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Encyclopedia
Dark Habits is a 1983
Spanish
black comedy
film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar
and starring Julieta Serrano
, Marisa Paredes
and Chus Lampreave
. The plot follows a cabaret singer who finds refuge in a convent of eccentric nuns. The film is an exploration of the anachronistic situation of institutionalized religion in contemporary Spanish society, portraying spiritual desolation and moral bankruptcy
.
, only to be eaten by cannibals.
The religious order of the Humiliated Redeemers is headless since the Mother General is dying. Lost in the midst of the huge deserted and crumbling convent live the six religious members of the community: the mother Superior, four other nuns and the chaplain. To reinforce their vows of humility, the Mother Superior has given the other nuns repulsive new names: Sister Manure, Sister Damned, Sister Snake and Sister Rat of the Sewers. The Mother Superior explains the rationale of their excessive humility: “man will not be saved until he realizes he is the worst being in all creation.” For her, sinners are worthy of gratitude because they are the reason God dies and is resurrected. With few opportunities for spiritual ministry, the nuns have begun to indulge in their own idiosyncratic pursuits in order to pass the time. The nurturing Sister Damned compulsively cleans the convent and coddles all the animals under her care, including an overgrown pet tiger that she treats like a son, playing the bongos for him. The ascetic Sister Manure is consumed by thoughts of penitence and corporal self-sacrifice and cooks between LSD
hallucinations. She murdered somebody and as the mother superior lied under oath to save her from jail, she is very devoted to her. The overcurious Sister Sewer Rat gardens and secretly, under the pen name
Concha Torres, writes lurid novels about the wayward souls who visit the convent. She smuggles the novels out of the convent through her sister's periodic visits. The unassuming Sister Snake with the help of the priest, tailors seasonal fashion collections for dressing the statues of the Virgin Mary. Her piety is a cover up for her romantic love for the chain-smoking chaplain. The mother Superior is a heavy drug user and a lesbian, whose charitable work is a means of meeting needy young women. She admits, “from admiring them so much I have become one of them”.
Determined to win the trust of the enigmatic and emotionally detached Yolanda, the Mother Superior offers her the best accommodations - the lavish room that belong before to Virginia. Yolanda mingles with the other nuns and spends her time reading the diary of her deceased boyfriend finding out how their relationship really was. The Mother Superior soon falls passionately in love with her. Together, they consume coke and heroin until Yolanda decides both should come off the drugs. Withdrawal for Yolanda is like a painful catharsis, but for the Mother Superior it confirms her very sinful nature. Yolanda keeps the Mother Superior at arm’s length and strikes a friendship with Sister Rat.
The Mother Superior has to face both Yolanda’s rejection and the threats of closure. She fails to blackmail the Marquise with a letter revealing information about Virginia. Undiscouraged, she then prepares to resort to drug trafficking to maintain the independence of her convent. In spite of these trials, the Sisters decide to celebrate the Mother’s Superior birthday. The Marquise and nuns from other convents come to the party. During the celebrations, Yolanda, accompanied by the sisters, sings in honor of the Mother Superior. The Marquise manages to get a letter that coming from Africa has informed her about a long lost grandson that has been raised by the Apes. Because Yolanda and Sister Rat helped her to obtain the letter, she is very grateful to them. At the end of the party, the new Mother General, the highest authority in their order, announces the dissolution of the convent. Sister Damned decides to return to her native village and leaves her tiger to Sister Snake and the Priest. They are in love and want to star a family with the tiger as their son. Sister Rat and Yolanda go to live with the Marquise. Only Sister Manure is left to console the Mother Superior from the terrible heartbreak Yolanda’s desertion has caused.
, Carmen Maura
, Marisa Paredes
and Chus Lampreave
. It also has a very brief appearance by Cecilia Roth
as Mercedes a former redeemer and lover of the Mother Superior.
Almodóvar was approached by Hervé Hachuel, a multimillionaire who wanted to start a production company to make films starring his then girlfriend Cristina Sánchez Pascual.
He set up Tesauro Production and asked Almodóvar to write a film with her in mind.
The idea behind the commission became the concept for the style of the film. Almodóvar explains: I came up with the story of a girl who drives both men and women wild, a girl who sings, drinks, takes drugs, occasionally goes through periods of abstinence and has the extraordinary experiences one would never have were one live a hundred years...while writing I had in mind Marlene Dietrich
’s work with Josef von Sternberg
, especially Blonde Venus
(1932), where she plays a house wife who becomes a singer, spy and prostitute, who travels the world living a life of never ending adventure.
