Two Hundred Years of Solitude

next blog post is definitely using Charade…

The House of The Spirits, Volver, and Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown, What do these have in common? The painfully obvious theme between the three is that men are dicks. The Husband from Volver, Esteban(both of them), and Ivan are all dicks. But because they are dicks, the plot continues, If Whatshisname from Volver wasn’t killed the plot would of never happened. Conflict drives a story forward. Conflict also strengthens characters. Which is another theme of the three, Strong Female Characters.

Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown‘s plot is essentially is about how one man is a massive ponce, and how the women in his life deal with it(sound familiar?). “After splitting up from her longtime lover Ivan (Fernando Guillen), Pepa (Carmen Maura) is in despair over the breakup as she receives a message from him asking her to pack his things in a suitcase that he’ll pick up later.” (The Void) She then goes onto find out that Ivan is a massive manslut. She does not take it well. she then finds out that the woman she thought was his other mistress was the mother of his child (played by a very, very, VERY, young Antonio Banderas, who is just as crazy as the rest of the cast), and Ivan is dating a feminist lawyer. After many near deaths via gazpacho, two taxi chase scenes, and a terrorist sub plot that never comes to fruition, Pepa saves Ivan’s life, and proves that she does not need him.

Another Connection between the two films is their director. “Pedro Almodóvar is the king of Spanish cinema, and perhaps the most known Spanish film director ever. In Spain, everything about him and his films are surrounded by scandals, from early production, to premiere to the films themselves, as if the press is more interested in what lover he has, what he weights and who sleeps with who, than in what the film is about. Wherever Almodóvar is, hysteria breaks out. He is Almodóvar. He is a brand. He is Spanish film personified.” (DVDBeaver). Almodovar, crafts masterpieces of cinema, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown does something really well. It adheres to Chekhov’s Gun. Which in its self is no easy task, let alone doing it with a comedy.

Henrik Sylow. “The Almodovar Collection (Vol.1) – Dark Habits, Pepi, Luci, Bom, What Have I Done To Deserve This?, and Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown DVD Review.”  N.p., 17 Jan. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2016

“Chekhov’s Gun.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 07 July 2016. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Thevoid99. “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” Surrender to the Void:. N.p., 17 Jan. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Women On the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown, Volver, and House of the Spirits have multiple similarities. The first common aspect is how the male characters viewed the females. They often disregard them and left them to handle their own struggles. All of the women’s actions in times of desperation and struggle were confusing to the men. Esteban did not understand the behavior of any of his women relatives throughout the whole story. Ivan’s son could not relate to the actions the women around him were taking, even though he had also been mistreated.This lead to the men often viewing the women as crazy, because they did not associate the differences in their behavior with the mistreatment or neglect they received. The women in all three stories had different ways of coping, but all banded together with other women. Clara bonded with the Mora Sisters and her female family, Raimunda went to all of her women neighbors for help, and the women characters in Women on the verge of a Nervous Breakdown all came together after they were mistreated by men. Gathering in groups for support is something the male characters didn’t tend to relate to. The men often viewed it as a weakness to go to others in times of trouble (as Esteban ironically  eventually did to get Alba back). The male characters did not have the close friendships the women had. In The House of the Spirits and Women on the Verge of a nervous breakdown as the main male characters both ended up alone. The women knew that they could find assistance with those who have experienced the same struggles, and often it is the only valuable help they could get.

As the woman characters experienced troubles they retreated from the men and found comfort together. Not understanding, and not trying to, the men tried to find a way to explain the women’s behavior. They wrote the women off as crazy to avoid taking them seriously or admitting they themselves were the cause of the women’s behavior.

In both Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and The House of the Spirits, the main female characters fight to defy the words with negative connotations that are often used to describe women. These labels leave women horrifically boxed-in, but the women in these works find a way to push through it.

In Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Paulina acts snarky to Pepa because Pepa has been seeing Ivan. We don’t see Paulina angry with Ivan for being with another girl at all. At the end of the film, she’s headed off with him to Stockholm. The fact that Paulina chooses not to place blame on Ivan is, I think, more a statement about how women are treated by society than about women being petty or catfighting over a guy. If you think about celebrity relationship drama in the media today, a lot of it centers around the woman’s actions. Women are so often “belittlingly labelled” (Nunn) with negative words, especially desperate. Desperate is my favorite (hint: I’m being sarcastic) term used to discuss women in romantic relationships, because men are rarely called desperate. In the film, Paulina sees Pepa as the desperate one, not Ivan, even though both of them are engaged in the exact same affair. This double standard is perpetrated by the media and women themselves.

