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Gael Garcia Bernal learns a hard lesson from Almodovar. Prior to Bad Eduacation, I have seen Almodovar's All About My Mother and Talk To Her. The latter two films have profound ability to be emotionally empacting and visually beautiful, packed with great performances. In his latest film, he intentionally abandoned the previous horizons, and chartered onto homo-erotica, sexual trauma, revenge, and redemption. It's certainly more provocative and challenging for any viewers who don't watch this kind of themes and are not die-hard Almodovar or Javiar Camara fans. By the way, the old man who sat next to me walked out in less than 15 minutes when he saw Zaraha performing on stage. Obviously, he's never been fond of Almodovar's works or would never watch a gay movie. I must say that it's very intricate story to follow at first, just trying to figure out the characters and trying to observe the actors while reading the subtitles. It starts with Gael Garcia Bernal(Juan, but prefers to be called Angel(his stage name), an ambitious actor with a story(The Visit) that he wanted to be made into a film. He took it to Enrique Goded( Fele Martinez), a film maker whose brother had been friends with when they were kids in a catholic school. From there onward, the mystery of The Visit unfolds as it was based on real life experiences that was rather traumatic and compelling. In The Visit, Inagcio(Juan's older brother) and Enrigue were good friends who had feelings for each other, and gradually got sexually involved depite the fact that Enrigue thought it was a sin. Meanwhile, Inagcio is under the burden of sexual harrassment from Father Manolo( Daniel Gimenez Cacho), which had ultimately traumatized him for life. Later, his character becomes a transexual and a drug addict, and planned to blackmail the former priest who had gotten married and changed his identity to Sir. Manuel Berenguer(Lluis Homar), who eventually seduced the young and sexy Juan. Homar and Juan's affair propelled them to murder Ignacio, and after that Juan just abandoned the scene to pursued his acting career. Enrique had a crush on Angel and wanted to sleep with him, but he didn't know that The Visit is not entirely based on the truth. Soon Angel convinced him to cast him to play Zaharah, which is really the character of his dead brother/sister. He was willing to get lessons from another drag queen as part of preparing for the lead role in the film. By the time they shot the murder scene, he was so overwhemlmed, because he was remorseful deep down inside. Then Sir. Manual Berenguer showed up to tell Enrique the truth about The Visit...... Javiar Camara, who was the lead in Talk To Her, has merely a camero in this film, and he play Paca/Paquito, a flamboyant "girl" friend of Zahara. Fele Martinez is a total Sam Rockwell look-alike! Well, he's better looking and sexier, and he gets to have a steammy love scene with Bernal. His performance is quite captivating. Daniel Gimenez Cacho, the sinner does intense deeds and his performance is mesmerizing when he's torn between lust and guilt. Lluis Homar is Bob Hope look-alike, and he gives a fine performance as a man trying to let go and move beyond his sins. He also has a steamy sex scene with Bernal! Gael Garcia Bernal has the juiciest role to play. He's the focal point in this film, and he's gorgeous wether he was swimming and revealing most of his goods, or all dolled up and looking like the "Pretty Woman". It's a very complex performance that he delivered. Overall, this film still features Almodovar's signiture good visuals(vibrant colours and beautiful camera work), and impeccable score and soundtrack! It's a very edgy in a way, because the sex scenes are rather "soft-core" pornographic. It might turn off the "pedestrain" audiences easily.