SOURCE: "Future Chic," in Sight and Sound, Vol. 4, No. 1, January, 1994, pp. 6-10.

In the following essay, Smith argues that although Kika is "Gloriously shot, beautifully dressed and skillfully acted," the film "is poorly plotted and characterized, its rogues' gallery of grotesques provoking little of the audience identification that Almodóvar was clearly hoping for."

It promises to be a cold winter in Madrid. As the long hang-over from the Olympic annus mirabilis of 1992 drags on, Spain is facing up to record unemployment, continuing political scandal, and mounting concern over the intrusions of the newly deregulated media. In a mirror image of the UK, a long-serving government, incapable of managing either the budget deficit or the rising tide of crime, is confronted by an ineffectual opposition and an alienated electorate. The only difference is that in Spain the government is socialist and the opposition back-to-basics conservatives.

In the week...