Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
| Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Pedro Almodóvar |
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| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography | José Luis Alcaine |
| Edited by | José Salcedo |
| Distributed by | El Deseo S.A |
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Release date
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Running time
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101 minutes |
| Country | Spain |
| Language | Spanish |
| Box office | $8 million |
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Spanish: ¡Átame!, pronounced: [ˈa.ta.me], "Tie Me!") is a 1990 Spanish dark romantic comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, and starring Victoria Abril and Antonio Banderas alongside Loles Léon, Francisco Rabal, Julieta Serrano, Maria Barranco, and Rossy de Palma. The plot follows a recently released psychiatric patient who kidnaps an actress in order to make her fall in love with him. He believes his destiny is to marry her and father her children.
The film was highly successful with both critics and audiences in Spain. Its United States release was entangled in controversy, instrumental in the implementation by the MPAA of a new rating category, NC-17, for films of an explicit nature that were previously unfairly regarded as pornographic because of the X rating.
Ricky, a 23-year-old psychiatric patient, has been deemed cured and is released from a mental institution. Until then he has been the lover of the woman director of the hospital. An orphan, free, and alone, his goal is to have a normal life with Marina Osorio, an actress, former porn star, and recovering drug addict, whom he once slept with during an escape from the asylum.
Ricky discovers Marina’s whereabouts from a film journal announcement of the start of her next film. He goes to the studio where Marina is in her last day at work filming The Midnight Phantom, a Euro-horror film about a hideously mutilated, masked muscleman in love with Marina’s character. The film is directed by Máximo Espejo, an old film director confined to a wheelchair after a stroke. Máximo is a gentle mentor to Marina and threatens to throw out a journalist who mentions the words "porn" and "junkie" in Marina’s presence. His protection of the actress is not completely innocent since he is sexually attracted to Marina and lusts after her, enjoying what could be his last experience of directing a sexy female lead.
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Wikipedia