In order to have good taste, you need to have an appreciation for bad taste – this sentiment was originally pioneered by cinematic agent provocateur John Waters and has been the driving force behind his career, and while he is undeniably the driving force behind the movement towards more boundary-pushing filmmaking, he has been tethered (albeit only spiritually) to Pedro Almodóvar for quite a bit of their respective careers, in a way that isn’t built on unnecessary comparison but rather strong correlations, each commanding their chosen craft on different sides of the Atlantic, challenging conventions in a way that has defined their careers. While he is part of the establishment and is arguably Spain’s most acclaimed filmmaker, Almodóvar used to be a figure of some controversy, and looking at the films that kickstarted his career, it is not difficult to see why he would be someone that was considered an acquired taste. After a few short films, he took it upon himself to make his feature directorial debut with Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (Spanish: Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón), in which the concept of bad taste is not only present, but an active feature of this expansive, bewildering dark comedy that is frequently aiming to pull apart the layers of socially-mandated decency, which is something that Almodóvar and his cohorts despised since it was both stifling to their libertine lifestyles and restrictive of their attempts at artistic expression. Few filmmakers can be dubbed as making truly controversial films that push boundaries without crossing the very ambigious moral barrier that divided daring art from outright exploitation, and throughout this film, Almodóvar proves his skillfulness at tearing apart the institutionalized structures that he found so abhorrent and uninspiring. An ambitious debut if there ever was one, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom is an offbeat and bitingly funny satire that proves how the director had a strong vision from the very start.

While his films tend to be quite unique, focusing on a range of different subjects and narratives, there are two themes in particular that are often found in the majority of the director’s work – femininity and queer identity, which are the concepts that seem to be most fascinating to Almodóvar, inspiring the majority of his work and being subjects to which he regularly returns, regardless of the specific story being told. Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom is presented as the story of the titular characters, a trio of women living in Madrid towards the end of the 1970s, which was a period of immense political and social transition, which were factored heavily into the storyline, which we’ll discuss momentarily. Each of these three women is wildly different – Pepi embodies the sexual freedom of the modern world, Luci is a straight-laced housewife who wishes to break free from the shackles placed on her by her misogynistic husband, and Bom is the sexually-ambiguous punk rock singer whose lack of clear identity is her defining feature. The film presents a very simple structure, having a central storyline around Pepi and Bom befriending Luci as a way of getting revenge on Luci’s husband after he rapes Pepi, interspersing them with wickedly funny vignettes that don’t have much consequence to the plot, but introduce us to the lives of these three women, each one distinct on the surface, but sharing the same sense of existential angst and sexual ambiguity that was defining of this period, and one of the many elements that the director was intent on exploring throughout the course of this film. By looking at the daily routines of three very different women, as well as the moments in which their lives intersect, Almodóvar is able to make some fascinating choices in how he develops the story, which is incredibly entertaining and just as provocative in practice as it seemed to be in theory, which is quite an achievement in itself.

The decision to focus Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom on three women, having them be roughly equal in screentime and plot function, was a smart one – instead of having to construct a narrative around a single individual, the director is able to share them amongst a trio of characters, each one representing a very different kind of woman that Almodóvar observed as being a part of Spanish society, and who were the inspirations behind this peculiar but captivating story. Over the course of his career, the director has created a specific kind of character, the middle-class woman who genuinely believes herself to be worthy of high society, despite a lack of elegance or actual social decorum, which is often the source of many of his greatest comedies. One of the people that helped him construct this archetype is Carmen Maura, who is quite possibly his greatest collaborator, the quintessential Chica Almodóvar, and the one from which every other memorable performance was built. She’s an absolute riot in this film, commanding the screen with a blend of sultry seductiveness and goofy humour, which is the exact kind of contrast that immediately makes this a memorable performance. She is joined by Eva Siva as Luci and the legendary Alaska, who turns in the rare acting performance as Bom, the trio forming the unforgettable set of protagonists around which the film revolves, making for a thrilling and very funny comedy that understands a story like this can only be effective with the right character development, as well as performances that can stand alongside these very ambitious ideas. Almodóvar always forms a strong relationship with his actors, so it is less a matter of them simply delivering the dialogue he has written, but a strong collaboration built on a mutual artistic interest and the genuine desire to see these ideas manifest on screen. The actors all deserve credit for trusting in the director enough to allow him to take their characters in unexpected directions, which instantly makes Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom an incredibly captivating film, and one with a lot of unique detail in terms of how these characters are constructed and portrayed.

However, as much as we can remark on how provocative the story is, and how these actors go to extreme lengths to capture the spirit of the director’s work, it is important to note the actual approach taken to create this film and make it so outrageously funny, as well as deeply unnerving in a darkly comical way. The manner in which Almodóvar pushes boundaries has been a source of a great deal of discussion – he is not someone who ever intended to adhere to the rules and seems to take pleasure in not only subverting conventions, but utterly shattering them to the point where they are unrecognizable, and then rebuilding these elements from the more intriguing fragments. Perversion has been a subject that has fascinated the director for his entire career, and Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom gives him the chance to explore various scenarios around social debauchery and the decline in morals without any restriction, being given free rein to go in any direction he feels was most appropriate to realize his vision. This film actively goes for the jugular on more than one occasion – in terms of both social decorum and political ideology, it has a firm grasp on the cultural pulse and is more than willing to take many risks to express itself with a subversive wit that has become so distinctive of Almodóvar’s style as a filmmaker. Functioning as a satire on Spanish life, particularly amongst the middle class and working poor, who somehow embodied the sense of hedonism and excess more than those in the upper echelons of society, the film navigates many different themes in the process of gradually deconstructing the lives of these three women as they make their way through a nightmarish but hilariously irreverent version of Madrid, which has never seemed so sordid as it did under Almodóvar’s eccentric direction. Ultimately, this film is based around the supposed crime of desire, somehow managing to integrate every one of the Seven Deadly Sins into this tantalizing and immodest dark comedy that takes many risks, some of which can border on repulsive, but in a way that elevates the story and contributes to the director’s perpetual attempt at eviscerating the supposed grandiose morals of a society that was just as seedy as the communities it rejected.

Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom is very clearly a directorial debut – it is rough around the edges, often quite crude and lacks the sense of cohesion that would come when looking at a film made by someone more established. Yet, these elements are all integral in forming the foundation of Almodóvar’s gradual but steady ascent to become an acclaimed filmmaker, and his refusal to change his style or the kinds of stories that fascinated him made his ascent to the peak of Spanish culture all the more satisfying. This film is often forgotten in discussions of his work, which is partially understandable – it functions more as an entertaining dress rehearsal for the films that were to come, rather than being a fully-formed work on its own, with many of its themes being integrated into later films. However, this doesn’t diminish the fact that it has a lot of promise on its own, much of which comes in the form of outrageously funny vignettes that could have been found in any number of his more provocative films, but form the basis for what was the first breakthrough moment for someone who would go on to define the very culture that he sought to criticize, which is not something that is easily accomplished without raw talent, of which Almodóvar certainly doesn’t have any shortage. It is not the kind of detailed, fascinating character study that we would come to expect from the director later in his career, but instead, a raw, gritty dark comedy in which comfort is never anything close to a priority, and every aspect is intended to either provoke thought or ruffle the feathers of the overly serious viewers who may not be particularly pleased with the crude nature of this film, which seemed to be one of the major intentions of the film. Fascinating in a way that is always quite poignant, and wonderfully meaningful in unexpected ways, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom is a tremendous film, and an audacious debut for one of the greatest artists of his generation.