This was the film Almodóvar intended to make, but Cristina Sánchez Pascual had limited acting skills, because of this, Almodóvar rewrote the film giving a more prominent role to the nuns of the convent where the singer hides.
on account of its apparently sacrilegious treatment of religion, and although it had its premiere on 9 September at the Venice Film Festival
, some of the organizing committee considered it blasphemous and anti-Catholic and it was not shown in the official section.
The Italian critics were divided in their opinions. The film critic of the Venetian Il Gazzetino described the film as scandalous, but his counter part in Corriere Della Sera saw Almodóvar as a true heir of the acclaimed Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini
and applauded his attack on the repressive nature of formal religion. When a month later, Dark Habits opened in Madrid
, the Spanish critics reacted in a similar fashion.Dark Habits was a modest success, and cemented Almodóvar’s reputation as the enfant terrible of the Spanish cinema.
The nuns, he has pointed out, have moved away from God and now direct their energies towards those people who live in misery- fallen women and the like. This, he implies, is true religion: to be able to love the sinner and, indeed, to become like the sinner, for only then can one appreciate the nature of sin. The implication of the film is that men and women have to be loved and accepted in all their imperfections – a view which links Almodóvar to Luis Buñuel
, particularly in Viridiana
, where the eponymous nun finds that, for all her idealistic intentions, she cannot change the nature of mankind.
Dark Habits has a variety of cinematic influences. The Franco
regime, strongly supportive of the Catholic Church, had promoted sentimental films, such as Sister San Sulpicio and Marcelino, Bread and Wine
, in which goodhearted priests and the like figured prominently. Together with musicals and light comedy in which nuns appeared, they were part of a propaganda attempt to make Spanish cinema feel good and new. The film was also influenced by the melodramas of Douglas Sirk
. The romantic and often sentimental qualities of his films are evident in Dark Habits. The film also owes something to the Hammer horror films
of the 1960s and the 1970s, though Almodóvar has said he was influenced less by their subject matter than by their dramatic colors and their unsettling baroque atmosphere. He has also made the point that, for him, melodrama is a form in which love and passion are the driving force which oblige individuals to do the most extraordinary things, whether they be appalling or wonderful.
Music, as in all Almodóvar’s major films, also has a significant role. The bolero, regarded by him as expressive of great emotions, is used at key moments to underpin both the mother’s superior feelings for Yolanda and Yolanda’s feelings for her. They sing along with Lucho Gatica
’s bolero
: Encadenados (Chained together).
Reminiscent of Robert Bresson
's Les Anges du Péché, Almodóvar's idiosyncratic fusion of highly formalized, often surreal visual imagery (saturated primary colors, muted and diffused lighting, kitschy interiors) and comedic melodrama serves as a thematic foil in order to explore crisis of faith and the innate hypocrisy and encroachment of secularism in institutional religion: the ironic reunion between the successful call girls and the destitute nuns selling an odd assortment of goods (cakes, flowers, and peppers) at the market; the melancholic and sentimental ballad of unrequited love and loss that covertly expresses the Mother Superior's spiritual crisis; the convent's crumbling structure that figuratively manifests the nuns' moral decay; Yolanda's facial imprint on a handkerchief that serves as a tawdry surrogate relic for the Shroud of Turin
. Through the convent's bizarre and misguided attempts to spiritually reconnect through escapism, distraction, and illusion, Dark Habits reflects the inherent incongruence and corruption of seeking redemption and existential purpose in an increasingly chaotic, amoral, and hedonistic world.
with English
subtitles. It is the earliest of Almodóvar's films available on DVD in the United States
.
Mother Superior: You're a millionaire!
Marquise: To survive today, one needs to be. And I don't want just to survive, I want to live life.
1983 in film
-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York*May 25 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the top grossing picture of...
Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular...
and starring Julieta Serrano
Julieta Serrano
Julieta Serrano Romero is a Catalan theatre and cinema actress. Her prolific career began in the 1960s, and she has worked with directors Pedro Almodóvar and Ventura Pons.-Filmography:...
