Bigas Luna has the interesting distinction of having, since his breakthrough movie LAS EDADES DE LULU, a storyteller of erotic tales of sex and power with that particular Spanish spice. Starting in 1992, he began a loosely-based trilogy of sorts with JAMON JAMON which starred the rising young actor Javier Bardem in a co-starring role. However, in this movie Bardem gets the main role: that of an extremely ruthless Lothario who is undeniably a Spanish machista and wants to construct building so tall he can see his own house sitting on top of it from the ocean, who winds up getting in a huge amount of trouble once his sexual escapades and his shady dealings come to an awful head.
Bardem, being the lead with the "huevos de oro" which he proudly fondles, plays Benito Gonzalez, a young officer of humble beginnings who is on military service in Melilla and has high hopes as well as a taste of young love in Rita. However Rita eventually leaves Benito for his studly friend, breaks his heart, and mashes his spirit, to which we cut to some time in the future. Benito has apparently moved quite a bit in the construction business and is enjoying an early success. However, his morals have become corrupted and he can only see women as objectified harbingers of lust and a means for him to get ahead as well as mirror images of his feminine ideal.
He first encounters Claudia (Maribel Verdu), an aspiring dancer whom he is quick to flash out his jewelry while at the same time mocking her needs to please. She's "a little past" his ideal weight of 47 kilos, but she's sultry enough to capture his attention. However, such attention comes with warning signals that this won't be an easy road -- he draws abstract ideograms that depict etchings closer to that of a plastic surgeon's mappings that will dictate how a client will look after body reconstruction. They quickly fall into a relationship, but since he needs sponsors for his ambitions, he pimps her out to an older man whom she initially loathes because she wants to be faithful to him.
Benito, however, has no intentions of staying where he's at. Ana (Maria de Medeiros), the daughter of the banker backing him up, becomes his wife, and now Claudia becomes his mistress. Things threaten to get out of hand, and reach an anticlimactic head when Benito brings Claudia home and shocks Ana, but left alone, both females bond in recognizing how objectified they've become for the love of this man (who sings his favorite song, Julio Iglesias' 1970s hit "Por el amor de una mujer/For the Love of a Woman". They even recognize Benito's etchings on their body... and fall into a threesome.
Some events take place that bring Benito's inconsiderate hedonism down like the tower of Babel. Once that happens, his life spirals totally out of control: he loses everything, including Claudia to a car crash, and Ana due to an affair with a prostitute that takes her over the edge. Interesting, Bigas Luna has an epilogue that is fitting to such an antihero -- bringing him into unfamiliar land, with a woman who is his equal in every sense (and who refuses to conform to his needs of the ideal), and robbing him even of his own masculinity with the help of a young Benicio del Toro in a sinister yet equally erotic performance. Bigas Luna widens his erotic tale into a morality play that exposes the negative, ugly side of Spanish machismo (also inherent in Latin American countries), and Javier Bardem, oozing an overwhelming masculine presence, is perfectly cast as the stud who becomes a dud.
Bardem, being the lead with the "huevos de oro" which he proudly fondles, plays Benito Gonzalez, a young officer of humble beginnings who is on military service in Melilla and has high hopes as well as a taste of young love in Rita. However Rita eventually leaves Benito for his studly friend, breaks his heart, and mashes his spirit, to which we cut to some time in the future. Benito has apparently moved quite a bit in the construction business and is enjoying an early success. However, his morals have become corrupted and he can only see women as objectified harbingers of lust and a means for him to get ahead as well as mirror images of his feminine ideal.
He first encounters Claudia (Maribel Verdu), an aspiring dancer whom he is quick to flash out his jewelry while at the same time mocking her needs to please. She's "a little past" his ideal weight of 47 kilos, but she's sultry enough to capture his attention. However, such attention comes with warning signals that this won't be an easy road -- he draws abstract ideograms that depict etchings closer to that of a plastic surgeon's mappings that will dictate how a client will look after body reconstruction. They quickly fall into a relationship, but since he needs sponsors for his ambitions, he pimps her out to an older man whom she initially loathes because she wants to be faithful to him.
Benito, however, has no intentions of staying where he's at. Ana (Maria de Medeiros), the daughter of the banker backing him up, becomes his wife, and now Claudia becomes his mistress. Things threaten to get out of hand, and reach an anticlimactic head when Benito brings Claudia home and shocks Ana, but left alone, both females bond in recognizing how objectified they've become for the love of this man (who sings his favorite song, Julio Iglesias' 1970s hit "Por el amor de una mujer/For the Love of a Woman". They even recognize Benito's etchings on their body... and fall into a threesome.
Some events take place that bring Benito's inconsiderate hedonism down like the tower of Babel. Once that happens, his life spirals totally out of control: he loses everything, including Claudia to a car crash, and Ana due to an affair with a prostitute that takes her over the edge. Interesting, Bigas Luna has an epilogue that is fitting to such an antihero -- bringing him into unfamiliar land, with a woman who is his equal in every sense (and who refuses to conform to his needs of the ideal), and robbing him even of his own masculinity with the help of a young Benicio del Toro in a sinister yet equally erotic performance. Bigas Luna widens his erotic tale into a morality play that exposes the negative, ugly side of Spanish machismo (also inherent in Latin American countries), and Javier Bardem, oozing an overwhelming masculine presence, is perfectly cast as the stud who becomes a dud.