How do you define an artistic revolutionary? Is it by their longevity or the extent to which they were willing to take wild swings, regardless of any potential repercussions from a society that may not have always understood them at the time, but still facilitated their rise to acclaim, even if unintentionally? When it comes to Pedro Almodóvar, it’s fair to say that a blend of both qualities is perhaps the most appropriate way to look at the work he has done over the past forty years, where he has held court as arguably one of Europe’s most acclaimed and celebrated artists. However, there was a time when he wasn’t an elder statesman of the arthouse, and instead functioned as a divisive provocateur, a young and rambunctious auteur who challenged the system and told stories that none of his contemporaries would even dare to touch. This is very evident in Matador, his fourth feature directorial outing and one of his most fascinating curios, albeit one that has not quite received the attention as some of the others that surrounded it. It has nonetheless gone on to become one of his more interesting works, particularly since many consider it to be his first step into mainstream popularity, this being the film that officially drew the global audience to his work, for reasons that become quite clear as we make our way through the film. Set in the director’s native Madrid, the film offers two perspectives: Diego Montes is a former matador who has decided to become a teacher, training the next generation in the art of bullfighting, while Ángel Giménez is one of his students, an insecure young man who is struggling with his identity. The film oscillates between their perspectives, showing their interactions with each other, as well as the various men and women that weave in and out of their lives, particularly those who inevitably become the victims of Diego’s vaguely psychopathic behaviour. A darkly comedic satire that is as sharp as it is incendiary, Matador is quite an achievement, even if it can often feel like Almodóvar is conducting what would essentially be nothing more than a dress rehearsal for the coming few decades in his astonishing and varied filmmaking career.

Throughout his career, Almodóvar has been committed to exploring a few key themes, many of which differ between films, but there are still connective threads. Considering he is primarily known for directing films with female protagonists (hence the existence of the affectionate term “Chicas Almodóvar” to refer to his stable of regular collaborators), it’s always interesting when he goes in a slightly different direction, especially so early in his career. Matador is a film built around a familiar subject, namely that of masculinity, which has often been used as a plot point in many of his films, albeit not always as the main focus. For a film released forty years ago, it is remarkably prescient when it comes to the topic of exploring the concept of men asserting their dominance to the point where they actively find themselves resorting to violence just to feel superior and powerful. This is certainly not a foreign topic, since we see the rate of gender-based violence and domestic abuse being a widespread societal epidemic, and one that is not showing any signs of decreasing as time progresses and the world becomes more aware of these problems. Almodóvar is not someone to be particularly heavy-handed with a subject, and he finds a lot of time to develop the core ideas of this film to be more than what it seems on the surface, which involves making Matador – a film about toxic masculinity and the violence perpetuated against women by those men who feel like it is their right to take advantage – into a psychosexual character study, a game of cat-and-mouse between two men who have allowed their impulses to spiral so out of control that they eventually end up being driven to madness. What is so interesting is how Matador reverses common tropes, since it positions the more subdued of the two as someone who is innocent but acts like he is guilty, and the inverse for the more exuberant of the pair, creating a fascinating dynamic that this film brilliantly explores in quite vivid detail throughout the story.