, Marisa Paredes
Marisa Paredes
María Luisa Paredes Bartolomé, , better known in show business as Marisa Paredes, is a Spanish actress.-Biography:...
and Chus Lampreave
Chus Lampreave
Chus Lampreave is a Spanish actress.She started in movies in 1958, but she became internationally known thanks to her roles in films by Pedro Almodóvar, where she plays old ladies with maternal or pastoral traits.- Filmography :...
. The plot follows a cabaret singer who finds refuge in a convent of eccentric nuns. The film is an exploration of the anachronistic situation of institutionalized religion in contemporary Spanish society, portraying spiritual desolation and moral bankruptcy
Moral bankruptcy
Moral bankruptcy is a synonym for immorality that has gained popular usage in the fields of business and politics, in which it specifically implies some instance of political corruption or corporate crime...
.
Plot
Yolanda, a cabaret singer, brings heroin to her lover. When he drops dead after taking it, the singer knows she is in trouble. Desperate to escape the police, she recalls a visit by nuns from a local convent that claimed to be admirers. The Mother Superior, a fan of Yolanda, had promised to provide help if required. When Yolanda arrives at the convent, the Mother Superior rapturously greets her. The mission of the order, called the Humbled Redeemers, is to offer shelter and redemption to fallen women. Once a bustling haven for prostitutes, drug addicts and murderers those days are long gone and now Yolanda is the only guest at the convent. Therefore, her arrival is interpreted as a divine blessing in a critical moment. The convent is in disrepair and the Order is facing serious financial hardships. Their prime financial supporter, the vain and greedy Marquise has decided to discontinue the convent's annuity under the pretense of economizing. She feels less affinity with the sisters than did her recently deceased husband, who set up the fund in gratitude. The convent had taken in their wayward daughter, Virginia, who subsequently became a nun and ran off to AfricaAfrica
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, only to be eaten by cannibals.
The religious order of the Humiliated Redeemers is headless since the Mother General is dying. Lost in the midst of the huge deserted and crumbling convent live the six religious members of the community: the mother Superior, four other nuns and the chaplain. To reinforce their vows of humility, the Mother Superior has given the other nuns repulsive new names: Sister Manure, Sister Damned, Sister Snake and Sister Rat of the Sewers. The Mother Superior explains the rationale of their excessive humility: “man will not be saved until he realizes he is the worst being in all creation.” For her, sinners are worthy of gratitude because they are the reason God dies and is resurrected. With few opportunities for spiritual ministry, the nuns have begun to indulge in their own idiosyncratic pursuits in order to pass the time. The nurturing Sister Damned compulsively cleans the convent and coddles all the animals under her care, including an overgrown pet tiger that she treats like a son, playing the bongos for him. The ascetic Sister Manure is consumed by thoughts of penitence and corporal self-sacrifice and cooks between LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
hallucinations. She murdered somebody and as the mother superior lied under oath to save her from jail, she is very devoted to her. The overcurious Sister Sewer Rat gardens and secretly, under the pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Concha Torres, writes lurid novels about the wayward souls who visit the convent. She smuggles the novels out of the convent through her sister's periodic visits. The unassuming Sister Snake with the help of the priest, tailors seasonal fashion collections for dressing the statues of the Virgin Mary. Her piety is a cover up for her romantic love for the chain-smoking chaplain. The mother Superior is a heavy drug user and a lesbian, whose charitable work is a means of meeting needy young women. She admits, “from admiring them so much I have become one of them”.
Determined to win the trust of the enigmatic and emotionally detached Yolanda, the Mother Superior offers her the best accommodations - the lavish room that belong before to Virginia. Yolanda mingles with the other nuns and spends her time reading the diary of her deceased boyfriend finding out how their relationship really was. The Mother Superior soon falls passionately in love with her. Together, they consume coke and heroin until Yolanda decides both should come off the drugs. Withdrawal for Yolanda is like a painful catharsis, but for the Mother Superior it confirms her very sinful nature. Yolanda keeps the Mother Superior at arm’s length and strikes a friendship with Sister Rat.
