Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Victoria Abril stars as a former porn actress attempting to transition to mainstream films in the final project of the smitten renown director Máximo Espejo (Francisco Rabal) whose lust for the actress is the worst kept secret on set. Our other main character is recently-released mental patient Ricky (Antonio Banderas) obsessed with Marina who kidnaps the actress in hopes of making her fall in love with him. Keeping her bound to the bed, Ricky takes no physical advantage while also attending to her needs including procuring drugs to help with her toothache. However, there is no debate that she is his prisoner.
The film takes idea of a romantic comedy and lays it on its side while infusing elements of a horror film. This is also the genre of the film within the film that Marina is starring in which, when it also takes a romantic turn, allows the on-screen director to note that some times love stories and horror stories are indistinguishable.
Ricky's bizarre courting of Marina is an over-exaggeration to the lengths characters take in romcoms to win over the object of their desire. Writer/director Pedro Almodóvar saw the story as a romantic fairy tale where the bondage used so heavily in the film was never about kink or sexuality but about connection and the ties that bind us together. Ricky's genuine passion, not just lust, for Marina eventually shines through what, on the the printed page, would be a pretty harrowing experience if not framed through romcom logic.
Given its premise of a woman falling in love with her kidnapper, even if that man is Antonio Banderas and the best lay of her life, it's doubtful Almodóvar's 1989 film would be made today without some serious changes to its script. While the film received critical and box office success overseas, the MPAA branding the film with its X rating (a precursor to NC-17), forcing it to be released unrated, drastically limited the film's distribution in the United States. The film was also heavily boycotted by feminist groups for its themes.
Certainly a product of its time, where it was already controversial, and a foreign culture, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is an intriguing film that does not shy away from stirring up some discussion while also pushing the limits of what was acceptable. It's hard to see the film earning the same rating today, although you would expect objections to the script to be far louder. Almodóvar attempts to undercut the dangerous setup with humor while making Ricky as considerate of an armed intruder (who more than once threatens to kill them both) as possible.
You are either going to allow yourself to buy into the concept of the film or you are not. If you are, there's an interesting story here in which Marina finds something in Ricky that she does fall for (mentioning a previous encounter between the two during her heavy drug days which once remembered, along with seeing the physical toll he takes while trying to procure her drugs, does cause her to soften her stance on the man keeping her bound against her will). For those unable to buy-in, which given its plot is a perfectly valid stance to take, you are likely in for a quite unpleasant, and likely infuriating, experience.
- Title: Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
- IMDb: link