Once we’re labeled in a certain way, it can be nearly impossible to rebrand ourselves, and the women in these works suffer through this. Gary Nunn says “our language stigmatises and stifles” women. In The House of the Spirits, Esteban is so overwhelming and intimidating that the women in his life assume their roles as the quiet caretakers who question nothing. Of course, they all find their ways of opposing him in the end (Clara gives him the silent treatment, Blanca is with Pedro Tercero and really doesn’t care what her dad says, Alba joins the revolution), and they are ultimately able to change their labels. They define themselves however they want to be defined, rather than letting Esteban (or any other man) tell them who they are supposed to be. The double standard here, though, is that Esteban holds overbearing power from the beginning of the novel, while the women have to fight for it. Then, the women are called “strong female characters” while the men are just “male characters,” as if all the men are strong and we don’t have to differentiate them like we do the women. Doesn’t “strong male character” sound weird to say? This change of power is seen in the ending of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown as well, as Pepa eventually doesn’t even care about Ivan anymore and just wants to be rid of the entire dramatic situation. She thwarts Lucia’s murder attempt, tells Ivan she doesn’t need him anymore (yay!), and goes home.

The women in both of these works know who they are and what they want, and even though it takes different amounts of time, they all eventually realize this. Their self-confidence grows and they are able to take control of their own lives and show that they are more than what people make of them.

Works Cited:

Nunn, Gary. “The Feminisation of Madness Is Crazy | Mind Your Language.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 08 Mar. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

I would, if allowed only one a word, describe Almodovar’s works as “lush”; there seems to be no limit to his use of sensory images. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Volver’s sole purpose seems to be to drag you into the world of the film; both works are saturated with vivid imagery. The exotic air that these films have are rooted in Almodovar’s skillful use of atmosphere. His trademark is said to be his adoration of woman; as Michael Jacobson wrote, “He loves the women in his films…at the very least, he’s fascinated by them, as are we, the audience….”. While all this is true, an interesting choice of words here is “fascinating”. It brings to mind the pull Almodovar’s works has on us; that feeling of surrealism that pervades the entire world of the work. The word “fascinating”, though, can not only apply to the women that Almodovar loves so much, but also to the mood of his films in general. The events in his works come across as so bizarre because of the way he portrays everything. From the bright visuals to the staccato sounds everything in his films seems to be for the sole purpose to make the viewer blink twice and wonder where exactly they are. For me, the women in Almodovar’s films stand out far less than the worlds that he creates: Almodovar’s storytelling is far more impressive than any of his characters.

This idea of the power of storytelling is also paralleled in Almodovar’s own film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In the movie, the lead Pepa is suffering from the indignity of being “the other woman”. In the beginning we see her stand by and watch her bed go up in flames; make gazpacho laced with a serious amount of barbiturates; and walk around her apartment smoking a cigarette and bemoaning the lover who abandoned her. She manages to garner the sympathy of a loud secretary, and even some condescending pity from the man who jilted her for yet another woman. She is, at a cursory glance, a poster child for the argument that all women are irrational creatures. However, over the course of the movie, we find out that there is far more to Pepa than originally meets the eye; frankly, Pepa is strong. There is no denying that she suffers, and she struggles; but she is resilient, quick witted and clever- just like Almodovar’s other female lead, Raimunda. This raises the question of why it’s so easy to see Pepa as unstable, and just a little crazy. Gary Nunn writes for The Guardian that, “In both fiction and the real world, creative, talented, fascinatingly intelligent women have been led down a path of torment, self-doubt, self-harm and even self-destruction – cast off as unhinged when they had so much unique brilliance to offer a world that refused them the space to express it adequately; a world that equates female genius too closely with insanity.” This is true, as we especially see in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown– Pepa is creative, not crazy, as she demonstrates when she and her friends trick some cops into drinking her laced gazpacho; and she is strong, not weak, as we see when she ends up walking away from her ex-lover at the end of the movie. It’s about perception- the strength of story is a real thing. What would we have thought of Pepa we had seen the story through Ivan’s eyes instead of Pepa’s?