The Mother Superior has to face both Yolanda’s rejection and the threats of closure. She fails to blackmail the Marquise with a letter revealing information about Virginia. Undiscouraged, she then prepares to resort to drug trafficking to maintain the independence of her convent. In spite of these trials, the Sisters decide to celebrate the Mother’s Superior birthday. The Marquise and nuns from other convents come to the party. During the celebrations, Yolanda, accompanied by the sisters, sings in honor of the Mother Superior. The Marquise manages to get a letter that coming from Africa has informed her about a long lost grandson that has been raised by the Apes. Because Yolanda and Sister Rat helped her to obtain the letter, she is very grateful to them. At the end of the party, the new Mother General, the highest authority in their order, announces the dissolution of the convent. Sister Damned decides to return to her native village and leaves her tiger to Sister Snake and the Priest. They are in love and want to star a family with the tiger as their son. Sister Rat and Yolanda go to live with the Marquise. Only Sister Manure is left to console the Mother Superior from the terrible heartbreak Yolanda’s desertion has caused.
Cast
This film has an almost all-female cast featuring many of Almodóvar's favorite leading ladies: Julieta SerranoJulieta Serrano
Julieta Serrano Romero is a Catalan theatre and cinema actress. Her prolific career began in the 1960s, and she has worked with directors Pedro Almodóvar and Ventura Pons.-Filmography:...
, Carmen Maura
Carmen Maura
Carmen García Maura is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar.-Early life:...
, Marisa Paredes
Marisa Paredes
María Luisa Paredes Bartolomé, , better known in show business as Marisa Paredes, is a Spanish actress.-Biography:...
and Chus Lampreave
Chus Lampreave
Chus Lampreave is a Spanish actress.She started in movies in 1958, but she became internationally known thanks to her roles in films by Pedro Almodóvar, where she plays old ladies with maternal or pastoral traits.- Filmography :...
. It also has a very brief appearance by Cecilia Roth
Cecilia Roth
Cecilia Roth is an Argentine actress.Her father, Abrasha Rotenberg , a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Ukraine, is an editor and a journalist. He met Cecilia's mother, an Argentinian singer of Sephardic descent Dina Rot, in Argentina. Cecilia Roth has made appearances in numerous television series...
as Mercedes a former redeemer and lover of the Mother Superior.
- Cristina Sánchez Pascual - Yolanda
- Julieta Serrano – Mother Superior
- Chus Lampreave -Sister Sewer Rat
- Marisa Paredes- Sister Manure
- Carmen Maura - Sister Damned
- Lina Canalejas - Sister Snake
- Mary Carrillo- Marquise
- Berta Riaza - new Mother General
- Manuel Zarzo - Chaplain
- Cecilia Roth - Mercedes
Production
After making Labyrinth of PassionLabyrinth of Passion
Labyrinth of Passion is a 1982 Spanish screwball comedy written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Cecilia Roth, Imanol Arias and Antonio Banderas. The plot follows a nymphomaniac pop star who falls in love with a gay Middle-Eastern prince. Their unlikely destiny is to find one another,...
Almodóvar was approached by Hervé Hachuel, a multimillionaire who wanted to start a production company to make films starring his then girlfriend Cristina Sánchez Pascual.
He set up Tesauro Production and asked Almodóvar to write a film with her in mind.
The idea behind the commission became the concept for the style of the film. Almodóvar explains: I came up with the story of a girl who drives both men and women wild, a girl who sings, drinks, takes drugs, occasionally goes through periods of abstinence and has the extraordinary experiences one would never have were one live a hundred years...while writing I had in mind Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
’s work with Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish...
, especially Blonde Venus
Blonde Venus
Blonde Venus is a 1932 is a Pre-Code drama film starring Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant. The movie was produced and directed for Paramount Pictures by Josef von Sternberg with a screenplay by Jules Furthman and S. K. Lauren adapted from a story by Furthman and von Sternberg. The music score was by W...
(1932), where she plays a house wife who becomes a singer, spy and prostitute, who travels the world living a life of never ending adventure.
This was the film Almodóvar intended to make, but Cristina Sánchez Pascual had limited acting skills, because of this, Almodóvar rewrote the film giving a more prominent role to the nuns of the convent where the singer hides.
Reception
Dark Habits, Almodóvar’s third film, was produced by Tesauro and appeared in 1983. It was rejected by the Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
on account of its apparently sacrilegious treatment of religion, and although it had its premiere on 9 September at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, some of the organizing committee considered it blasphemous and anti-Catholic and it was not shown in the official section.
