"Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980) - Pedro Almodóvar"

Pepi, Luci, Bom

Almodóvar's Themes

Pedro Almodóvar

• "The General Erections" - the man with the largest 'part' may do whatever he wants, how he wants with whomever he wants.
• General Elections (1977) - the prize for the man with the largest part was a metaphor for all political parties claiming to have the LARGEST chance of creating a freely democratic state.
• Moncho picks Luci - liberation from traditional roles... "turning them into the protagonists of post-modernity" - Tatjana Pavlovic.
• Pepi & the Policeman, the embodiment of "political tension between representatives of international modernity and the Francoist old guard." - Marvin D'Lugo
• "Pepi, Luci, Bom documents the New Madrid Scene which exploded in the 1980s as a reaction to 40 years of forced Franco culture" - Jose Arroyo

Synopsis of Pepi, Luci, Bom

• Pepi (heiress), Luci (housewife), Bom (Young Punk Singer) - set in Madrid
• Pepi raped by Luci's husband. To get revenge Bom and her band attack Luci's husband. Unfortunately got his twin brother instead.
• 2nd attempt at revenge - Luci teaches Pepi to knit and Luci's masochistic tendencies come to light... Pepi repeatedly slaps Luci and Bom urinates on her.
• Luci leaves her husband and becomes a groupie for Bomitoni. (Bom's punk group)
• Meanwhile, Pepi's money is cut off. She starts an advertising agency offering menstruating dolls and multipurpose underwear.

PUTON Panties

Multipurpose Underwear and Menstruating Dolls

Pedro Almodóvar's first commercial movie

Murciana

"I love you because you are a filthy whore from Murcia. I love you, Murciana, because you're a pig."

Continuation of plot...

• Fresh from the transition from dictatorship to democracy...
• Became one of the first commercially used films to represent 'La movida' - a movement based in Madrid that drew on the lifestyles of USA/EU punk and new wave.
• Tatjana Pavlovic -“the 1980s was the decade of Pedro Almodóvar, a self-taught filmmaker who became an internationally recognised film auteur and the most prominent embodiment of Spanish cinema for the global audience to this day "

• Pepi wants to make a movie based on their experiences together
• Meanwhile, Luci's husband is looking for revenge
• Snatches Luci outside a nightclub, beats and rapes her
• Pepi and Bom find Luci in a hospital with her husband. Luci claims that she's staying with him as he is the only person who can properly mistreat her the way she deserves.
• Bom is angry, but no heartbroken and Pepi invites her to live with her
• Bom gives up on punk and, at Pepi's suggestion, becomes a Bolero singer....
• THE END

Spain in the 1980s

• La Movida - new way of life (mainly in Madrid) that focuses on music lifestyles of American and European Punk and New Wave...
• Tatjana Pavolvic - “Almodóvar provides the housewife the same access to pleasure and unrestrained fantasy as punk singers or drag queens”
• It wasn't just Almodóvar who was displaying themes in the 1980s and 1990s (Sex, Violence, Prostitution and Homosexuality): Bigas Luna, Eloy de Iglesia and Fernando Trueba.
• Music and other cultural forms were affected