Not many filmmakers can legitimately lay claim to discovering generational talents, but when it comes to Almodóvar, he has a fair share of actors to whom he served as a mentor, guiding them through the early stages of their careers while also allowing them to play fascinating roles. Antonio Banderas was a near-unknown when the director cast him in a supporting role in Labyrinth of Passion, which kick-started a professional friendship that saw them produce five films over the next seven years, many of which were centred around Banderas in some way, even if he was only a secondary player in some of them. Matador was his first leading role under Almodóvar’s direction, and he’s wonderful in the part of Ángel, a young man so desperate to leave his mark on the world that he decides to lean into a growing delusion that he is a serial killer, a claim no one actually takes all that seriously. At a glance it seems like an effortlessly easy character to play, since he is more of a reactionary than an active participant in the story – but Banderas is not content to just allow the script to guide him, choosing instead to create a vibrant, complex anti-hero who may be extremely difficult to understand in terms of motivation, but who is nonetheless captivating to watch every time he appears on screen. Nacho Martínez (an actor who was always very impressive, but unfortunately had his career cut short by his untimely death thirty years ago) plays the slightly older Diego, the actual psychopath in the film – and unlike Banderas, who is intentionally quite reserved and subtle, Martinez plays into the inherent peculiarities of this man who is slipping dangerously into what appears to be full-blown psychopathy. The tug-of-war between the two leads anchors this film and makes Matador absolutely thrilling, even at its quietest moments, and they’re supported by a fantastic ensemble, which includes several of the aforementioned “Chicas Almodóvar”, including the stern but magnetic Julieta Serrano, the always consistent Carmen Maura and Chus Lampreave, who once again steals absolutely every scene she is in. The film doesn’t give too much focus to these women, but they’re nonetheless vital to the story, which only benefits from the exceptional work that they are all doing alongside the two leads.

Watching the evolution of Almodóvar’s career has been fascinating, especially in how he transitioned from the enfant terrible of 1980s Spanish cinema to arguably the most beloved and artistically important filmmaker of his generation. It was a gradual development, and every one of his films contains traces of his growth in some form or another. In the case of Matador, we have a film that came right in the middle of the director’s early phase, where he was still extremely committed to ruffling feathers by any means necessary. As far as Almodóvar was concerned, if an audience didn’t leave feeling either wholeheartedly entertained or genuinely shaken (ideally a blend of both), then the film has clearly not left an impression. However, rather than just being an off-the-wall satire, Matador is much smarter and insightful, taking an outrageous concept and finding ways to develop it into something more profound, without making it too serious. The film is exceptionally playful and is filled to the brim with sardonic humour, which is peppered liberally throughout – but it is also slightly more dramatic, containing some of the first instances of Almodóvar inserting melodrama into his films as a tool to communicate deeper themes, particularly those relating to the emotional content of the film. It’s certainly not the Douglas Sirk-inspired tragedy that we may have expected from the director later in his career (although there are points where he does intentionally lean quite heavily on this particular aspect), but there is an emotional complexity that both undercuts the satirical elements, as well as supporting it, which is the kind of fascinating tonal balance that we appreciate from the director when he pays attention to the smallest and most intricate details. Matador manages to avoid becoming too overwrought, gradually and methodically elevating itself to become far more nuanced than we would expect, which is surprising considering the wild, off-the-wall subject matter that the director carefully curates into something much more intriguing than we’d expect at a glance.

Some consider Matador to be a failure, and while I can agree that it is a far cry from the exceptional work being done by the director at the time, it also seems wildly inappropriate to view something this ambitious as being anything more than a well-crafted satire that takes a few minor missteps, but is otherwise still a very strong offering from a truly subversive artistic voice. The only real flaws in this film would be that it finds Almodóvar being slightly more experimental than usual, which is notable considering how he was developing a very precise directorial vision, which is still present here but tends to be intersected by something a bit more dramatic and intense, which is not what we’d have anticipated based on the more off-the-wall works that surrounded the film. Matador is nonetheless a fascinating curio of a film, a labyrinthine, layered work that blends romance, comedy and psychological thriller into a complex, deeply unnerving exploration of masculinity, queerness and identity, all common threads that we find woven through the director’s body of work, and which he carefully and methodically uses as the foundation for this fascinating investigation into the mind of difficult men as they set out to get satisfaction for their most primal urges. It is never going to be considered one of Almodóvar’s crowning achievements overall, but if we take it in context – his first major step towards melodrama, produced in between a run of outrageous farces and darkly comedic satires – it becomes entirely clear why this film is such a triumph, a bold and daring character study anchored by terrific performances, filled with razor-sharp dialogue and some very impressive directorial flourishes that oscillate between hilarious and disconcerting. Matador occupies a peculiar place in Almodóvar’s career, but it’s not difficult to see where its merits are most clear, and even at its most simple, we find that the film is an absolute triumph in both style and substance, being a far more entertaining work than we would have anticipated based on the premise.