Themes of storytelling are not just limited to Almodovar; Allende’s novel also holds great examples of the power of story. One of the most powerful parts in The House of the Spirits is Esteban’s speech at the end of the novel, where he literally begs Transito Soto to save his granddaughter. Allende’s use of stream of consciousness here is incredible: in those few pages, as Esteban “opens the floodgates of his soul” (Allende, 465), we are hit with a torrent of emotions we didn’t think he would ever be able to inspire in us. In the beginning, his request has a hint of his old pride, as he implies that Alba, “an idealist” (Allende, 465), brought this situation upon herself. The longer Esteban talks though, we see a change in him and in his words, until we get to the end of his speech, when, with his words tripping and spilling over each other, he practically prostrates himself at the feet of a prostitute and sobbing, begs her to help out this “poor destroyed old man” (Allende, 468). The tale of woe that Esteban spins for Transito, depicting the utter state of ruin is life has fallen into, has us (or at the very least, me) feeling sympathy for a murderer and a rapist. In this moment Allende demonstrates just how powerful our stories, our words, can be, and as we are drawn into Esteban’s story, we can’t help but remember that one word “fascinating”.

WORKS CITED

Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. Atria, 2015

Jacobson, Michael. “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” DVD Movie Central.

Nunn, Gary. “The Feminisation of Madness is Crazy.” The Guardian, 8 March 2012.

One thing that I found particularly interesting about the article on the Guardian, written by Gary Nunn, was that even the greek and latin roots that make up the english words we use today point to the idea that women are crazy. This idea has been present in human society for centuries, and is just now beginning to change. It is movies like Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown and novels like The House of the Spirits that are inspiring this change. I actually really enjoyed this movie and agree with movie critic Vincent Canby of the New York Times when he says Almodovar was out to charm and not to shock. I was under the spell of the movie, the goofy twists and turns, the harsh reality, the overreactions, but most of all the way he portrayed the typical ‘hysterical woman.’ In the movie, it’s fairly clear that yes, okay the woman is doing some crazy things. She even admits to this when talking to Carlos saying, “You must think I’m crazy.” However, we, as the audience, get to see what is really causing the crazy. There’s an image of this woman, who has important news to tell her now ex-lover, desperately trying to get into contact with him. He calls her, knowing she wont answer, and leaves a message basically putting all the blame on her for not being home when she’s at work. Being a woman who was once in an abusive relationship, this SUCKS. It’s a way for the abuser to control the victim and remove blame from themselves. I picked up on this right away, as I no longer fall for that deception. However, the woman did also. This shift of blame for the madness of the woman from the woman and onto the man is a very unique idea, present both in this movie and in The House of the Spirits. In THOTS, we see actually very many sane women, and a hysterical man who is the one who triggers all the drama inside the family and household. Ideas and dynamics like these represented in film and literature are what is shaping the idea that hey.. maybe women aren’t actually crazy and there’s a method to the madness.

Now I’m not saying all women are 100% sane (because God knows I’m nowhere near that), and that men are always the cause of the crazy. However, I feel like the general trend between the two – women’s craziness and men’s involvement – leans positively, as is shown through the books we have read so far and the movies we have seen.

Works Cited

Almodóvar, Pedro. “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres Al Borde De Un Ataque De Nervios).”  (1988). Rotten Tomatoes, 2005. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Canby, Vincent. “Review/Film Festival; Concentric Eccentricities in Almodovar Tale.” New York Times. NYTimes, 23 Sept. 1988. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Nunn, Gary. “The Feminisation of Madness Is Crazy | Mind Your Language.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 08 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

In both the book “The House of the Spirits” (THOTS) and the movie “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (WVNB) there are very compelling similarities in regards to the tone of women’s empowerment. Both of these stories try to prove false the idea that women are hysterical or illogical in situations that require reasoning. Gary Nunn’s “The Feminization of Madness is Crazy” is an article that describes the sexism in the very root of words like “hysterical” and “lunatic.” They are associated with women at the most basic level and it is due to a misconception about how women behave. These two stories work to disprove such accusatory implications by portraying the strongest and most willful female characters.

