Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
1990
Antonio Banderas caught the world's attention with his portrayal of Ricky, an orphaned mental patient who stalks and kidnaps Marina (Victoria Abril), a porn actress and junkie, in order to make her love him in this decided departure for iconoclastic Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar. Suspense, tension, and uneasy humour mingle .. Read more
| Starring | Victoria Abril, Antonio Banderas, Francisco Rabal, Loles Leon |
|---|---|
| Director | Pedro Almodovar |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Antonio Banderas caught the world's attention with his portrayal of Ricky, an orphaned mental patient who stalks and kidnaps Marina (Victoria Abril), a porn actress and junkie, in order to make her love him in this decided departure for iconoclastic Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar. Suspense, tension, and uneasy humour mingle as Marina grapples with her addictive nature, a very bad toothache, and her own confusion about the need to be loved and the need for freedom. Meanwhile, Maximo (Francisco Rabal), an aging director who has just shot Marina's latest film, finds himself obsessed with her, while sister Lola (Loles Leon) worries Marina might be back on drugs and starts trying to track her down. The tension mounts as her sister closes in, and Marina becomes torn by her desire to escape and her growing affection for her captor. Almodovar followed up his hit WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN with this controversial, steamy thriller that contains nudity and some very passionate sex. The cast includes Almodovar regulars Rossy de Palma, Julieta Serrano, and Marfa Barranco and features a tense musical score by Ennio Morricone.
| Starring | Victoria Abril, Antonio Banderas, Francisco Rabal, Loles Leon, Julieta Serrano |
|---|---|
| Director | Pedro Almodovar |
| Studio | PATHE DISTRIBUTION |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 37 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: Spanish |
| Hearing-impaired | English |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 27 Dec 2004 Production year: 1990 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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Actress and former porn star Victoria Abril is kidnapped by Antonio Banderas, who's recently been released from psychiatric care. He hopes that she'll eventually fall in love with him and start the family he's always wanted, in Pedro Almodóvar's unfocused and lurid tale of kinky sex and bondage. The fact that Abril does indeed fall for her captor makes this darkly orgiastic comedy of terrors and errors one of the more controversial entries in the Spanish wunderkind's cult camp canon. It's distressingly superficial and the disquieting knotty romance fails to convince, despite the incendiary chemistry between the two leads.
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Shallow and glib, all surface and no substance, poorly constructed and flashily photographed, it nevertheless found some vociferous admirers.
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Most helpful member's review
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14 out of 14 people found this review helpful
Sexy, stylish and rather challenging!
Ricky (played by a very cute young Antonio Banderas) is released from a mental institution. Being resourceful, optimistic, and single-minded, he heads straight for the studio where Marina, an ex-porn star and junkie (beautifully played by Victoria Abril), is filming a new movie with wheelchair-bound obsessed director, Maximo. Ricky is a romantic and is certain that if Marina gets to know him, she will fall in love with him. So he kidnaps her.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! features all Almodovar’s trademarks: frankness, deadpan dialogue, glam kitschy interior design, absurd situations, unexpected responses, dark comedy, and some rather dodgy (or perhaps challenging) messages at its heart. The movie features two celebrated erotic scenes: Marina in the bathtub playing with a wind up toy and a joyous sex scene. Ironically, the former is much more explicit. Banderas pointed out in an interview (on the DVD) that the plot of Tie Me Up! is not so different from Beauty and the Beast which, needless to say, didn’t attract nearly so much criticism. He has a point – this is a kind of fairy tale, drawing on some human longings and motivations we don’t really want to acknowledge.
Personally, I’d rather be provoked into questioning the ethics of a narrative which is presented stylishly and rather sympathetically, than have this sort of debate quashed by those who deem the entire situation too un-pc to be filmed in the first place. -
Most recent members' review
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5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
entertaining
Funny and entertaining. Not one of his best or funniest, but worth renting just for the bizarreness of it all!
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News and features
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Vote for Pedro!
Almodovar’s Brilliant Career- 25 Aug 2009
The name of Pedro Almodóvar’s production company is El Deseo: Desire films. It’s a quality much in evidence in the vividly carnal, erotic, outrageous and anguished melodramas in which he specializes. Desire – a word that contains lust, love, venality, revenge and ambition – propels his characters as they careen from crisis to crisis, which must be why Almodovar’s heroes and (more often) heroines are almost always in a state of heightened agitation. If we had an... Read more
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