"Bad Education" ("La Mala Educacion"), like other Pedro Almodovar films such as "All About My Mother" and "Talk to Her," is flamboyant, with vivid cinematography full of primary colors. But "Bad Education" is notably much darker than any of the Spanish director's well-known previous works. With a complete set of femmes fatales, murder, drugs and blackmailing, "Bad Education" is a film noir all right-but Almodovar adds his own special twist, making the somewhat familiar dark plots of the genre even more lurid than usual with perverse and complex characters and their forbidden loves, lusts and disturbing pasts.

The film's plot is as complex as its characters. The movie opens with Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal) visiting a brightly multicolored office in Madrid to seek out Enrique (Fele Martinez), his brother Ignacio's childhood friend and first love. Pretending to be Ignacio (while going by his acting name, Angel), Juan appeals to tender past memories to get a role in the film he hopes to make out of "The Visit," a semi-autobiographical screenplay written by Ignacio. From then on, the past-the 1960s, when both Ignacio and Enrique were young pupils studying in a Roman Catholic school under the pedophile priest Padre Manolo-and the present (1980) interweave, and so do the reality and the acting. Enrique finds out that Angel is in fact Juan, Ignacio's brother, but keeps silent and still hires Angel to act the role of Zahara, the grown-up Ignacio in the screenplay.

Both the movie within the movie and the movie itself have dark, tragic endings. "The Visit" concludes with Zahara's death at the hands of Padre Jose during a visit to blackmail Padre Manolo. The last scene of the actual movie is just as bleak. Enrique is leaning against the giant metal door of his mansion in the corner of the frame, resigned and weary, having just finished reading the last letter Ignacio has written to him. The mystery and tragedy surrounding Ignacio seem to be reflected in his falsely hopeful words.

"Bad Education" closes as if it were a documentary, informing the audience of what became of the main characters after the film ended. We're told that Enrique "continued to make films with passion." The camera then closes in tightly on the very last word, "passion," and cuts to black. As the ending credits appear, we're left somewhat disquieted, yet oddly satisfied with the ending.

That last word and scene of the film adequately captures one of its most powerful themes: passion. The film is lustful and seductive, but at the same time repressed and tantalizing. The beautiful camera work and the high-quality acting continuously take the audience's breath away.

However, some of the film's most heart-rending scenes take place in the boyhood narratives as told by Ignacio. A scene that features eye contact scene between young Ignacio and Enrique in the chapel as the jealously quivering Padre Manolo watches on is both extremely tender and tense. Additionally, the scenes in which Ignacio, with his pure angelic voice, sings for Manolo, who is consumed with desire, are heart-breaking but include a sense of vulnerability. And perhaps the most powerful shot of the movie comes when we see the fallen Ignacio attempting to run away from Manolo after an unseen but clearly undesired event interrupts his singing. A thin line of blood trickling across Ignacio's forehead literally breaks his face into two. The camera work at this moment is so effective that the fear grasps us as much as it does the young Ignacio.

Other scenes are powerful in their explicit lust and desire; as a transsexual, Garcia Bernal (Juan/Angel/Zahara), with his seductive eyes and pouty lips, plays one of the most successful femmes fatales ever, a hustler and a fratricidal murderess. Fele Martinez plays the cynical, detached grown-up Enrique well, but his acting is equally charged with lust in a swimming pool scene in which Enrique's whole body burns with a calm desire for Juan. However, these are only some features of the pair's fine acting. The multi-faceted nature of their characters could not have been possible had the actors been any less talented.

"Bad Education" could be considered a popular, mainstream film noir, with its highly entertaining plot and seemingly familiar setup of child abuse by an evil clergyman followed by affairs between the traumatized individuals. But with its stunning colorfulness, its graceful portrayal of both modern and outdated structures and the domestic spaces within and, most of all, with its vivid expose of the dark desire, cold manipulation and corrupting obsession occurring in the place of love, "Bad Education" goes beyond the average movie. It is a work of art, one to watch and absorb, and perhaps most clearly something of which to be in awe.