MikePadgett.com

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1993
• 

Déjà vu abounds in Kika, a brief return to the sort of hair-brained frivolity that characterised Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown. Parallels might also be drawn with Almodóvar’s ¡átame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) (1990), another film in which the director treats a sexual attack on a woman with surprising humour.

At times, Kika comes across more music hall than movie, though the main plot manages to remain perfectly serious, similar in content to High Heels, as a son and his newly returned father divide up the affections of the eponymous make-up artist and the smell of murder gets increasingly strong as the father’s past unravels.

Verónica Forqué is an unusual but affable Almodóvar muse as Kika while craggy father figure Peter Coyote doesn’t quite fit in. Star turns come from the goofy-gorgeous Rossy de Palma as a yokel housemaid and Victoria Abril as an investigative journalist cum TV presenter, bravely sporting what must be one of cinema’s weirdest wardrobes.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1987
• 

There’s much to like about the performances in Law of Desire. Eusebio Poncela plays a marvellously ambivalent, sexually ambiguous film director as his insouciance gives way to raw emotion while Carmen Maura takes well to her role as his gold-hearted, rough diamond sister.

But the real turn here is delivered by Antonio Banderas who, in portraying his second of three exemplary Almodóvar nutters, does a fine job of representing reckless jealousy with a worrying streak of sincerity.

So much for great acting, because the story holds about as much water as a bucket with a hole. Nevertheless, Almodóvar manages to plug it for a while at least and his treatment of similar themes - in 2004’s Bad Education - would prove more fruitful next time.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1991
• 

The early 90s represent a busy, transitionary period for Almodóvar. And during that period, he takes on multiple muses having apparently fallen out with Carmen Maura. His two key players are Marisa Paredes and the delectable Victoria Abril, both of whom spring up here to lead this oddball of a movie.

Abril is a career-driven newsreader whose errant actress mother (Paredes) is back in town after years away. Abril has married an older man, who happens to be an old flame of Paredes. Classic Almodóvar, really.

And the films of his transitionary period can be a bit awkward - frivolity rubs up against more serious content in a typical riot of colour. Scenes between mother and daughter are superbly acted and these tend to cover up for other, weaker or more implausable moments.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1995
• 

You get the very distinct sense when watching La Flor that Almodóvar is onto something. And so the maturity and virtuosity of his output has increased with each film ever since.

As a writer of great female parts, he’s blessed here with a strong performance from Marisa Paredes who as the protagonista Leo (and her nom de plume Amanda Gris) carries the story almost single-handedly.

Leo’s neurotic approach to love is a little hard to empathise with for this stoical anglosajón, but the film’s luminosity hints overtly at the great things to come. Indeed literally, for the plot of one of Gris’ trash novels would later become Volver.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1983
• 

This colourful film, about a nightclub singer on the run who holes up in a convent only to find the nuns are worse sinners than her, is the first of Almodóvar’s oeuvre made with full production.

As if on cue, the set design is suddenly marvellous, the story detail considerably richer than previous efforts and Carmen Maura and Julieta Serrano run a tight ship with the script.

Ultimately, Dark Habits is a rather blunt instrument used to poke fun at religion. The dissipated sisters are comical and their lifestyles shocking, but the involving humanity of the director’s later work is still barely hinted at.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1988
• 

This is a decorated film - five Goyas and an Oscar nomination - and an international breakthrough for the director, but it didn’t sit too well with me.

Almodóvar’s screwball comedy cocktail has all of the lurid colour but lacks the bitter edge that adds bite to his more emotive works. After a promising start, the pace suddenly feels rather rushed, with too much plot crammed into 90 minutes.

Nevertheless, there are some outstanding features. When protagonist Pepa, a dubbing actor, shows up at work she must dub Joan Crawford in the key scene in Johnny Guitar, her deserting lover (and colleague) having already done the Sterling Hayden part. It’s a rare soulful moment, masterfully delivered by Carmen Maura leading another solid cast: Banderas would make a great post-pubescent, oversexed Adrian Mole and Julieta Serrano is delightfully insane as Lucía.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 2006
• 

Almodóvar ‘returns’ once more with an(other) extraordinary story about women and he coaxes a fine performance from leading lady Penélope Cruz.

In Volver, the director substitutes the gaucheness of Bad Education for the emotionally involving characterisation of All About My Mother and the film is predictably unpredictable, with typically serpentine plotting.

Ultimately though, it’s the winning performance of Cruz, galvanised by wonderful support from Lola Dueñas and the inimitable Carmen Maura, that steals your heart.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1981
• 

This is where it all began, the first in a long line of zany, colourful and passionate tales whose collective carnival forms the prodigious output of Almodóvar.

Pepi, Luci, Bom gels remarkably considering the conditions in which it was shot. It’s the story of three very different women in a world bursting with the kind of firework deviance banned by the Franco era.

The film is very much a product of its era and it hasn’t aged too well, but it’s worth watching if only to see the dawn of Almodóvar’s vision before his growing confidence (and budgets) made it look so easy!