Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
| Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Produced by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Written by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Bernardo Bonezzi |
| Cinematography | José Luis Alcaine |
| Edited by | José Salcedo |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Laurenfilm S.A. |
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Release date
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Running time
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89 minutes |
| Country | Spain |
| Language | Spanish |
| Budget | $700,000 |
| Box office | $7.2 million (US) $16.9 million (Worldwide) |
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Spanish: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios) is a 1988 Spanish black comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas. The film brought Almodóvar to widespread international attention: it was nominated for the 1988 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and won five Goya Awards including Best Film and Best Actress in a Leading Role for Maura.
The actual Spanish title refers to an ataque de nervios, which is not actually well translated as "nervous breakdown" (crisis nerviosa). Ataques de nervios are culture-bound psychological phenomena during which the individual, most often female, displays dramatic outpouring of negative emotions, bodily gestures, occasional falling to the ground, and fainting, often in response to receiving disturbing news or witnessing or participating in an upsetting event. Historically, this condition has been associated with hysteria and more recently in the scientific literature with post-traumatic stress and panic attacks.
The film plot takes its starting point from the French play The Human Voice (La Voix humaine, 1930) by Jean Cocteau where a desperate woman tries to avoid being dumped by her lover through a series of phone calls. In the film TV actress Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura) is depressed and taking sleeping pills because her boyfriend Iván (Fernando Guillén) has just left her. Both she and Iván work as voice-over actors who dub foreign films, notably Johnny Guitar with Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden. The voice he uses to sweet-talk her (and many other women) is the same one he uses in his work. He is about to leave on a trip and has asked Pepa to pack his things in a suitcase that he will pick up later.
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Wikipedia