The Shortcomings of Simulacra: Fragments of the Past in Pedro Almodóvar’s "Broken Embraces"

Pedro Almodóvar’s oeuvre encompasses a collection of themes and references to his own back catalogue, all the while referencing many other well-known directors. Broken Embraces (2009) refers to and re-enacts scenes from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). Yet the references to the latter in Broken Embraces fail to enchant, instead creating a fragmentation of the past and ultimately shifting from a breakdown to being simply broken. The relationship between these films demonstrates the foibles inherent in reconstructing films within films, which relates to Baudrillard’s recognition that cinema is constantly plagiarizing, recopying and remaking itself.