Lars Von Trier vs. Pedro Almodóvar

Two directors with distinctly different attitudes about women.

(AFP) ::: SPOILER ::: The Danish provocateur’s new movie casts Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe as a couple who retreat to a log cabin to work through their grief at their baby son’s death — but she loses grip on her senses, dragging him into an orgy of hallucinations and crazed sexual violence, which climaxes with her slicing off her own clitoris.

Meanwhile, south of the border, en España:

(Salon) Female actresses have long championed Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almod√≥var for his complex, challenging portrayals of women, in films like “All About My Mother” and “Volver.” Little did we know the extent of his dedication. In Cannes to promote his latest, “Broken Embraces,” the ever-unpredictable and openly gay Almod√≥var lobbed the following conversation stopper into a press conference:

“In a film I made a long time ago … I even performed cunnilingus on an actress to show the actor how to do it.”