Most directors are content to preface their films with a simple credit at the beginning of their films: A Film By, or something of that sort. A modest assertion of artistry. Pedro Almodovar, one the other hand, will have none of that; his name is the first thing we see in Bad Education, splashed across the screen in bright red Ralph Steadman-esque letters, accompanied by a bombastic, noir-drenched score; this is one of his films, make no mistake about it.

Of course, it's not like we wouldn't immediately know it's one of his films anyway; his work has proved instantly recognizable and fairly inimitable. Perhaps no other filmmaker has ever been so passionately nonjudgmental; he goes where other storytellers may be afraid to venture, and does so with such enthusiasm and optimism that even the darkest, most depraved characters he turns his camera to become endearing. His films often showcase transsexuals, transvestites, junkies, sad and despairing people who are people nonetheless, capable of joy and humor like the rest of us; consider his last film, Talk To Her, in which the hero was a man who continuously rapes a comatose woman and in the process became a very sympathetic protagonist (the actor who played that part, Javier Camara, shows up again in this film as a drug addicted transsexual prostitute).

He begins here with a director, Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez), sitting in his office and trying to figure out what his next film is going to be. The setting is Madrid, the year 1980, and immediately we wonder if Almodovar is telling us a bit more of his life story this time around; that was, after all, the same time and place when he began making films. But Enrique is already quite successful, and after three films he's blocked; he pores through tabloids, stories of women eaten by alligators, looking for an idea for a new project.

Into his office one day comes Ignacio (Gael Garcia Bernal), an old friend from grade school. Enrique doesn't recognize him at first, but he welcomes him warmly anyway. Ignacio claims to be an actor, and even asks that he be referred to from now on by his stage name, Angel. He sort of suggests that he'd like to work with Enrique on a film, and Enrique nods and smile and doesn't make any promises. Then Ignacio hands him a manuscript -- a short story he's written, entitled 'The Visit.' "It's about when we were in school," he says.

Enrique reads the story that night in his empty luxury home in which all of his belonging are still in the boxes he moved them in. At this point, Almodovar plunges straight into the story itself, which concerns a transsexual hooker named Zahara (Bernal again, looking quite becoming in drag) who discovers one night that her john is an old friend from elementary school -- whose name, coincidentally, is Enrique. Old wounds open in Zahara, and she writes a manuscript of her own, also called 'The Visit,' and takes it to a Catholic church. There she finds Father Manolo, the priest who, it turns out, molested her back when she was still a naive young altar boy. She demands recompense for this offense, and then --

Then it's back to the real Enrique, but by that point we've become so wrapped up in the fictional story that we've forgotten there's more to the movie. The narrative takes another detour later on to tell the story of the Enrique and Ignacio in their school days, and their fate at the hands of the lustful Father Manolo (played, in this particular incarnation, by Daniel Gimenez-Chaco); is it the backstory to Zahara's story, or the real life events that set Enrique and Ignacio on the path that eventually finds them living and working together, both lovers and coworkers? The film requires a second viewing to figure out where all these tangents actually intersect but, in a more immediate sense, their cumulative effect leaves the viewer with no doubt about who these characters are when the film comes to an end.

When it did come to an end, I must admit, I felt pangs of disappointment; I was exhilarated, but I also couldn't help but wonder Is that it? After contemplating the film and reading interviews in which Almodovar asserted that this is simply his version of a film noir, I think I realized that the story, as it is, is completed, but that the characters are so wonderful and rich that Almodovar could have easily kept the film going with nary a complaint from the audience.

About that noir element; it is there, most definitely, in the beautiful pulp fiction illustrations of the opening credits and the brilliant score by Alberto Iglesias, and in more subtle form in the plot itself. There's a classic story of forbidden lust and murder and femme fatales, the latter element being both the most noirish and the most obscured -- there are, in fact, almost no women in the entire film.

This is Almodovar's most male-oriented film in the past few years; but, as always, he progresses beyond gender (most evident in a surprising sex scene early on where what it takes us a few moments to figure out exactly what is going on). He also progresses beyond judgment once again, this time in his perspective on Father Manolo (played in the real life part of the story by Lluis Homar), who eventually shuns his habit and tries to start a new life as a married man. It doesn't work, and while Almodovar never once condones his predatory actions, he also doesn't neglect to treat him as person and not a monster; we're reminded, somewhat, of the father in Happiness, who mustered from the audience equal parts hatred and sympathy.

At the end of the film, there's a coda which once again makes us wonder how much of this movie comes from Almodovar himself. Certainly, he must have put bits of himself up on screen in the scenes with the young alter boys, who discover their own sexuality at exactly the same time they discover the magic of cinema. He's spoken out about how the priest in the film is based on a priest from his schoolboy days. But Enrique is not him, no more so than any other character or image or sound or color; which is to say, it's all him, all Almodovar. The first thing we see in this film is his name, and the last thing we see on screen is the word Passion; what perfect bookends, these two words that, in the context of this filmmaker, are completely synonymous.