Figures and Figures of Speech in Almodovar’s Talk to Her

This article explores the ethics of physical and verbal interpersonal relations which express themselves as displacements and intersections of genres in Pedro Almodovar’s film Speak to her (Hable con ella, 2002). Ethics must be understood here in the strict sense of care for the self, which always presupposes care for the other. I will argue that the film suggests the demetaphorisation of corporeal experience as a path towards ethical relations between people. I argue too that the film proposes a feminisation of the masculine as a step towards a higher level of humanism and mutual comprehension.