The Italian critics were divided in their opinions. The film critic of the Venetian Il Gazzetino described the film as scandalous, but his counter part in Corriere Della Sera saw Almodóvar as a true heir of the acclaimed Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...
and applauded his attack on the repressive nature of formal religion. When a month later, Dark Habits opened in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, the Spanish critics reacted in a similar fashion.Dark Habits was a modest success, and cemented Almodóvar’s reputation as the enfant terrible of the Spanish cinema.
Analysis
Comparing Dark Habits with his first two films, Almodóvar has suggested there is a change of tone and that the emotions are expressed more clearly and the characters are driven by them.” In short, it is a deeper and more serious film; but he has denied that it is antireligious.The nuns, he has pointed out, have moved away from God and now direct their energies towards those people who live in misery- fallen women and the like. This, he implies, is true religion: to be able to love the sinner and, indeed, to become like the sinner, for only then can one appreciate the nature of sin. The implication of the film is that men and women have to be loved and accepted in all their imperfections – a view which links Almodóvar to Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, particularly in Viridiana
Viridiana
Viridiana is a 1961 Spanish-Mexican motion picture, directed by Luis Buñuel and produced by Mexican Gustavo Alatriste. It is loosely based on Halma, a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós....
, where the eponymous nun finds that, for all her idealistic intentions, she cannot change the nature of mankind.
Dark Habits has a variety of cinematic influences. The Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
regime, strongly supportive of the Catholic Church, had promoted sentimental films, such as Sister San Sulpicio and Marcelino, Bread and Wine
Marcelino Pan y Vino
Marcelino Pan Y Vino is a 1955 Spanish film. It was a success, and other countries have produced versions of it. The 1955 film was written by José María Sánchez Silva, who based it on his novel, and directed by Ladislao Vajda...
, in which goodhearted priests and the like figured prominently. Together with musicals and light comedy in which nuns appeared, they were part of a propaganda attempt to make Spanish cinema feel good and new. The film was also influenced by the melodramas of Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk was a Danish-German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas in the 1950s.-Life and work:...
. The romantic and often sentimental qualities of his films are evident in Dark Habits. The film also owes something to the Hammer horror films
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
of the 1960s and the 1970s, though Almodóvar has said he was influenced less by their subject matter than by their dramatic colors and their unsettling baroque atmosphere. He has also made the point that, for him, melodrama is a form in which love and passion are the driving force which oblige individuals to do the most extraordinary things, whether they be appalling or wonderful.
Music, as in all Almodóvar’s major films, also has a significant role. The bolero, regarded by him as expressive of great emotions, is used at key moments to underpin both the mother’s superior feelings for Yolanda and Yolanda’s feelings for her. They sing along with Lucho Gatica
Lucho Gatica
Luis Enrique Gatica Silva, better known as Lucho Gatica, is a Chilean bolero singer, film actor, and television host. It is estimated that Gatica has released more than 90 recordings. He has toured a vast portion of the world, having made concerts in Europe, the Middle East and Asia...
’s bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
: Encadenados (Chained together).
Reminiscent of Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...
's Les Anges du Péché, Almodóvar's idiosyncratic fusion of highly formalized, often surreal visual imagery (saturated primary colors, muted and diffused lighting, kitschy interiors) and comedic melodrama serves as a thematic foil in order to explore crisis of faith and the innate hypocrisy and encroachment of secularism in institutional religion: the ironic reunion between the successful call girls and the destitute nuns selling an odd assortment of goods (cakes, flowers, and peppers) at the market; the melancholic and sentimental ballad of unrequited love and loss that covertly expresses the Mother Superior's spiritual crisis; the convent's crumbling structure that figuratively manifests the nuns' moral decay; Yolanda's facial imprint on a handkerchief that serves as a tawdry surrogate relic for the Shroud of Turin
Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The image on the shroud is...
. Through the convent's bizarre and misguided attempts to spiritually reconnect through escapism, distraction, and illusion, Dark Habits reflects the inherent incongruence and corruption of seeking redemption and existential purpose in an increasingly chaotic, amoral, and hedonistic world.
DVD release
Dark Habits was released on DVD in the USA on September 9, 2003. The film is in SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
with English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
subtitles. It is the earliest of Almodóvar's films available on DVD in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Quotes
Marquise: And anyway, I have no money. You may not have heard here about the economic crisis.Mother Superior: You're a millionaire!
Marquise: To survive today, one needs to be. And I don't want just to survive, I want to live life.