In THOTS this is done by not only villainizing men, but also putting women in harsh situations and exploring how they work through these things. Women are different from men, that is obvious, but it does not make their methods crazy or absurd. When the character in the book, Alba, is captured, taken to a prison camp, tortured, beaten, and raped she never gives up hope. She becomes more independent as she realizes that no one, not even her powerful grandfather, can save her. She tries during her imprisonment to use a method her uncle taught her to elevate above bodily pain but his methods do not help her in the slightest. In the end it is a ghost of her grandmother than advises her to document her story in her head to stay sane and she uses this very immaterial and spiritual practice to keep her head and her will. Then to prove women’s strength even more, it is a former prostitute who ends up saving Alba and not the grandfather who thought he could do anything with wealth and earthly power.

In WVNB the protagonist of the movie, Pepa, is thrown into a mess when her lover Ivan leaves her and won’t face her, her best friend Carmen finds herself in a mess with terrorists, and she has to face the psychotic former wife of Ivan who has a vendetta out for him and her. This plot throws Pepa into countless absurd situations including an “ecstatic murder-suicide pact” (Canby) but throughout the movie, although she is stressed and angry, she acts the most rationally and strongly. Peppa knows the inner workings of everything in her life and is confident enough in her abilities to investigate people by following them around, snap herself and a friend back from both of their suicide attempts, lie to and drug police, stop a murder, and so on. Her strong character never falters through the story which is what aptly allows the titles to say that the woman is on the verge of, not in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

Pedro Almodovar is a director that openly wants people to understand the power of women, “that’s clear from the affection he feels for his heroines” (Kempley) and Isabel Allende who has lived through the horrors of sexist suppression strives for such acknowledgment as well. Each of these people takes different approaches towards gaining awareness for the unique power and intelligence that women possess, but both do so very successfully. Although both of these stories were very strange and at times hard to understand, they never lose sight of this one goal.

Canby, Vincent. “Review/Film Festival; Concentric Eccentricities in Almodovar Tale.” Movies. The New York Times, 23 Sept. 1988. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Kempley, Rita. “‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (NR).” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 22 Dec. 1988. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

The movie Women on the Urge of a Nervous Breakdown is not distinctly connected with the book The House of Spirits. The reader has to closely evaluate the themes of feminism and power within both works of art. In the movie, we see the main characters as predominately women as we see in The House of Spirits. Not only this but yet again we see the men holding some form of power and wealth. Ivan (Pepa’s lover), in the movie Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (WOUNB), is an extremely popular and wealthy man. In House of Spirits we see Esteban holding even more power being a wealthy politician who owns a whole community as well (Tres Marias). I noticed that with this “power” the men in both works derive a specific attitude. Ivan assumes that Pepa is ignorant and will fail to figure out why he hasn’t returned her calls. Esteban assumes the same of Clara when he becomes bored and begins to resume his affairs with peasants and prostitutes. Also when I see Clara stuck in moments of silence (pregnancy) or clairvoyance or when she tries to become politically active (when she joins the feminist organization), I notice that Esteban automatically assumes she is incompetent or laughs at her. So in conclusion I notice that men automatically assume that women, in their natural states of mind, are hysterical or outrageous. The article from the guardian supports this notion by giving an example of Harriet Harman (female politician ) and how she is described in a news article. The article mentions that instead of “proposing policies” she embarked on a “crazy crusade”. Now regardless of Harman’s policies or views, it obvious to see belittlement of Harman solely because of her gender. There are countless other modern day examples of sexism towards women that I will not go into detail about. My point is that men usually have higher positions within society, especially today, and with this power we see the overall attitude of men towards women (working in the same fields) as belittling. An overlapping theme that I mentioned in my last blog was the power of women. The women in The House of Spirits are strong in the deepest form of the word as well as the women portrayed in WOUNB. These women are not physically strong but mentally and spiritually powerful, which is something that most of the male characters in both plots lack. Pepa is independent before she even meets Ivan and has a successful career in the acting department. From figuring out Ivan’s plans to drugging investigating cops, Pepa is the ultimate badass within the movie and her strength and wittiness are portrayed even further when she saves Ivan’s life yet still walks away from him. I could compare this to the strength that Clara possesses as she is able to ignore/tolerate Esteban and still be able to find joy through other things. Esteban cannot get over this and becomes obssessed with her till the day he dies. I think it’s ironic to see the man with so much power and prowess (who even believes that Clara is ignorant) to succumb to her mental and spiritual strength. In conclusion I believe that both power and feminism stood out as some of the more important and clear themes within both works.

