Diego Montes is a former bullfighter who was forced into early retirement after being gored. He finds sexual gratification by viewing slasher films. Among the students in his bullfighting class is Ángel, a diffident young man who suffers from vertigo. During one episode of vertigo in the practice ring, Ángel has a vision of a woman killing a man with a hairpin during sex, in a manner similar to how a matador kills a bull. After class, Diego asks Ángel if he is homosexual, noting that he is not experienced with women. Ángel says he is not and vows to prove himself. Later that day, Ángel rapes his neighbour Eva, who is Diego's girlfriend, in a nearby alley. As she leaves, she trips in the mud and gashes her cheek. At the sight of her blood, Ángel faints.
The next day, Ángel's strict mother insists that he go to church as a condition of living in her home. After mass, she insists that he go to confession. He instead goes to the police station to confess to the rape. When Eva is brought to the station, she says he ejaculated before penetrating her and declines to press charges. Alone with the police detective, Ángel notices photos of dead men with the same wound administered by the woman seen during his earlier spell of vertigo. He confesses to having killed them. The detective then asks about two missing women, who were also students of Diego, and Ángel confesses to killing them as well.
Although Ángel manages to lead the police to the two women's bodies buried outside Diego's home, the detective is not convinced. He questions how Ángel could have buried them there without Diego's knowledge, finds that Ángel has an alibi for the murder of one of the men, and discovers that he faints at the sight of blood. Meanwhile, Ángel's lawyer, María Cardenal—the woman from Ángel's vision—suspects that Diego killed the two women. She takes him to a remote house where she has collected memorabilia related to Diego since she first saw him kill a bull. At Diego's home, Eva overhears the two and realises that they are the killers. When María leaves, Eva tells Diego he has to take her back since she knows everything. Eva then goes to María to tell her to stay away from Diego, since Eva knows her secrets. María scoffs at Eva's threats, and Eva goes to the police.
While Eva is telling the detective what she has heard, Ángel's psychiatrist calls the detective to tell him that Ángel has seen Diego and María in a vertigo trance, and that they are in danger. Using his psychic powers, Ángel guides the others to María's house. Just as the police, Ángel, Eva, and the psychiatrist arrive, an eclipse begins and they hear a gunshot. María has stabbed Diego between the shoulder blades and shot herself in the mouth as they were having sex. Viewing the scene, Ángel laments that he could not save Diego, while the detective says that it is better this way and that he has never seen anyone happier.
When he was filming the final scene with Serna, Almodóvar was not sure whether Nacho Martínez, playing the wounded matador who was about to have sex with her, should graze her crotch directly with his mouth or do so with a rosebud between his teeth. Almodóvar tried it out himself. "I realized it was better to put some distance between the actor's tongue and the girl's sex", he said, during an appearance on a Spanish talk show. "I do it all", he added.[3]
Reception
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "The movie looks terrific and is acted with absolute, straight-faced conviction by the excellent cast headed by Miss Serna, Mr. Martinez and Mr. Banderas. Matador is of most interest as another work in the career of a film maker who, possibly, is in the process of refining a singular talent."[4]
In his 2006 book Almodóvar on Almodóvar, the director admitted that he considered this film and Kika (1993) to be his two weakest.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Matador holds an approval rating of 93% based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Intertwining murder and seduction, Pedro Almodóvar's Matador is a provocative thriller that will shock even the most adventurous moviegoers."[5]
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