Regarding TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN! (ATAME!; 1989), two names come immediately to mind: Pedro Almodovar, who wrote and directed the film, and Harvey Weinstein, who shepherded its May 1990 US release through his company Miramax. As with the April 1990 Miramax distributed THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER, Weinstein made sure to do what he did best: stoke plenty of controversy.
This occurred after the MPAA elected to give TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN! an X rating. A stink was made, with the film, bearing a self-imposed “Due to the Explicit Nature of This Film No One Under 17 Will Be Admitted” proviso in place of a rating (my teenaged self, FYI, was among the theater employees tasked with keeping kids out), becoming a media cause celebre and winding up with a $4 million domestic gross (an impressive haul considering that in 1990 a $1 million gross was considered a success for foreign films). The result was the creation of the NC-17 rating in September 1990, and the ascension of Almodovar to near the top of the international filmmaking pyramid.
TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN! was Almodovar’s eighth feature, and followed the international smash WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios; 1988). That film introduced his signature style, which incorporates gaudy primary colors, overtly kitschy set design, frank sexuality and a cast that included names like Antonio Banderas, Rossy de Palma, Julieta Serrano and María Barranco, all caught up in a perversely light-hearted play on a very dark narrative. The narrative in this case was a variant on THE COLLECTOR, with ex-mental patient Ricky (Banderas) entrapping former porn star Marina (Victoria Abril, in a role intended for Almodovar regular Carmen Maura) in her apartment, his objective being to force her to love him.
Marina is in the midst of making a horror movie, directed by Máximo Espejo (Francisco Rabal), an aging filmmaker who’s none-too-secretly besotted with his leading lady. Máximo describes his film as both a love story and a horror movie, as “sometimes they’re indistinguishable”—a good description of TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN!’s own genre orientation.
Ricky, who had sex with Marina several years earlier (which she claims not to remember), forces his way into her apartment, head butts her and ties her up. She resists his advances, which are fairly benign (he refrains from raping her), and orders him to supply her with illicit drugs to alleviate tooth pain. Ricky obliges, and moves Marina into a vacant apartment next to hers to avoid the attentions of her sister Lola (Loles León), who grows increasingly alarmed by Marina’s inexplicable disappearance.
Eventually Marina’s resistance begins to thaw, and she finds herself sympathizing with and, yes, falling in love with her captor. They have sex (in one of the scenes that got the film rated X) and, when Ricky elects to leave her alone, she begs him to tie her up so she can’t escape. But Lola is still on the prowl, and about to mess up this twisted romance; not to worry, though, because, this being a romcom, a happy ending is assuredly on the horizon.
A queasy S&M dynamic (which Almodovar claims was unintentional) suffuses TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN!, which seems more of a hymn to the joys of bondage than the satiric love story that was intended. Victoria Abril functions primarily as a fetish object, spending the entire film in various states of undress while the camera lingers on her bare skin. Were this film made by any other filmmaker it would be called sexist, but critics, as they usually do with Almodovar, went easy on it (although the film has in recent years undergone a negative reappraisal).
Banderas for his part is never convincing as a lovesick maniac (for starters, he’s far too good-looking), and nor is the supposedly star-crossed the love that develops between the protagonists. Horror and comedy may indeed be “indistinguishable,” but only if the horror is horrific and the comedy funny, neither of which are true of TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN!
Vital Statistics
TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN! (ATAME!)
El Deseo S.A./Miramax Films
Director/Screenplay: Pedro Almodovar
Producers: Agustin Almodovar, Enrique Posner
Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine
Editing: José Salcedo
Cast: Victoria Abril, Antonio Banderas, Loles León, María Barranco, Rossy de Palma, Julieta Serrano, Francisco Rabal, Lola Cardona, Montse García Romeu, Emiliano Redondo, Oswaldo Delgado, Concha Rabal, Alberto Fernández, José María Tasso, Angelina Llongueras, Mauel Bandera, Virginia Diez, Juana Cordero