Bibliograpy

Nunn, Gary. “The Feminisation of Madness Is Crazy | Mind Your Language.”The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 08 Mar. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Canby, Vincent. “Concentric Eccentricities in Almodovar Tale.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Sept. 1988. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Sutton, Ed. “Plot Summary.” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

First of all, I would like to note that the first similarity that came to mind in regards to this movie had nothing to do with House of the Spirits or Volver. Instead, it had everything to do with my life this week. Lolololol. Seriously, I was a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, so I found this movie to be very relatable. Okay enough of that, let’s get to business now.

Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Allende’s House of the Spirits both focus on women, SURPRISE SURPRISE. In the beginning of both, the female characters somehow find themselves incredibly dependent on the sh*tty men in their lives. Although, as the movie and the novel progress,  the women’s emancipation proves constant and subtle. The women find small ways to free themselves. For instance, Allende’s Clara relies on the power of stories to escape her reality and somewhat free herself from Esteban at times. Almodovar’s Pepa relies on the help of her friends and “sleeping pills” (lol) to cope with Ivan leaving her. Finally, she realizes she is “tired of being good,” giving her the push to find her freedom and fully embody “the movement she represents”.

On the contrary, a difference I noticed between the two works was in House of the Spirits, Clara is the victim of multiple accounts of infidelity on her husband’s part while in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Pepa plays the role of the “other woman”. I found it interesting to see the kind of attributes Clara possessed as the victim in comparison to Pepa the “other woman”. Additionally, I found it intriguing that both works focus on women uniting and helping one another and working together towards a more egalitarian society but Pepa, as the other woman, kinda disregards that in the sense that she is sleeping with another woman’s husband.

Canby, Vincent. “Review/Film Festival; Concentric Eccentricities in Almodovar Tale.” New York Times. N.p., 23 Sept. 1988. Web.

Kempley, Rita. “‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (NR).” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 22 Dec. 1988. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

So, on Monday we watched Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. And while watching it, there were some serious relations to The House of the Spirits. There are a few notable similarities between the movies, one of which, is the way women handle the men in their lives.

In house of the spirits we see Clara handle the man (Esteban) in her life by simply not trying for him. She doesn’t dress in any special way, she doesn’t respond to his tantrums (until he hits her, which causes her to completely ignore his existence). This portrays her as a very independent character, which is similar to how Ana responds to the assumption that her boyfriend left her (he didn’t, he was kidnapped by Ivan’s wife). She says “With a bike, who needs a man?” showing that she was completely independent of the man in her life that the audience sees (Women).

Despite this similarity, there is one key difference in the way that both Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and The House of the Spirits handles women’s relationships with men. In Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the main character, Pepa, “seems out of control” (Filmsgraded.com) when Ivan leaves her, and the women of The House of the Spirits simply don’t get that upset over men usually. By the time that they have grown up to a similar age as Pepa appears in the film, they are usually more focused on other things in their lives and not the men.

There is a key theme here that I have yet to mention; women in both the film and The House of the Spirits are called hysterical in some way, showing a “feminization of madness”(Nunn). Pepa’s reaction to being dumped is no more ‘crazy’ than if the roles had been reversed and Ivan through the phone off the balcony instead of Pepa. The same thing can be said for Clara’s muteness.

Citations:

“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Review by Movie Addict (4 Stars) | MatchFlick.” MatchFlick RSS. N.p., 08 Sept. 2007. Web. 22 Sept. 2016. <http://www.matchflick.com/movie-review/9732-6951&gt;.

“Filmsgraded.com: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988).”Filmsgraded.com: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2016. <http://filmsgraded.com/reviews/older/womver.htm&gt;.

Nunn, Gary. “The Feminisation of Madness Is Crazy.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 08 Mar. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2016. <https://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2012/mar/08/mind-your-language-feminisation-madness&gt;.