audience sympathize with his characters, no matter how outrageous their actions are, that make his films so fascinating.

“He will show us a murderer or a rapist or even a pedophile and dig out the humanity in this person,” Shah said. “He makes us aware that this is not just a pedophile, but also a human being who is faced with the same dilemmas we are of controlling our passions, whatever they be.”