The story very quickly presents upheaval for its protagonist, a third-rate Madrid lounge singer named Yolanda (Christine Sanchez Pascual). Three minutes into the film, her loutish boyfriend ODs on the tainted heroin she has scored for him, and the police soon afterwards stake out her place of employment. Desperate for sanctuary, she recalls the fan visit she received from a pair of eccentric nuns, and decides to take refuge at their inner-city convent.
Yolanda isn't there long before she discovers how genuinely oddball the members of this chaotic order are. The Mother Superior (Julieta Serrano) seeks to calm her new charge's distress by offering her a needle and syringe, and wins her trust by shooting up first. Sister Rat of the Sewers (Chus Lampreave) leads a covert existence as the author of best-selling smutty novels, whose inspiration is derived from the lost souls who show up at the convent. Sister Manure (Marisa Paredes), a murderess taken in by the Mother Superior, has a penchant for penitent self-mutilation and requires the occasional dosage of LSD in order to cope. Sister Damned (Carmen Maura) is responsible for the care and feeding of the full-grown tiger living in the courtyard, and Sister Snake (Lina Canelejas) enjoys designing outrageous designer habits with the aid of the parish priest.
The remaining thrust of the story follows Yolanda's eventual chafing under the smothering, vaguely seductive attentions of the Mother Superior. She symbolically rids herself of an unwanted "habit" as she goes cold turkey as part of her bid for liberation. The Mother Superior's concerns, beyond Yolanda's distancing, are spent on the convent's financial woes. Rather than the obvious bake sale, her tactics include the blackmailing of a recalcitrant ex-donor and willingness to serve as her pusher's drug mule. As you may have gathered by this point, Dark Habits is not for everyone's taste. It stands as an intriguing early effort by a unique filmmaker who was beginning to grow from the provision of pure shock value.
Wellspring's mastering job on Dark Habits is somewhat on the disappointing side; the image quality of the source print is fair at best. The audio, which is presented in both Dolby 2.0 stereo and Surround 5.1, is so laden with hiss as to be almost unlistenable on the former track. The extras are skimpy as well, with only an Almodovar filmography and weblinks to the official Almodovar site and Wellspring.com to complement the feature.
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by Jay S. Steinberg
