Bad Education (NC-17, 2004)

Interweaving a priest's betrayal and a brother's secret with a tragic story of lost youth, BAD EDUCATION presents a complex story within a story (within a story). Spanish filmmaker Enrico Goded (Fele Martínez) finds himself stumped while searching for his next film subject. When a man calling himself Ignacio Ramirez (Gael García Bernal)--Goded's first love and the boyhood victim of a lascivious priest -- walks back into his life, fact, fiction, greed, lust, and art collide. Goded begrudgingly agrees to produce, direct, and adapt Ignacio's short story chronicling the boys' early love and the author's abuse at the hands of Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho). In the meantime, he must contend with a stream of secrets held by the man calling himself "Ignacio." Ultimately, Bad Education is a tale of love, lust, abuse, deceit, and the ambiguous role of art -- confessional, weapon, or opportunity.

This quasi-autobiographical film follows on the heels of Pedro Almodóvar's 1999 Academy Award winning film All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre). The director spent ten years working on Bad Education. While loosely based on his youth in a Catholic boarding school, Almodóvar says he spent years reworking the story to distance it from his own life. (The filmmaker acknowledges a childhood fear of priests, but says he suffered no sexual abuse.) All in all, he created a gorgeous film that beautifully weaves in and out of past and present and fact and fiction, often creating momentary vagaries of time and space.

Because this film deals with adult themes that are inappropriate for kids, parents are better off sharing this with mature older teens only.

Studio: Sony Pictures
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Cast: Fele Martinez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Javier Camara
Genre: Drama
Run time: 105 minutes
Theatrical release: November 19, 2004
DVD release: April 12, 2005
MPAA Rating: NC-17
MPAA explanation: a scene of explicit sexual content.