"Boca a Boca" - "Mouth to Mouth"

Released: 1995
Director: Manuel Gómez Pereira
Cast: Javier Bardem; Aitana Sánchez Gijón; Josep Maria Flotats

Years before he made it big in Hollywood in films such as No Country for Old Men and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Javier Bardem was making great films in Spain. He was arrogant in Jamon Jamon, he brooded in Huevos de Oro and yet Boca a Boca might be his most unusual performance. Unusual mainly because it's a light madcap comedy and Bardem hasn't done (m)any of those since. Yes, I know Vicky Cristina Barcelona was meant to be funny but what can I say, I didn't laugh much. I enjoyed it but I didn't laugh much.

In Boca a Boca, Bardem plays Victor Ventura, a drama school reject from Cartagena in Murcia who's come to the big city (Madrid, I presumed) to make it as an actor. The Murcian accent is apparently seen as a bit comical in some parts of Spain so that automatically gives the character a touch of the naive provincial. Victor makes a living as a pizza delivery guy while auditioning badly, hoping for his big break. Unfortunately the break comes with the promise of an audition for an American movie in three weeks' time just as Victor loses his job and has to pack up and go home. Desperate for one last (big) chance, Victor takes a job as a phone sex worker. Most of his clients are men, but when a woman does call he ends up falling for her and agreeing to take part in a honey trap so she can divorce her closeted gay husband (one of Victor's other clients). The seduction, of course, has to take place on the same evening that Victor is to meet the American director and from then on the film is whirl of changing identities, hitmen, plots within plots and auditions.

The film is worth seeing because the story is good, the twists are unexpected, it's well-acted, it's funny and so on. However, given his later career, there's also a lot of pleasure to be got from just seeing Javier Bardem as you've never seen him before. For a start, there's the haircut, a sort of terrible pageboy type 'do last seen on Joey in early Friends. Then there's the spectacle of his acting class prancing while singing “Make 'Em Laugh” at an audition. And finally, if only because Hollywood would never do it, there's Bardem in comically convincing gay phone sex.

About two-thirds of the way through it did start to remind me of early Almodóvar, although that comparison isn't intended to be invidious. In fact, if you've watched all of Pedro's early works and wish that he'd done more like that, watch Boca a Boca – it's a bit of a treat.

(It's only available on Region 1 DVD, but it is cheap and more and more, I'm convinced that if you want to see anything other than the mainstream Spanish releases in the UK then you need that multi-region DVD player.)