Nathaniel Khan/USA/2003; R4
Pedro Almodóvar/Spain/2004; R4
Roadshow, NZ$34.95 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

My Architect is a son’s intimate, moving journey. Nathaniel Kahn, the publicly unacknowledged child of Louis I Kahn, the architect (and one of his mistresses, Harriet), pieces together his late father’s life. The enigmatic Jew was the driving force behind some amazing buildings. His CV includes the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and the Exeter Library, New Hampshire. Sadly, many promising projects, such as his beloved Jerusalem synagogue, fell through. His legacy is his visionary ideas from urban design to the commonality of Jews and Muslims.

Intelligently scored with music such as Beethoven’s Ninth, it’s thoughtfully crafted. For all Kahn’s failings as a family man, a richly empathetic portrait of a spiritual man emerges. There’s a monumental sequence at Kahn’s magnificent Capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka (Bangladesh’s parliamentary buildings), an immense source of pride for Bangladeshis. The architect-politician Shamsul Wares tearfully elegises Kahn’s total commitment to his work, even for “the poorest country in the world”. A shot of praying Muslims follows. My Architect shares the transcendent, cathartic power of great art.

Bad Education, more convincingly than Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, conveys the idea of movies as faith; their extraordinary, inspiring potential. Pedro Almodovar has a beef with Spanish Catholicism, but adores some of the faith’s rituals. The solution? Subvert the cross he bears. Woodsman Father Manolo molests Ignacio. He expels Enrique Goded, Ignacio’s boyhood amour, to have Ignacio to himself. Sixteen years later, Enrique (Fele Martínez) is a blocked leading writer-director in Madrid, 1980. Ignacio (Gael García Bernal, think this guy has played intense?) turns up unexpectedly.

As in the exceptional Live Flesh-All About My Mother- Talk to Her triumvirate, zenithing in the sublimity of Dario Grandinetti and Javier Camara’s sympathy, Almodovar flourishes a dynamic palette. The Spanish auteur tells this deeply personal story as film noir. Noir is overwhelmingly rough-chiselled heterosexual machismo and occasional homophobia. Almodovar’s subversively infuses a flamboyant gay sensibility. From the dazzling Bassian opening credits (not the only nod to Hitchcock) to the Double Indemnity reference and the pitch black ending, Almodovar knows his noir.

Like Talk to Her, Bad Education is audacious and empathetic. It’s complex and layered (both philosophically and technically with the film within a film structure). A lovely sequence starting with a soccer game is at once masterfully funny, heartrending and unsettling. There are brilliant lines, “There’s nothing more unerotic than an actor looking for work”, “And he was Christ!”, “But he’s on our side”. In the church of Bad Education, I’m definitely a believer, but I’m not without questions.