Matador is a 1986 erotic thriller film directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Assumpta Serna, Antonio Banderas, Nacho Martínez and Eva Cobo.
Ángel (Banderas), a young man from a devout Catholic family, takes bullfighting classes with Diego Montes (Martínez) a retired matador. After a class, Ángel talks with Diego and confesses that he has no experience with women. He goes back home and tries to rape Eva (Cobo), his neighbour and Diego's girlfriend, in a backstreet at night.
This film should not be confused with The Matador, a 2015 comedy starring Pierce Brosnan.
Matador provides examples of:
- Afraid of Blood: Ángel feels faint when he sees blood.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Eva is in love with Diego. When he dumps her, she wants to win him back, even after hearing that he committed several murders.
- Ate His Gun: This is how María kills herself in the end, after stabbing Diego.
- Attempted Rape: Ángel tries to rape his neighbour Eva in an alley at night, but he ejaculates before penetrating her.
- Birds of a Feather: Diego and María are attracted to each other because they are both murderers.
- Career-Ending Injury: Diego was injured by a bull (this is why he limps) and had to stop his career as bullfighter.
- Confessional: Ángel's mother insists that he goes to confession. He tells the priest he wants to confess, but he leaves the church and goes to the police instead.
- Contrived Coincidence: Eva, the girlfriend of Ángel's teacher, happens to be Ángel's neighbour.
- Creator Cameo: Pedro Almodóvar appears briefly as the guy in charge of the fashion show.
- Decoy Protagonist: The first part of the movie focuses on Ángel, his ill-being and his attempted rape. After he surrenders to the police and confesses the murders, the story focuses on Diego and María.
- Deliberately Painful Clothing: Ángel's mother wears a cilice around her thigh.
- Disappeared Dad: Ángel's father died years ago.
- Double-Meaning Title: A matador is a bullfighter, but it also means "killer" in Spanish. Diego is a bullfighter and a killer.
- Exact Eavesdropping: When she gets into Diego's house, Eva overhears a short conversation between Diego and María, but it is enough for her to understand that they are both murderers.
- False Confession: Ángel confesses four murders that he did not commit. Thanks to his psychic power, he is able to give some details about the murders, like to place where the bodies of Diego's victims are buried.
- I Have No Son!: When she hears that her son Ángel confessed four murders, Berta says that he is not her son any more.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: The film starts with a man masturbating while watching slasher movies. Then there is a scene where a woman murdering a man during a sexual intercourse. The film ends with María killing Diego while having sex with him, then killing herself.
- Love Triangle:
- Eva is Diego's girlfriend, but Ángel is attracted to her and tries to rape her.
- Eva is Diego's girlfriend, but Diego is attracted to María. He eventually breaks up with Eva to pursue a relationship with María.
- Murder-Suicide: In the end, María stabs Diego to death, then shoots herself in the mouth.
- My Beloved Smother: Berta, a very religious person, wants to control the life of her son Ángel. During his childhood, he was only allowed to pray and to work out and could not go to the movies. Now he is an adult and he must consult a spiritual director as a condition to keep on living at her mother's. When he says he needs to see a shrink, she rejects the idea. She forces him to go to mass and she insists he should confess.
- Noodle Incident: Before the start of the film, Ángel had to leave her mother's house and lived elsewhere for some time. Both her mother and the priest mention that he has just come back. We never hear where he was and why he was away.
- Out with a Bang: In the beginning of the film, a woman murders a man with a hairpin during a sexual intercourse. The film ends with María killing Diego and herself while they are having sex together.
- The Peeping Tom: Ángel spies on Eva with binoculars when she has a shower.
- Seers: Ángel can see into the future, past and to other places during vertigo episodes. He is able to find the bodies of Diego's victims. In the end, he sees what Diego and María are doing and he knows that they are in danger.
- Shout-Out: Diego and María watch Duel in the Sun at the cinema.
