KJCKorea
Journal Central

In modern Spanish culture, there is not other cineaste who has explored the controversial topic of sexuality deeper and more reiterative ways than Pedro Almodóvar. In our opinion, 『La Mala Educación』fundamentally, is a metaphoric work about the corruption of the Catholicism during Francisco Franco regime in Spain. This movie is a brilliant and solid critic to the abuses suffered by a child in a religious school during the Franco regime. This movie is about the forbidden desire in Catholicism and the tragic end of a priest. Father Manolo sexually abused one of his students at the school; as a result, this student loses his sexual identity and ends up ruining his own life due to using drugs. Eventually he is revenged by his younger brother. On this movie, 『La Mala Educación』, Pedro Almodóvar portrays a sentiment of anticlericalism and blasphemy against God and Jesus Christ through a story which contains homosexual scenes and direct quotations of biblical cites, such as the expulsion of the merchants and sellers out of the temple in Jerusalem in the Mathew gospel to insinuate Jesus´lack of charity and love to others. We conclude that Almodovar´s description of the fallout of this priest, caused by his forbidden desire, is not only beyond anti-Catholicism but it can also be seen as an actual reflection of the cultural and sexual change in the European and, in particular, Spanish society.

Pedro Almodovár, La Mala Educación, Blashphemy, Anti-Catholicism, Spain Cultural-sexual change reflexion