Los amantes pasajeros

Los amantes pasajeros (English title I’m so Excited, after the title of the song the stewards dance to in the middle of the film to entertain the first-class passengers) is, for most Spanish reviewers, Almodóvar’s worst film in many years. It is probably also the one that is most aware of its social and political context, an unusual feature in the career of the Manchegan filmmaker. It seems as though the national context in which the film was made was so loaded and so pressing that it ended up contaminating even an Almodóvar film. In this sense, it might be argued that the apparently sloppy and careless way in which the film is put together is a potent metaphor of the way in which political and financial affairs have been conducted in Spain in recent years. As the story unfolds in front of our eyes, we can see the film falling to pieces, as is happening to our country, too. Films can be interesting for all sorts of reasons.