After two flat-out masterpieces (All About My Mother, Talk to Her), Pedro Almodovar spins a film-noirish web around the sad headlines of clerical abuse of children. The writer-director always puts extraordinary creatures in extreme situations while lavishing sympathy on every character, including the evil ones; here the priest, up-close, is nearly as pathetic as he is predatory. His sanctity is a mask, but everyone in the movie wears disguises, especially Mexican wonder-boy Gael Garcia Bernal as an actor-drag queen-victim-conniver. Almodovar wears a mask too: a Janus-face to cover his rage at the harm done to the innocent. Bad Education can be seen as a brilliant debate on how art can conceal the deepest sin, and reveal it.
Come fly with us, and Leo, through the best (and worst) of 2004. Tops in the cinema this year include Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Elsewhere, Deadwood was good TV, and a Strange tale fascinated readers.